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“The Surrogate” is a deeply psychological novel by Albuquerque author Lynn C. Miller.

It probes characters’ motives and emotions, exploring interlaced issues of love and loss.

On the third page of the novel, the lead character, Alex, reveals how she is trying to cope with the death of her cousin Rolf in an auto accident.

Alex loves him still. She and Rolf were so close they were like sister and brother.

“After Rolf died, I lost my sense of direction. Fog had swallowed Rolf, and now it swamped me too. I felt trapped in a dense haze that insulated me from other people and muted my senses. I couldn’t find my way through it. Days passed, dark days that later I couldn’t remember.”

Rolf’s ghostly presence hovers throughout the novel. It is a trigger for readers to view how other members of his extended family manage with their memories of him.

In another early chapter Alex is talking to her then-lover, Nita, about the loss of Rolf.

When Alex said she thought Rolf was magical, Nita replied, “I think you built him up to be someone who wasn’t vulnerable. And it just isn’t possible.”

Alex said she didn’t think Rolf was immortal, just that she counted on him to be there for her.

Readers also see the depths of Alex’s sorrow in her visits with Alice, a supervising psychologist Alex consults with.

While Alex is a licensed psychologist, Alex herself becomes a client of Alice’s, discussing her personal life.

Alice offers insights that help Alex come to grips with the changing dynamics of her family — her parents, her aunt and uncle, and a surviving cousin.

There’s another, though incidental, psychological angle. Alex’s mother, Liz, is a psychologist; she mostly works with organizations.

Though the book’s title is “surrogate” in the singular, the author thinks the novel may contain more than one character acting as a surrogate.

For Miller, Alex could be a surrogate — a daughter figure — for the daughter her Aunt Frannie and Uncle Theo never had.

Perhaps to Alex, who is an only child, Rolf could be seen as a surrogate for the brother she never had.

Then there’s the mysterious character of Nathaniel. He amplifies the drama.

Soon after Rolf’s death, Nathaniel enters into the tight-knit extended family. He seems to be gracious, cheerful and kind as he ingratiates himself into the lives of Frannie and Theo. He helps Frannie at her bookstore and is an in-home reading companion to Theo, who shares his strong interest in art.

Nathaniel becomes fast friends with Alex’s parents. Maybe too fast.

Some readers may wonder if, in the eyes of Frannie and Theo, Nathaniel has become a sort of surrogate for Rolf.

Curiously, Nathaniel attaches himself as Alex’s new beau. He and Alex are soon an item and get engaged.

A good portion of the story focuses on their fast-moving romance.

However, their romance dissolves as Alex loses trust in Nathaniel; she believes he’s evasive, not as candid about his personal life as she thought he should have been.

She suspects Nathaniel isn’t telling her the whole truth about his past or present hidden romantic ties to Annalise, a shadowy character who shows up as the girlfriend and soon-to-be wife of Stephen, Frannie and Theo’s living son.

In a strange development, Stephen marries Annalise, whom he hardly knows. The marriage quickly crumbles. Maybe Annalise was in it for the divorce settlement.

Stephen dislikes Nathaniel from the get-go, even before he gets chummy with Stephen’s parents. He thinks Nathaniel’s intentions with Alex may be less than honorable.

A subplot has the maturing Stephen, a stockbroker, taking responsibility for his father’s devalued investments in the disastrous 2008 market crash. He eventually finds his true love.

“The losses in the financial markets mirror other losses people were having,” Miller said.

Miller neatly injects seasonal descriptions of trees, plants, birds and weather without disrupting the narrative flow.

Here is one example: “Near the end of March, the air became fragrant with early signs of spring. The globe willows leafed out, the pear trees sent out white blossoms.”

Here’s another interlude: A “slow swooshing sound” filled the yard and a birdbath “came alive as a winged creature with a squarish head and keen eyes shook out its winds and rose out of the water.”

The creature was a Western screech owl that soared “past our awe-struck faces. The creature left behind the sure sense that we had for a moment occupied another, higher world.”

“I really enjoyed writing this family drama where all of the events really happen in the two families (Alex’s and Stephen’s),” Mill said. “And I enjoyed writing about the two generations — the parents in their early 60s and the younger family members in their early 30s.”

The novel is set in Albuquerque, and Miller said she thinks of the city as a character.