"A Study in Sparkling"

New from Atria Books: A Study in Sparkling: A Novel (Love Notes) by Jodi McAlister.

About the book, from the publisher:

The author of the “brilliant” (Library Journal) An Academic Affair proves that the best love stories start with a pop with this sizzling romance about a recently separated single mom who’s absolutely not looking for another relationship...only to fall for the younger owner of her favorite wine bar.

Fiona Fisher thought she had it all: a loving husband, three kids, and a life far away from the suffocating expectations of her family. But when her husband reveals that he’s leaving her for his secret second family, Fiona is left devastated and humiliated.

Satoshi Tsukamoto wants it all. He’s the owner of a popular wine bar, and he’s studying for the hardest test in the world: the Master Sommelier exam. There aren’t enough hours in the day for anything else—except maybe for Fiona, his favorite customer, and the woman he’s absolutely, catastrophically in love with.

On paper, Fiona and Satoshi make no sense. He’s eight years younger than her and has no time for romance. She’s a single mother and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to trust anyone again. But how can Fiona resist when Satoshi suggests they give into their mutual attraction and let off some steam? And how can Satoshi resist when the woman he adores is finally within his grasp—even if they’ve agreed to keep things casual?

The perfect read for fans of Jasmine Guillory and Abby Jimenez, A Study in Sparkling proves that Jodi McAlister truly is “a writer to watch” (Booklist).

Visit Jodi McAlister's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Boundless Biddy Mason"

Coming October 13 from the University of California Press: The Boundless Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American West by Kevin Waite.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Biddy Mason crossed the continent, broke free from slavery, and built Black Los Angeles.

Born in bondage, Biddy Mason endured one of the longest forced migrations in American history—three thousand miles on foot from Georgia to California. She and her daughters labored in slavery in the “free” state of California for five years before launching a landmark emancipation suit in 1856. Free at last, she defied barriers of race and gender, rising to prominence as a healer, philanthropist, church builder, and real estate entrepreneur whose commercial properties stood at what became known as the “Wall Street of the West.” By the time of her death in 1891, she had laid the foundations of Black Los Angeles and ranked among the richest women of color in the United States.

In this first book-length biography of Mason, prizewinning historian Kevin Waite uncovers an extraordinary story of survival that carries readers from the cotton South to metropolitan California, and through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the dawn of Jim Crow. By retracing Mason’s odyssey, he illuminates both the continental sweep of American slavery and the fragile, hard-won possibilities of freedom in the West.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder on 34th Street"

Coming October 6 from Minotaur Books: Murder on 34th Street: A Novel by Mariah Fredericks.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of The Girl in the Green Dress comes a delightful and captivating novel about a fictional murder mystery at the iconic Macy's parade leading up to the holidays in historic New York City.

New York, 1932. Grace Verlander is the secret beating heart of Macy's. She's the "assistant to the assistant to the someone who's in charge", the go-to person for keeping everything running smoothly behind-the-scenes at the famous, bustling store.

It's not every day you get a letter from Santa Claus, but three days before the Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, Grace arrives at work to find a note from the store Santa Claus in her locker: someone has sent him a death threat. Shocked, Grace promises to look into it and speaks to the store detective about the parade's security, confident that they've found a solution that will keep everyone safe. But on the day of the parade, despite all their precautions, a dead body is found on one of the floats.

Using her wits and deep knowledge of the ways of the place, Grace is determined to find the killer and seek justice-not just for the dead man, but to save the reputation of this iconic store from ruin.

Steeped in glittering glamor and nostalgic wonder, this is a remarkable, unpredictable mystery set in the evocative world of one of New York's most memorable institutions.

Visit Mariah Fredericks's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Park.

The Page 69 Test: A Death of No Importance.

My Book, The Movie: Death of an American Beauty.

The Page 69 Test: Death of an American Beauty.

Q&A with Mariah Fredericks.

