"The Probable Son"

New from Lake Union: The Probable Son: A Novel by Cindy Jiban.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mother secretly believes she’s raising the wrong son, mistakenly switched at birth. But secrets unravel in a gripping and affecting novel about parental love, impossible choices, and what it means to truly be there for someone.

For fourteen years, teacher Elsa Vargas has hidden her belief that she’s mothering the wrong child, accidentally switched at birth. Her beloved son Bird is not like the rest of the family. He’s the introvert among extroverts, the optimist among skeptics. But Elsa knows love is more important than truth, and the best way to keep Bird is to leave well enough alone.

Then the odds catch up with her. A student named Thomas in Elsa’s math class is suddenly uncannily familiar, an older version of Bird’s little brother. When she realizes Thomas shares a birthday with Bird, Elsa has a terrible realization: Thomas is probably her long-lost son.

Soon Elsa is on a clumsy journey to get to know Thomas―and to confirm the truth. Testing the bonds of family, friendship, and even community will surely all be worth it if she gains a son. But what if she loses Bird, the boy she has loved and mothered since his first days of life?

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Discovering the Okapi"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: Discovering the Okapi: Western Science, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Search for a Rainforest Enigma by Simon Pooley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The captivating history of the okapi and its symbolic role in science, culture, and conservation.

In Discovering the Okapi, Simon Pooley offers a fascinating portrait of the okapi―an elusive short-necked giraffid with zebra stripes, surviving in the rainforests of central Africa's Congo basin―and unpacks the complicated layers of Western science and Indigenous knowledge that shaped the world's understanding of this unique creature. Pooley tells the story of the okapi's "discovery" in 1900 by British naturalist Sir Harry Johnston, as well as the overlooked contributions of the Indigenous African people whose expertise made this sighting and subsequent hunt for specimens possible. The book traces how colonial politics and scientific racism shaped early accounts of the animal's study and examines the enduring biases that continue to influence conservation efforts today. The okapi became a symbol of scientific curiosity, colonial power, and conservation challenges, revealing complex intersections among biodiversity, cultural heritage, and environmental stewardship. Its precarious existence in captivity and the wild exposes how Western and Indigenous approaches to conservation can―and must―find common ground for its survival.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Heiress of Nowhere"

Coming March 17 from Sarah Barley Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Heiress of Nowhere by Stacey Lee.

About the book, from the publisher:

An orphan races to uncover a killer—who may have come from the sea—when she and her beloved orcas fall under suspicion in this historical gothic mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl, Stacey Lee.

1918. Orcas Island, Washington.

Lucy Nowhere has spent her life working on the vast estate of the eccentric shipbuilder who took her in after she washed ashore as a baby in a green canoe. Still, she has long wished for a life off the island, which holds no answers for her.

After a series of seal heads begin appearing on beaches, Lucy stumbles upon her employer’s severed head on the shoreline. Rumors swirl that a mischievous spirit has struck again, much like it commanded its minions, the sea wolves, to kill a nameless cannery worker years ago. But the science-minded Lucy believes a murderer, not the sea wolves, is at fault.

Then Lucy is named the heiress of the estate, displacing a dashing relation. The inheritance casts Lucy herself under suspicion. And worse, paints a large target on her back.

Though her friend, the watchful estate cowboy guard, urges her to leave the island with him, Lucy knows the only way she can discover who she is, and to free the island of its curse, is to find the real killer—before she becomes the next victim.

Visit Stacey Lee's website.

Writers Read: Stacey Lee.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Painted Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Japan Reborn"

New from Columbia University Press: Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War by Kristin Roebuck.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the peak of imperial expansion in World War II, Japan touted itself as a multiracial paradise. The state, eugenicists, and media supported intermarriage and adoption as tools of empire, encouraging “blood mixing” to fuse diverse populations into one harmonious family. Yet after defeat in World War II, a chorus of Japanese policy makers, journalists, and activists railed against Japanese women who consorted with occupying American men and their mixed-race children. Why did Japan embrace “mixed blood” as an authoritarian empire yet turn to xenophobic racial nationalism as a postwar democracy?

