BRIEFLY NOTED.

Lisey's Story, by Stephen King (Scribner; $28). In his intricate new novel, King explores two hidden worlds--the private life of a recently deceased best-selling writer, as seen from the perspective of his widow, and the imaginative landscape that formed the foundation of his work. As the novel opens, Lisey, Scott Landon's widow, is a sardonic observer of toadying academics, dangerously obsessive fans, and fame-struck bystanders. As she sorts through papers that Landon has left behind, she also becomes a traveller in a fantastical parallel world called Boo'ya Moon, to which he retreated during a horrific childhood and on which he drew throughout his creative life. It takes some time for these narrative strands to converge, but when they do Lisey moves between worlds at an exhilarating pace. Along the way, King also reveals, with subtle precision, the profound strangeness of widowhood, when someone who was present for so much of a shared life is gone.

The Law of Dreams, by Peter Behrens (Steerforth; $24.95). Behrens's impressive, swiftly paced saga tracks the life of an Irish boy after his family dies during the Great Potato Famine. Fifteen-year-old Fergus O'Brien takes up with a group of child bandits in Limerick, then makes his way to North Wales, where he works as a "tip boy" (a dangerous job that involves emptying carts of earth being cleared for the railroads). By the time he sets sail for Canada, hoping to make a living as a horse dealer, it is hard to believe that only a year has passed, such is the variety of his experience. In scope and subject, Behrens's work recalls Liam O'Flaherty's epic novel "Famine"; both writers have a stark style admirably suited to conveying the horrors of starvation and despair. But Behrens's language also has a visceral rhythm, and his similes meld the humble with the lyrical: whales rise "hissing" in a river, light "stutters" off an iron roof.

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