THE SECOND COMING OF LUCY HATCH (2002)

Lucy Hatch finds herself a widow at 33, after her husband is killed in a farming accident. The marriage was never passionate, but grief is grief: ''I didn't love Mitchell, but he was mine and that was something.'' So begins Moyer's charming, hilarious, frustrating novel, in which the disconnect between the sophisticated breezy voice of the narrator and the central-casting characters (the handsome loner who brings her back to life, the batty mother with whom she must make peace) too often derails the tale. Still, Lucy's charm does manage to win out, making Coming worth the reader's occasional bouts of impatience.