The Page 69 Test: The Lindbergh Nanny.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Green Dress.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Faith in Space"

New from Princeton University Press: Faith in Space: American Religious Belief in Extraterrestrial Life by Paul C. Gutjahr.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cultural history of the American faith in alien life, from the Puritans to Heaven’s Gate

Over the past three centuries, belief in extraterrestrial life has had a profound influence on American religion. Faith in Space examines the key thinkers and religious leaders throughout American history who built faith communities around the notion that we are not alone in the universe, and that the path to spiritual truth leads heavenward to the stars.

Paul Gutjahr reveals the pivotal role Protestant Christianity played in the formation of extraterrestrial belief in many of these traditions, sharing new perspectives on prominent Americans such as Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. He goes on to examine familiar religious movements such as Spiritualism, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Scientology, the Nation of Islam, and Heaven’s Gate as well as lesser-known belief systems such as Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, and Ashtar Command. Gutjahr shows how prophetic figures in these traditions created rich cosmological tapestries for their followers, bridging the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial with their spiritual insights.

A panoramic work of scholarship, Faith in Space traces how these traditions have offered generations of Americans cosmically oriented religious thinking through the belief in alien life, propounding a view that humanity’s salvation is inextricably tied to the actions and interventions of intelligent beings from other worlds.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When Forever Falls Apart"

New from Atria Books: When Forever Falls Apart: A Novel (Cinnamon Springs) by Kat T. Masen.

About the book, from the publisher:

A runaway bride returns to her small town, hoping to let go of the past, and ends up embroiling her best friend’s older brother in a fake-dating plot to make her ex jealous—from the bestselling author of How to Break My Heart.

Maddy Beaumont has been dubbed the runaway bride of Cinnamon Springs after leaving her ex, Myles, jilted at the aisle and escaping to Europe. But she can’t escape the townspeople’s judgment for long. Months later, she’s forced to return home and face reality, and Maddy is surprised by feelings of regret when she learns Myles has a new girlfriend so soon.

Did she make a mistake by calling off the wedding? There’s only one way to find out. When Maddy is invited to an event with Myles in attendance, she strikes a deal with pastry chef Elliot, her best friend’s charming older brother. For one night, Elliot and Maddy are going to pretend they’re dating. Easy, right? Just hold each other’s hand and pretend to look in love.

But the more time Maddy spends with Elliot, the more she realizes what they share might not be so fake after all.

Visit Kat T. Masen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Napoleon's Closet"

New from Columbia University Press: Napoleon's Closet: The Emperor, the Priest, and the Men Who Invented Modern Fashion by Margaret Waller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why do the most powerful men in the West wear sober, understated attire? Until the “Great Masculine Renunciation” in the eighteenth century, luxurious and often flamboyant clothing signaled social superiority for men as well as women.

Margaret Waller’s fresh account of this historic recalibration of gender and class centers on an unlikely pair: Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart who crowned himself emperor of France, and Pierre Antoine Le Boux La Mésangère, the defrocked priest who became Europe’s premier fashion editor. Looking at knee breeches, schoolboy and officer uniforms, priests’ robes, and imperial regalia, this book shows how misogyny and homophobia helped make Bonaparte, La Mésangère, and their peers men.

Napoleon’s Closet shows when male fashion editors first associated women with fashion and urged men to renounce “feminine” frivolity in their dress. It connects French revolutionaries’ masculinist construction of citizenship to the Church’s long-standing requirement that its rank and file wear plain, modest clothing. It demonstrates that although Napoleon’s reinstitution of sumptuous uniforms for men might seem the exception, he reserved for himself the modern male privilege of dressing down.

A lively and unorthodox exploration of the paradoxical history of male clothing, this book unveils the origins of modern ideas about normative masculinity, queerness, and “the closet.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Artful Anna Harris"

New from Viking: The Artful Anna Harris: A Novel by Tracy Maton.

About the novel, from the publisher:

If the talented Mr. Ripley were a young woman today, she might be Anna Harris: charming, changeable, and perhaps not at all what she seems to be.

"You are quite the chameleon, aren't you? You could wear anything, do anything, and yet you choose plain, plain, plain. Or is it all a front for a secret life?"

