Selected by Allison Leotta

Harvard Law School grad Allison Leotta spent 12 years as a Washington, D.C., sex crimes prosecutor, an experience that influenced her best-selling series with prosecutor Anna Curtis.

Leotta says McEwan’s novel “haunted me long after I’d finished.

“This story is about a female judge considering whether to force a boy to undergo a lifesaving medical procedure despite his religious objections. It confronts deep moral dilemmas, explores the personal toll the law takes on its practitioners, and will make you think about what are the best interests in anyone’s life, including your own.”