Challenger Park / by Stephen Harrigan

Lucy Kincheloe is no ordinary working-mom. A wife, mother, and NASA astronaut, her life holds a cosmic element even if currently her dream of spaceflight looms in bureaucratic limbo. For now she's focused on her young daughter and seriously asthmatic son while husband Brian--also an astronaut--orbits the earth overhead in his second trip to outerspace. When, upon return, a shuttle mishap is informally acknowledged as Brian's fault, his resentment boils over at home creating instability in the couple's already tenuous marriage. A slot on the next shuttle mission allocated for Lucy--her lifelong dream--does little to alleviate tension; only inflating Brian's resentment. Between her child's near fatal asthma attacks, Brian's sulky attitude, and her own deathly fear of catastrophe, stress presses down hard on Lucy causing cracks in her always-stable identity.

Spliced into the drama is an emerging relationship between Lucy and recently-widowed, mission coordinator Walt Womack; a man taunted by his own internal demons. Desperately needing escape from a nonstop world of demands, their professional lives soon merge into an affair which, despite heed to the potential consequences, overwhelms their conscious resolve. With the take-off date nearing Lucy deals with more than the rigors of pre-flight preparation: she faces the unavoidable decision to leave her family for Walt.

Aside from well-plugged, can't-miss-it local color, this read offers what so many "space" books don't--real life stuff. Harrigan, a frequent contributor to Texas Monthly, does a good job to juggle the techie space protocol and interpersonal drama without diluting the primary storyline: an account of one woman's voyage into outerspace.

Rats Saw God / by Rob Thomas

Semi-local author Rob Thomas has published several YA novels over the past decade. This, his first, chronicles teenager Steve York at multiple times during high school. Steve's last day of eighth grade is turned on its head when his parents announce their impending divorce ultimately sending his mother and sister to San Diego and him to Houston to live with his repressive (and somewhat despotic) father--"The Astronaut". Facilitating things the best he can amidst unfamiliar surroundings, Steve carves out his new existence; gradually making friends and learning to survive his homelife simultaneously. His saving grace appears in the form of Wanda "Dub" Varner, with whom a steady-crush morphs into love by the end of freshman year. Until its bitter end his junior year, the reader is let in on all the relationship's details through segmented entries describing the 'then' blissful romance and his 'now' emotionally-reduced, drug-addled life after the break-up.

Though Thomas' later books were less well-received, Rats Saw God will find an audience with its drenched-in-sarcasm attitude and gritty realism. The 'then and now' style really fleshes out Steve's personality and relationships; displaying how both compliment each other and play off his actions. Generation X & Y'ers of the 80's/90's period will identify with the book's cultural aspects.