This month marks the fourth anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, and while we’ll pause to remember those lost and injured, we’ll continue about our daily lives. As it seems with many tragedies, for those who are not directly affected, the memories of how we felt that day seem to fade with time. However, for survivors like Roseann Sdoia, who lost her right leg above the knee that day, they’ll forever be affected and forced to adjust to a new normal. In her first book, Perfect Strangers: Friendship, Strength, and Recovery After Boston’s Worst Day (PublicAffairs), Sdoia (and contributor Jennifer Jordan) documents how four perfect strangers were brought together by tragedy and how three of them – college student Shores Salter, Boston Police officer Shana Cottone and Boston firefighter Mike Materia – saved her life that day on Boylston Street. Sdoia paints a moving portrait of how close she came to losing her life and learning to carry on – and leave anger behind – after losing her leg. You may think you’ve heard this story already, but I promise, you haven’t, at least not from Sdoia’s point of view and definitely not with her humor and positive attitude despite being “blown up.” Readers also get a front-row seat as Sdoia and “her firefighter” Materia develop a romance and how the four strangers became family, despite meeting under the worst of circumstances (Materia and Sdoia are now engaged). Perfect Strangers is about so much more than 4-15-13; it is about love, courage and friendship.

Moving into the world of fiction, Karen White’s latest novel, The Night the Lights Went Out (Berkley), is also about unexpected friendship among strangers. When recently divorced Merilee Dunlap moves across the affluent suburb of Sweet Apple, Ga., she is thrown into an unfamiliar world. Merilee, who is attempting to move on from her adulterous husband, faces the challenges of starting over as a single parent of two young children under the watchful eyes of the other mothers at her children’s private school. Merilee begins to blossom and make friends in her new neighborhood, including her prickly 93-year-old landlady Sugar Prescott and Heather Blackford, the queen bee among the mothers of the school. Heather takes Merilee under her glamorous and seemingly perfect wing as her “project,” and despite driving a Honda Odyssey while the other stay-at-home moms pilot shiny SUVs around town, Merilee and Heather get closer. As she becomes more comfortable in her new skin, Merilee finds herself the topic of the town’s anonymous gossip blog. When things fall apart, Merilee learns who she can trust, while Sugar learns to let others into the spot where her heart used to be. Unbeknownst to them, the two women have much in common – including dark secrets that have haunted them for decades and will change everything once revealed.

The Night the Lights Went Out hits shelves April 11; Perfect Strangers is available now.

Kimberly Dunbar