Tales of women, fascinating and funny

Sarah Dunant’s third historical novel is set, like her first two, in Renaissance Italy. “Sacred Hearts’’ is a story of thwarted love played out against a background of church political intrigue. It unfolds within the confines of the wealthy Convent of Santa Caterina. Dunant brings the period vividly to life, portraying in detail the complex, claustrophobic world of the convent.

The novel opens in winter 1570. The quiet of Santa Caterina is shattered by the screams of the newly arrived 16-year-old novice Serafina, raging at having been confined there by her father as punishment for a forbidden romance with her music teacher. Suora Zuana, the apothecary sister, is sent to Serafina’s cell with a sedative. She manages to befriend the reluctant novice, who shows an aptitude for healing. However, Serafina’s true gift is her extraordinary voice. She soon sees that joining the convent choir may take her a step closer to escape, and her lover, who she knows is waiting for her.

The friendship between the rebellious Serafina and the older, intellectual Zuana is the centerpiece of the story, but Dunant also portrays a range of fascinating women: the politically adroit abbess Madonna Chiara; the power-hungry novice mistress Suora Umiliana; the flesh-mortifying penitent Suora Perseveranza; the gossiping, fashion-conscious Suora Appollonia. The convent was home not just to the devout, but to women who were unmarriageable, disfigured, or simply troublesome. It was a haven for some who, like Zuana, were able to indulge their interests in ways that never would have been allowed outside the convent. But the church, responding to criticism by the Protestant Reformation, was preparing to repress what limited freedoms the nuns enjoyed, changing their lives forever.

In Alia Yunis’s poignant, hilarious first novel, “The Night Counter,’’ purple-haired, 85-year-old Fatimah Abdulla tells her life story to Scheherazade, the legendary storyteller from “The Arabian Nights,’’ who appears every night in the elderly woman’s Los Angeles bedroom. Fatimah has plenty of stories. She came to Detroit from Lebanon as a teenage bride, had two husbands and 10 children. She is preparing to die, but not before tying up a few loose ends, chief among them finding a wife for grandson Amir, an actor who insists he’s gay.

Fatimah has been telling her story for 992 nights, so she has only a few nights left to wrap things up. Three years ago she divorced Ibraham, her devoted second husband of 65 years, left him in Detroit, and flew to L.A. to move in with Amir. She passes her time fruitlessly matchmaking, following the Detroit Tigers on ESPN, and keeping up with “the Arab funeral circuit in L.A.’’ And she talks to Scheherazade about her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The branches of this family tree support four generations of achievement, assimilation, disappointment, and dysfunction. There’s Randa, who calls herself Randy and is married to Bud (formerly Bashir), a Houston attorney, and is the mother of three daughters, all cheerleaders. Daughter Hala, a Minneapolis gynecologist, was married and is now divorced. Fatima’s only surviving son, Harvard-educated Bassam, is a recovering alcoholic who calls himself Sam, works as a limousine driver in Las Vegas and is contemplating a fifth marriage, to a blonde bartender named Candy. Their stories form an affectionate, amusing, intensely human portrait of one family.

Lucinda Rosenfeld’s “I’m So Happy For You’’ is a novel about female friendship, but it’s not one of those sensitive, redeeming jobs. Rosenfeld has written a satire about the dark side, about the envy, the backbiting, the bitchiness. It’s nasty, it’s funny, and it has a certain undeniable authenticity. Fans of Rosenfeld’s writing will remember Phoebe Fine, the endearingly neurotic heroine of her first two novels, “What She Saw’’ and “Why She Went Home.’’ Like her earlier work, “I’m So Happy For You’’ is darkly humorous, with excellent dialogue and sharp observations about contemporary culture.

Wendy and Daphne have been best friends for 15 years, since college. Wendy works as a senior editor at a left-wing political journal and is happily married to Adam, but can’t seem to conceive. Daphne is gorgeous but unstable, addicted to affairs with married men, prone to suicide threats. As Daphne’s best friend, Wendy is always there to pick up the pieces. Then, suddenly, Daphne manages to pull herself together. She meets and marries Jonathan, an obnoxious lawyer, and they begin renovating a Brooklyn brownstone. Meanwhile, Wendy becomes obsessed with fertility; her office is destroyed in a fire; she and Adam are arguing; they’re evicted and have to move into a crummy apartment. When Wendy learns that Daphne is pregnant the news drives her around the bend. She goes on the attack.

Diane White writes every month about new light and popular fiction.