Tracing changing views of the “mixed blood” child, Japan Reborn reveals how notions of racial mixture and purity reshaped Japanese identity. Kristin Roebuck unravels the politics of sex and reproduction in Japan from the invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s to the dawn of US-Japan alliance in the 1950s, uncovering eugenic ideas and policies that policed the boundaries of kinship and country. She shows how the trauma of defeat sparked an abhorrence of interracial sex and caused a profound devolution in the social status of “mixed” children and their Japanese mothers. She also unpacks how Japan’s postwar identity crisis put pressure on the United States to bring Japanese brides and “mixed blood” children into the Cold War American family. Shedding light on the sexual and racial tensions of empire, occupation, and the Cold War, this book offers new ways to understand the shifting terrain of Japanese nationalism and international relations.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Queen of the Dead"

New from Angry Robot: Queen of the Dead by Sarah Broadway.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fun and fast-paced paranormal urban fantasy with a touch of romance and supernatural hijinks galore, perfect for fans of The Whispering Dead by Darcy Coates.

Speaking with the dead is nothing new for Lou. It’s a curse she’s learned to hide from everyone – sometimes even herself. After running away from a past that took advantage of those abilities, Lou finally carves out a normal life for herself. That is, until she receives a mysterious message from a ghost – the Veil is thinning – and a cult of necromancers infiltrates her small town.

In a race to discover and defeat her foe, Lou learns she’s not alone in the fight. She grudgingly leans on her allies but wonders who to trust. What’s more impossible is suddenly finding herself the romantic interest of a man who somehow isn’t afraid of all the dark, creepy things about her... but even he has secrets for her to discover.

Time is running out, and reality seems to be slipping away. To save her new life and the people she loves, Lou must learn to accept who she is and embrace her true abilities, no matter where they might take her.

Visit Sarah Broadway's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Sense of Space"

New from the University of Chicago Press: A Sense of Space: A Local's Guide to a Flat Earth, the Edge of the Cosmos, and Other Curious Places by John Edward Huth.

About the book, from the publisher:

From global navigation to natal charts to memory palaces and beyond, a thrilling journey through humanity’s visualization of new spaces.

When you give directions, do you tell someone to go straight ahead and turn left? Or do you suggest that they head north before moving west? Your answer reveals more than you might think.

In A Sense of Space, writer and physicist John Edward Huth uses these two kinds of navigation—either centered on or independent of people—to help readers chart a path through evolving spatial models. In doing so, he offers an astonishing exploration of how changing scientific models of space alter our social perceptions, and vice versa. New visions of space can emanate from human considerations, he argues, and those new visions can in turn spawn new cultural phenomena. With accessible introductions to topics including mental maps, astrology, astronomy, particle physics, and Einstein’s relativity, Huth makes clear that, although our minds have evolved to comprehend space in terrestrial distances, we routinely extend this understanding to realms far removed from our everyday experiences, from cosmological to subatomic scales.

Taking us across the eons from the myth of a flat earth to the mysteries of the multiverse, A Sense of Space is an energetic, thoughtful guide to how we orient ourselves in our world—and beyond.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Grave Deception"

Coming soon from Crooked Lane Books: A Grave Deception: A Kate Hamilton Mystery by Connie Berry.

About the book, from the publisher:

Antiques expert Kate Hamilton dives into the past to solve a fourteenth-century mystery with disturbing similarities to a modern-day murder in the sixth installment of the Kate Hamilton mystery series.

Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a fourteenth-century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try.

Meanwhile, tensions within the archaeological team erupt when the body of the lead archaeologist turns up at the dig site with fake pearls in his mouth and stomach. Then a third body is found in the excavations. Meanwhile, Kate’s husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own.

With the help of 700-year-old documents and the unpublished research of a deceased historian, Kate must piece together the past before the grave count reaches four.

Visit Connie Berry's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Art of Betrayal.

My Book, The Movie: The Art of Betrayal.

Q&A with Connie Berry.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Digital Future of English"

New from Oxford University Press: The Digital Future of English: Literary Media Studies by Simone Murray.

