Susan Salter Reynolds

Ann Joslin Williams' father, Thomas Williams, was born in Minnesota but grew up in New Hampshire and died there years ago. Almost all of his work is set in New Hampshire, in particular the small fictional town of Leah. The town is the setting for his best-known novel, "The Hair of Harold Roux," which shared the National Book Award in 1975. Ann Williams was also raised in New Hampshire. "Down From Cascom Mountain" (Bloomsbury, $25) is her first novel and it is, like the work of her father, steeped in the state's landscape and sensibility.