ACTS OF GOD

The daughter of a natural-disaster claims adjuster, Tess Winterstone is familiar with calculating risk -- a central theme of this trenchant, richly imagined novel about a woman's midlife crisis. Now a staid single mom living on the California coast, Tess chances attending her 30th high school reunion in her Illinois hometown even though she knows she'll confront her old nemesis, Margaret Blair, once the beautiful and needy ''new girl'' and a central player in Tess' scarring family secrets and personal humiliations. Alternating flashbacks with the dangerous romantic triangle that evolves, Morris (Night Sky) affectingly explores the hazards of love, betrayal, and living in the past. A-