When Quinn sees her doctor, pregnancy is the last thing on her mind, since she's never had sex. But every test shows the same result: she's pregnant. That's difficult enough, but since her father's campaigning for Congress, suddenly Quinn is a news oddity, the rumor mill is flying, and religious fanatics, who believe she's carrying the second coming, camp out on her Brooklyn stoop. While Quinn avoids the media, she grows more and more curious about the unexpected baby growing inside her and desperately searches for answers. At times, the major threads of Baer's character-driven novel don't mesh well, but there are many intriguing moments, particularly when the zealous followers' faith transforms into scary entitlement. There's a rich cast of secondary characters here, too, such as the compassionate believer who questions what it means to be called to protect someone, and Quinn's kind, rational friends. Though the ultimate payoff is a bit muddled, Quinn's determined struggle to piece together the puzzle compellingly drives the narrative onward, and readers on board for something thought-provoking will be hooked.

Sixteen-year-old Quinn is dealing with an especially complicated unplanned pregnancy: her father is running for Congress, and she has no memory of ever having sex. Tensions rise as her "virgin" pregnancy becomes a public spectacle, while Quinn tries in vain to clarify murky memories from the time of conception. An unconventional realistic story with an intriguing supernatural thread and well-drawn characters.

Quinn is 16, a virgin—or so she thinks—and pregnant. Miracle or repressed trauma?She's not sure. When a routine OB-GYN appointment reveals her pregnancy at the start of her junior year, white Brookynlite Quinn Cutler can't reconcile her condition with reality. She and her boyfriend have never gone that far. Ultrasound narrows the time of conception to a two-week window in which she has hazy memories of a midnight swim at Holmes Cove, a dangerous stretch of water near her family's long-unused vacation home in Maine. Quinn's grandmother committed suicide at Holmes Cove when her father was a child, and Quinn herself nearly drowned there at age 7. Since then her family's past has been cloaked in lies and deceptions; Quinn knows she was naked at Holmes Cove, but all the memories she does have are filled with joy. Her father's running for Congress, so the family is already in the news, and the idea that Quinn's carrying another Messiah sends pious and possibly unhinged people to camp out on the family's doorstep. Baer's third-person narration alternates among Quinn and several other characters. Quinn's voice is real and believable, and the characters are multifaceted and sympathetic, but an element of magical realism shows up rather late in the long novel, as does important information about Quinn's grandmother and Holmes Cove, and some readers won't last that long. Uneven pacing hobbles an intriguing plot. (Fiction. 14-18)

Quinn Cutler, the 16-year-old daughter of a writer running for U.S. Congress, is shocked to learn that she-s pregnant: she-s never had sex, at least not as far as she can remember. As word gets out that she-s both pregnant and claiming to be a virgin, devout believers pilgrimage to the family-s Brooklyn home, hoping to see Quinn and even be healed. In a suspenseful and thought-provoking novel, Baer (Frost) tackles the illusiveness of memory (especially in regard to trauma), media firestorms, fear of the unknown, and the complexities of faith, without ever turning didactic or allowing Quinn-s story to fall into melodrama. Amid the growing chaos of her life, Quinn becomes a capable and courageous sleuth in the search for answers; writing in third person, Baer makes readers intimately aware of Quinn-s confusion and conflicted feelings about her pregnancy, as well as the reactions of people close to (and not so close to) her that escalate matters dangerously. It-s a delicate, complicated, and engrossing exploration of the collision between real life and the inexplicable. Ages 13-up. Agent: Sara Crowe, Pippin Properties. (Apr.)

Quinn Cutler, a junior in high school whose father is running for Congress, is shocked to find that she is pregnant. She and Jesse, her boyfriend, are not sexually active, and Quinn insists that she is a virgin. Her parents suspect she may have been drugged or that she is suppressing the memory of a traumatic rape. Quinn tries to remember details of events during the two-week window when conception occurred. She remembers a magical, midnight ocean swim that was intimate, pure, and beautiful; that does not fit with a rape scenario. Childhood memories also surface, including a story about ocean spirits, The Deeps. Lacking physical evidence of rape, Quinn begins to question the seemingly inconceivable. Do the Deeps really exist? Are they responsible for her mysterious pregnancy? The personification of nature, symbolism, metaphors, and similes effectively create a mystical mood and frame nature as a place of protection and truth. This is juxtaposed to the social world humans create, revealed in brief interspersed chapters from the perspectives of hopeful believers, hostile critics, family, and friends. Here, secondary characters expose issues in the ethics of journalism and social media, conflicts around female sexual norms, science versus the supernatural, and earned versus unconditional love and acceptance. Quinn and her parents discuss pro-choice options for her pregnancy. Mary's virgin birth and questions about the accuracy of the Bible are debated and germane to the story. Inconceivable will make a great book club selection, stimulating interesting conversations about relevant, contemporary social issues.—Stefanie N. Hughes.