When we open a novel for the first time, we can't be sure of what sort of world we're about to enter. Familiar writers may surprise us by trying, for better or for worse, something new. Authors previously unknown may delight or disappoint.

Lynne Hinton's warmhearted ''Hope Springs" trilogy has been likened to Jan Karon's homespun, inspirational ''Mitford" series, but her most recent novels, ''The Last Odd Day" and, now, ''The Arms of God," are darker, and more interesting. Her new novel is a powerful and disturbing story of lives torn apart by emotional cruelty, mindless violence, and racial strife, and redeemed by love and friendship.

Alice, a divorced single mother, is in her kitchen making strawberry jam when her mother, Olivia, who abandoned her at a daycare center when she was 4 years old, rings her front doorbell. A few weeks later Olivia dies. Her death prompts Alice, who narrates the first chapter, to recall her own miserable childhood in a series of foster homes and to wonder anew about the desertion that has shaped her life. Why did her mother leave her? Who was she? Where had she been? Olivia died as much a mystery as ever, leaving Alice with her questions unanswered.

In Olivia's rented room, Alice sorts through her mother's few belongings and pieces together her life. The narrative switches to the third person for most of the rest of the novel, as Hinton tells Olivia's story of growing up during the Depression in a cabin on the edge of Smoketown, the black neighborhood of Greensboro, N.C. Olivia's mother, Mattie, was pregnant when she left Mississippi, reluctantly taking her 5-year old son, Roy, with her. Man-crazy Mattie had no time for children, denying her pregnancy until the moment her neighbor Ruth dragged Olivia, bloody and squirming, into the world. Ruth, a kindly black woman, befriended the neglected Olivia. Olivia's sad life was blighted by violence and neglect, but, as her daughter comes to discover, it was also graced by friendship.

''The Arms of God," with its themes of faith and forgiveness, is an emotionally charged story about the mother-daughter relationship. Hinton is a graceful writer, although occasionally she waxes a little too lyrical.

''The Remedy," by Michelle Lovric, an ambitious, lushly written historical romance set in late-18th-century Venice and London, provides detailed, authentic recipes for nostrums of the time at the start of each chapter. Readers will learn how to make ''Horse Dung Water," used to treat ''Pleurisy, Scurvy, and vagous Pains," a concoction that includes the main ingredient along with orange peel, nutmeg, and various other spices. Lovric evokes the grand and ordinary details of city life in the 18th century, a time she clearly knows well. One of her characters, a shady wholesaler of dubious remedies, is called Valentine Greatrakes. Surprisingly, the name is not Lovric's romantic invention but that of a famous late-17th-century Irish ''stroker," a healer reputed to cure scrofula by the laying on of hands.

Lovric's fictional Valentine is caught up in an intricate plot that begins with a lively young Venetian noblewoman being consigned to a nunnery by her cruel parents. After tribulations too numerous to list here, the reluctant young nun attempts escape, but is kidnapped by the sinister Inquisitors of Venice, who transform her into an actress-spy and rename her Mimosina Dolcezza. Espionage eventually takes her to London, and she begins an affair with Valentine, but there are problems, naturally. An incident in her past may shed light on the murder of Valentine's business partner, Tom. And Tom's daughter yearns to have her guardian Valentine all to herself. ''The Remedy" is a grand work of imagination. That the plot and the two main characters are utterly implausible doesn't detract from the pleasure of reading this novel, and may even add to it.

Lynne Kaufman's ''Taking Flight" diligently charts a woman's midlife crisis and sexual awakening, but the novel doesn't fulfill the promise of the title. Julia Benson, a teacher of literature at Los Angeles Community College, is unhappily married to an overbearing, emotionally clueless physician. She loves her two children, and she likes her privileged life, but she's increasingly dissatisfied with Mark, her husband. Watching him eat, she feels a wave of distaste. ''It was the same way he made love -- noisy, rushed, aggressive."

Julia has to battle Mark for her independence. He resents her job, her friends, anything that threatens his control. It's easy to sympathize with the situation, but difficult to warm to Julia, who seems immature for a woman pushing 40. Mark is unhappy that she has arranged to chaperone a student trip to Greece. She's looking forward to some time away from home to sort out her thoughts. She's also anticipating a flirtation with Michael, a fellow teacher and chaperone. On the way to Greece she stops in New York to visit her seriously ill mother, who tells her, ''Live, Julia, I never did." Julia wonders, ''But how?"

The hoped-for romance with Michael doesn't prosper. He takes up with Julia's young assistant, Sabrina. On the trip home Julia meets Ted, a charismatic archeologist who believes he has discovered Atlantis. He persuades her to accompany him to an academic conference in San Francisco, where he is to present a controversial paper on the subject. Julia makes excuses to her husband and children, and hops into bed with Ted. Kaufman has a real talent for writing erotica. The couple's sexual athletics are described down to the last throbbing detail. While the sex may be laid on a bit thick, it isn't gratuitous, because it explains why Julia considers leaving her marriage for a man who clearly is mentally unbalanced. Of course there's never any real doubt that in the end Julia will choose to return to her difficult but basically decent husband. It's that sort of novel.

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