"Crocodilopolis"

New from Bloomsbury: Crocodilopolis: A Novel by John Manuel Arias.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of national bestseller Where There Was Fire comes a gripping tale of sibling rivalry, family secrets, and the fate of a nation.

Once a powerful, cold-blooded politician in Costa Rica, Seth Oreamundo is now living in exile in Washington, DC – and his younger brother Osario is to blame. Born into a corrupt political dynasty and raised on a seemingly idyllic coffee estate, the Oreamundo brothers were destined for greatness. But a dark family secret and a scandalous double crossing sent their lives into a tailspin, changing the country forever.

Osario must pay, and Seth decides the only way to do so is to return home to Costa Rica and feed his brother to the infamous river of crocodiles from their childhood. What follows is a spellbinding story of revenge alternating between Seth's murderous plans and memories of the brothers' upbringing. With the wisdom of biblical myth and the soapy wit of a telenovela, Crocodilopolis is a masterful interrogation of power, masculinity, destiny, and legacy from a literary star on the rise.

Visit John Manuel Arias's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Poetics of Incivility"

New from Cornell University Press: The Poetics of Incivility: Satire and Subversion in Modern Arab Culture by Emily Sibley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Poetics of Incivility explores impolite modes of expression―satire, crude humor, and rudeness―as a critical lens for both aesthetic innovation and sociopolitical critique. In the Arab world―from Cairo's Tahrir Square and the thoroughfares of Beirut to war-torn Gaza―political demands have been framed by satirical cartoons and graffiti or in subversive poetry and song. Emily Sibley shows that these forms of resistance are not new to Arab culture but return to mid-nineteenth-century debates over literary propriety.

In case studies concerning women's education in 1850s' Beirut, the satirical press in colonial Egypt, colloquial theater in the era of decolonization, street art and graphic novels during and after the 2011 Egyptian protests, Sibley follows the threads of an expressive culture that announces and celebrates its own impropriety. Concluding with analyses of Gaza poetry on the internet as a space where the stakes of incivility are acutely visible, The Poetics of Incivility offers a timely consideration of incivility as an aesthetic resource for authors and artists engaging with some of the most controversial issues of their times―and ours.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You’ll Love It Here"

New from William Morrow: You’ll Love It Here: A Novel by Natalie Sue.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the bestselling author of I Hope This Finds You Well comes a sharply funny, surprisingly tender novel about a woman stuck in place, her nosy neighbors, and the journey to find where she belongs—with all the heart of a grown-up The Breakfast Club.

Mona thought her living situation was bad… but the real mess is just beginning.

One day is all it takes for Mona’s life to implode. After years of climbing at her marketing firm, she was supposed to be getting promoted and finally moving out of her crumbling apartment building. Instead, she’s jobless, aimless, and still stuck in a space barely big enough for a yoga mat.

Then her eccentric landlady takes a tumble and asks Mona to step in as the building’s reluctant super. The deal is simple: help prep the place for sale, and she can secure the upgrade she’s been chasing. But that’s easier said than done when the neighbors treat “boundaries” as optional. There’s the shouting couple, the mysterious shut-in, a possible panty thief in the laundry room—and Sami, the relentlessly cheerful diner owner who keeps showing up with coffee and unsolicited ideas about community. As Mona gets pulled deeper into the building’s chaos—and closer to the people inside it—she’s forced to confront what, and who, she’s really been trying to outrun. Sometimes, the place you’re desperate to leave is the one that finally shows you who you are.

Wise, heartfelt, and laugh-out-loud funny, Natalie Sue’s sophomore novel is a story about burning out, starting over, and finding your people in the most unexpected places—perfect for fans of The Wedding People and Anxious People.

Visit Natalie Sue's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Empathy Paradox"

New from the University of South Carolina Press: The Empathy Paradox: Rhetoric, Media, and the Trouble with Identification by Rachel McCabe.

About the book, from the publisher:

How resisting empathy may lead to more thoughtful reading and better writing

Empathy has traditionally been understood as a bridge between the self and others. In composition studies, it is often used as a foundation for effective reading, allowing students to connect with authors, characters, and ideas. Now, in the era of social media apologies and self-help advice, empathy is conceptualized regularly as a tool for individual validation that promotes personal gain over relational depth. Overidentification, Rachel McCabe argues, can lead to the erasure of differences in others' lived experiences and the omission of complicating details in texts.

