I’m not gonna lie: Sometimes, Heidi Julavits’s novels can be difficult to read. Her debut novel, The Mineral Palace, ended on one of the darkest images I can recall in modern fiction. But this isn’t some sort of goth bloodletting ritual in book form: Julavits just writes with such beauty that when she goes to a dark place, it leaves you gutted. Her new novel, The Vanishers, is about jealousy and retribution at a school for psychics, and a failed student’s attempt to find a missing person. Expect brilliance, and hope to close the book with your heart intact. (University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, 7 pm, free)