About the book, from the publisher:

More than any other academic discipline, literary studies is the creation of print culture. How then can it thrive in the digital era? Early 1990s predictions of the book's imminent demise presented a simplistic either/or choice between the legacy of moribund print and triumphalist digital technology. Yet we have grown to experience the two media as complexly interdependent and even complementary. Clearly, digital does not kill print. But literary studies in the digital era cannot simply resume business as usual. It is urgently necessary to reconsider the discipline's founding assumptions in light of digital technology.

The digital era prompts a rethinking of literary studies' object of study, as well as its methods, theories, audiences and pedagogical practices. What counts as literature necessarily shifts in an age of proliferating born-digital texts and do-it-yourself (DIY) online publication. Where should literary studies sit institutionally, and how might it graft contextually-oriented social sciences methods onto its traditionally humanistic mode of textual analysis? Why should literary study continue to marginalize emotional responses to texts when online communities bond via readerly affect? Who is the audience for literary criticism in an age where expertise is routinely challenged yet communication with global book-loving publics has never been technologically easier? Finally, how can we utilize digital tools to rejuvenate literary studies pedagogy and help English staff better connect with millennial-age students?

Literary studies has been convulsed for decades by debates over electronic literature and, more recently, digitally-aided 'distant reading'. But these discussions still mostly confine themselves to demarcating our proper object of study. We need to think more expansively about digital technology's impact on the underpinning tenets of the discipline. Literary Media Studies is pitched at fellow literary scholars, book historians, media theorists, cultural sociologists, digital humanists and those working at the interface of these converging disciplines. It models constructive engagement with contemporary digital culture. Most importantly, it brings a burst of sorely needed optimism to the question of literary studies' digital future.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay"

New from Lake Union: Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay: A Novel by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A widowed and grieving young novelist believes her words create realities―both tragic and charmed―in a hopeful and surprising novel about family, newfound love, and moving on.

Four years after her husband Sam’s tragic death mirrored a fatal plotline in her debut novel, Thea Packer hasn’t written another word, afraid that what she writes could come true again. Resigned to raising her young daughter in her in-laws’ guesthouse, Thea is on the verge of abandoning her literary career when inspiration strikes.

Her new book is a fairy-tale romance featuring a long-lost astronaut who miraculously returns home to his family, with the hero loosely drawn from Thea’s memories of Sam. Thea considers the fantasy a harmless way to process her grief.

That is, until a charismatic man walks into her life―and he’s an astronaut.

Thea can’t believe it’s happening again. Or is it? Her mother-in-law doesn’t think so―she sees only a woman increasingly detached from reality. Now, as coincidences between Thea’s writing and reality pile up, Thea must unravel the secrets of her past and tackle her grief head-on before she loses more than she ever imagined.

Visit Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Artisans and Designers"

New from The Kent State University Press: Artisans and Designers by Rebecca Jumper Matheson.

About the book, from the publisher:

One couple's bold vision for American fashion

Long before the fashion industry formally addressed questions of sustainability and advocated for “slow fashion,” William and Elizabeth Phelps, a husband-and-wife design duo, were already working to create hand-crafted leathergoods and functional women’s sportswear that could be worn for decades. Active from the 1940s to the late 1960s, Phelps Associates quickly won acclaim and found commercial success, attracting a broad clientele and becoming known for quality, utility, and craftsmanship.

Using vintage metal insignia and hardware, often military surplus, the Phelpses designed bags and belts that answered the need for American-made luxury goods during and after World War II. In the post-war period, the Phelpses experimented with new methods of production and branched into ready-to-wear fashion. Meanwhile, the pair worked to revive artisan workshops, emphasized fostering positive work environments for their employees, and offered employment opportunities for injured veterans.

Artisans and Designers is the first in-depth analysis of the Phelpses’ partnership, their often overlooked contributions to the fashion industry, and their forward-thinking business practices. Rebecca Jumper Matheson draws on their pieces to connect their work to larger conversations about sustainable fashion, consumerism, industrialization practices, and the intersection of art with American identity during and after World War II. The result is an engagingly written, richly illustrated account of a brand committed to creating classic pieces that have stood the test of time.

--Marshal Zeringue