At the beginning of Amy Pence’s debut novel, Yellow (Red Hen Press; 232 pages), 12-year-old Eliza makes a strikingly topical observation about the Watergate scandal blowing up in the summer of 1973: “It was the summer that I learned that a president could lie.” While the book opens as our country faces a political point of no return, Yellow tenderly lasers in on family relationships that dovetail with—and at times mimic—unforgettable national inflection points.