In The Empathy Paradox, McCabe analyzes the evolving role of empathy in contemporary media, film, literature, and culture. She asks what happens when readers and viewers directly consider the complex ways that empathy guides their understanding and assessment of the culture they consume. By developing an awareness of our assumptions, we can avoid the pitfalls of self-interest and overidentification and develop more constructive applications of empathy that will help us become better readers and writers.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wayfarers"

New from Quill Tree Books: Wayfarers: A Road Trip Romance Novel in Verse for Teens by Jeff Zentner and Brittany Cavallaro.

About the book, from the publisher:

A must-read for fans of Morgan Matson and Kasie West, this YA novel in verse and conversation—cowritten by bestselling authors Jeff Zentner and Brittany Cavallaro—follows a girl trying to outrun her problems and a boy just discovering the outside world as they embark on a life-changing road trip.

What do you do
when there’s nothing
in this world you want
more than to spend two
more hours with someone
and nothing in the world
you want less than to only
spend two more hours
with someone?

Sylvie said she wanted to live the van life after high school, but all she really wanted was to escape. With unlimited resources and an escape-artist golden retriever by her side, she keeps her eyes on the road to distract her from everything she left behind.

Knox grew up on the edge of society, without a phone, a school, or a real name. He’s never felt like he had a firm place to stand, but he’s done writing his story in vanishing ink.

On one of the worst days of Sylvie’s life, Knox helps rescue her dog and breaks his arm in the process. To apologize, Sylvie offers him a ride. But Knox is keeping some big secrets, and so is Sylvie. They must decide: If the other person knew the whole story, would they take a chance on—and maybe even fall for—a wayfaring stranger?

Visit Jeff Zentner's website and Brittany Cavallaro's website.

Writers Read: Jeff Zentner (March 2016).

My Book, The Movie: The Serpent King.

The Page 69 Test: The Serpent King.

The Page 69 Test: Goodbye Days.

My Book, The Movie: Colton Gentry's Third Act.

--Marshal Zeringue

"In a Land of Strangers"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: In a Land of Strangers: Northern Teachers in the Slave South by Michael T. Bernath.

About the book, from the publisher:

What makes the American South distinctive? Is it the location, the culture, the mindset—or a story Americans learned to tell about themselves? In a Land of Strangers contends that the idea of a “distinctive” South did not crystallize out of the Civil War or politics alone; instead, it took shape decades earlier through the everyday observations of thousands of Northern teachers who lived and worked there from the late eighteenth century through the Civil War. Young, white, educated, and marked as outsiders, these men and women occupied an unusual position of trust within Southern households, classrooms, and plantations, granting them rare, intimate access to the inner workings of slaveholding society.

Michael T. Bernath offers the first full-length study of this vast group of teachers—the most sustained point of contact between North and South in the antebellum era. Bewildered, curious, and constantly translating the South for themselves and audiences back home, these educators described a strange and profoundly different place in their diaries and letters. Collectively, they fixed a shared image of the South in the national imagination. In this book, Bernath reshapes our understanding of sectional identity, American culture, and why the idea of a distinctive South endures.

The Page 99 Test: Confederate Minds.

--Marshal Zeringue

"These Walls Remember"

New from Berkley: These Walls Remember by Del Sandeen.

About the book, from the publisher:

When two estranged sisters inherit a home possessed by the horrors of its dark past, they must work together to survive in this viscerally chilling Southern gothic novel from the critically acclaimed author of This Cursed House.

Do not go into the attic, the note warned.

But that’s exactly what sisters Mickie and Delilah do when they inherit a distant relative’s house in Savannah, Georgia. They intend to sell the property, divide the proceeds, and go their separate ways once and for all.

But 724 Hartford Street has other plans.

As the sisters learn about this house and its history, past wounds begin to fester and spill into the present: strange visions, memory lapses, unexplained accidents, and surreal echoes of the house’s previous inhabitants—some of whom disappeared after living in the home. The sisters suspect the residents of the sleepy Savannah neighborhood know more than they’re saying about what really happened there.

And then Delilah, once adamant about selling and never looking back, develops an uncanny attachment to the house, her personality changing in alarming ways. Mickie knows that she’ll have to pull her sister from the home’s clutches or they will both succumb to that which hungers in its walls.

Visit Del Sandeen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mental States"

New from Columbia University Press: Mental States: Ordering Psychiatric Disorder in France by Alex V. Barnard.

About the book, from the publisher:

How do states decide who is or is not mentally ill? Alex V. Barnard shows that, beneath the chaotic trajectories of people with mental illness and the fragmented agencies and professionals serving them, there is an underlying order to the ways societies classify, treat, and control madness.

Based on more than a year of in-depth fieldwork in France, Mental States takes readers to a public mental health clinic charged with providing care despite diminishing resources, a social service office dispensing benefits intended to help chronically ill people recover their autonomy, and a court where judges must decide the delicate balance between rights and control for people subjected to involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. Drawing on these observations, as well as hundreds of interviews with French professionals and decades of archival materials, Barnard demonstrates that these disparate sites are linked by a shared conception of what makes someone a malade―a real mentally ill person. This medical and bureaucratic identity keeps the mad in the grips of a paternalist, protective psychiatric system―in sharp contrast to the United States, where this population careens among jails, shelters, and hospitals.

This book reveals the power of states to create mentally ill populations and shows how these populations can in turn remake states. The way states have crafted madness in the past weighs on the present, explaining why countries can maintain distinct approaches even in an era when psychiatric knowledge and medical treatment are converging across borders.

Visit Alex V. Barnard's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Heir of Prophecy"

Coming soon from Harper Voyager: Heir of Prophecy: A Romantasy Novel of a Girl Caught Between Two Prophecies Two Worlds and One Alluring Vision (The Clash of Prophecies Duet) by Analeigh Sbrana

About the book, from the publisher:

She's a woman bound by fate, torn between two prophecies.

He's the Prince of the underworld, fated to either claim her or end her life.

Defying destiny is one thing…the heart, another.

Magic has always been at the periphery of Audra’s life. As a human, she knows that magic exists, but it's as distant as the legends she grew up with. Until one day, magic returns, bringing with it the all too real Fae and upending Audra’s life entirely.

Abducted by a cult of fae Priestesses, Audra finds herself conscripted into a magical war academy. The only hope of surviving this new world filled with guilds, magic, and danger is to band together with a group of her fellow prisoners. Though unlike the others, Audra's burgeoning magic is erratic and violent—just as the prophecy foretold. She must discover what it means to be the Heir, but time is running out. The Priestesses know the Heir moves among them, and they're determined to root them out, no matter what it takes.

As she struggles to mask her power, Audra’s plagued by visions of a dark, seductive being with a conflicting truth. He doesn’t want to save the world; he plans to reclaim it.

Now, Audra must choose: become the savior the cult demands or the catalyst the vision promises.

Visit Analeigh Sbrana's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Undesirable"

New from Oxford University Press: Undesirable: Invasive Species, Humans, and Where We All Belong by Amy Crawford.

About the book, from the publisher:

Invasive species are consistently vilified as a major threat to the ecosystems we call home. But Undesirable reveals there is much more to this story, and offers surprising ideas about our relationship with the natural world.

Over the past five hundred years, human exploration, settlement and commerce have carried countless plants and animals far from their original homes, where they sometimes go on to transform familiar landscapes, cause large-scale agricultural damage, and endanger precious native species. But the young field of invasion biology has been wracked by controversy and haunted by ethical quandaries as it has sought to destroy some species for the benefit of others. Undesirable: Invasive Species, Humans, and Where We All Belong brings this complexity to light, illuminating the often dubious moral and even ecological and economic bases for many anti-invasive policies.

Whether it's garlic mustard spreading through American forests or brushtail possums allegedly decimating the flightless birds of New Zealand, Undesirable reveals a multi-faceted story of how humans have irrevocably disrupted nearly every ecosystem in the world. We have introduced new species, destroyed habitat and changed the climate―but it's not always clear how to hold ourselves accountable in the quest to bring balance and sustainability to this new natural world. Through case studies, historical surveys, media criticism, and conversations with both experts and the ordinary people who serve as foot soldiers in the war on invasive species, this book explores how confronting our deeper anxieties about nature and our roles in a changing world can help us see our "unwanted" neighbors in a new light and teach us all to be better stewards.

Visit Amy Crawford's website.

--Marshal Zeringue