Anna Harris grew up in a rough part of London, and learned young that she could become whoever she needs to be, moulding herself to get what she needs and wants. Somehow that has led her to a quaint, sleepy English village, swallowed into the lives of her boyfriend and his close and loving family. She's not unhappy, but there are quiet pressures and illicit temptations even in this storybook life.

When the vivacious Sofia Carstairs moves to the village, Anna is reminded of the freedom she once had. She used to be carefree and rebellious. But is she willing to throw away her future for some fun? Anna's not a bad person, she doesn't want to hurt anyone. But perhaps leading two lives is the path to fulfillment. What would happen if she just tried it out...

Full of vivid characters, sharp wit, and shocking twists, The Artful Anna Harris is a brilliantly suspenseful and page-turning debut.

Follow Tracy Maton on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mapping Medical Modernity"

New from the University of Pittsburgh Press: Mapping Medical Modernity: Urban Space and Public Health in Tokyo, 1868–1920 by Susan L. Burns.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mapping Medical Modernity explores the history of medical modernization and public health in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Tokyo, a city undergoing rapid transformation from the seat of power of the Tokugawa shoguns of the Edo period to the capital of a modern nation-state and its expanding empire in the Meiji period. Tracing the development of institutions and policies designed to improve medical care and public health in a dense urban environment, Susan L. Burns examines tensions between the involved parties―including doctors and policymakers, police and civil officials, residents and those who governed them―and provides case studies focused on three of the city’s major challenges in public health: syphilis, cholera, and mental illness. Drawing upon a wide range of archival materials and contemporary accounts, Burns also employs geographic information system analysis in mapping the complicated relationships interlinking aspects of the urban environment, social life, public policy, and commercialized medical culture to demonstrate visually how policy decisions and medical capitalism gradually reshaped existing spatial arrangements in the city as well as the social relations that unfolded within them.

Visit Susan L. Burns's University of Chicago homepage.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blacktail"

New from Crown: Blacktail by Scott Hawkins.

About the book, from the publisher:

A visceral dark fantasy novel, Blacktail is the long-awaited second novel from Scott Hawkins, the critically acclaimed author of The Library at Mount Char.

Who does your dog pray to?

Blacktail is a half-breed wolf, born to hunt. When he finds love beyond a garden wall, he dares to imagine a peaceful life – until men butcher his mate and unborn pups in a surgical act of cruelty. His grief ignites a rampage of torn throats and shattered bone, a slaughter so absolute it draws the gaze of an ancient feline witch. She sends him south to wake the sleeping Forest God and end the age of reason.

Fuelled by a rage that frightens Hell itself, Blacktail wages war against men and the beasts who dare defend them. From a gore-soaked wilderness to a burning confrontation with Heaven, Blacktail is a feral odyssey of vengeance.

The Forest God sleeps. But what will be the price of waking him?

Visit Scott Hawkins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody"

New from NYU Press: Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody: The True Story of Lies and Libel in Dominion v. Fox by Ian Rosenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

The definitive story of Dominion v. Fox, the battle over election lies that changed the future of democracy

Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network is the watershed media case of the century. After an onslaught of attacks by several Fox News hosts and guests insisting that Dominion’s voting machines were rigged to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump, the previously little-known voting technology company decided to fight back. Over the next two years, their libel litigation laid bare the inner workings of the seemingly unassailable Fox Corporation and the thoughts of the media conglomerate’s most high-profile stars, guests, and executives.

On the morning the trial was set to begin, the parties reached an unprecedented settlement of $787.5 million. The media lamented that secrets from Fox’s top talent and owners would never come to light, but now the full, shocking truth has finally been revealed. Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody exposes the true story of the election lies that shook Fox News and the nation. Media lawyer and author Ian Rosenberg transforms thousands of pages of legal documents into a compelling behind-the-scenes narrative. He presents the saga as a riveting three act drama that answers the vital questions: why Fox News broadcasted flagrantly false claims about election fraud; what the legal action uncovered about Fox’s power structure and the actual malice standard; and how the aftermath will fundamentally impact the future of libel law, the media, and our democracy.

Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody provides a clear-eyed, expert analysis of this history-making lawsuit, and what it means for our country today.

Visit Ian Rosenberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue