"Bon Appétempt"

New from Grand Central Publishing: Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!).

About the book, from the publisher:

When Amelia Morris saw a towering, beautiful chocolate cake in Bon Appétit and took the recipe home to recreate it for a Christmas day brunch she was hosting, it resulted in a terrible (but tasty) mess that had to be served in an oversize bowl. It was also a revelation. Both delicious and damaged, it seemed a physical metaphor for the many curious and unexpected situations she's found herself in throughout her life, from her brief career as a six-year-old wrestler to her Brady Bunch-style family (minus the housekeeper and the familial harmony) to her ill-fated twenty-something job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles.

As a way to bring order to chaos and in search of a more meaningful lifestyle, she finds herself more and more at home in the kitchen, where she begins to learn that even if the results of her culinary efforts fall well short of the standard set by glossy food magazines, they can still bring satisfaction (and sustenance) to her and her family and friends.

Full of hilarious observations about food, family, unemployment, romance, and the extremes of modern L.A., and featuring recipes as basic as Toasted Cheerios and as advanced as gâteau de crêpes, BON APPÉTEMPT is sure to resonate with anyone who has tried and failed, and been all the better for it.

Visit the Bon Appétempt website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Nice"

New from Henry Holt and Co.: Making Nice by Matt Sumell.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Matt Sumell’s blazing first book, our hero Alby flails wildly against the world around him—he punches his sister (she deserved it), "unprotectos" broads (they deserved it and liked it), gets drunk and picks fights (all deserved), defends defenseless creatures both large and small, and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. In each of these stories Alby distills the anguish, the terror, the humor, and the strange grace—or lack of—he experiences in the aftermath of his mother’s death. Swirling at the center of Alby’s rage is a grief so big, so profound, it might swallow him whole. As he drinks, screws, and jokes his way through his pain and heartache, Alby’s anger, his kindness, and his capacity for good bubble up when he (and we) least expect it. Sumell delivers "a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive.*"

Making Nice is a powerful, full-steam-ahead ride that will keep you laughing even as you try to catch your breath; a new classic about love, loss, and the fine line between grappling through grief and fighting for (and with) the only family you’ve got.

*Mark Richard

Visit Matt Sumell's website.

Marshal Zeringue

"The Infernal"

New from Graywolf Press: The Infernal: A Novel by Mark Doten.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the early years of the Iraq war, a severely burned boy appears on a remote rock formation in the Akkad valley. A shadowy, powerful group within the US government speculates: Who is he? Where did he come from? And, crucially, what does he know? In pursuit of that information, an interrogator is summoned from his prison cell, and a hideous and forgotten apparatus of torture, which extracts “perfect confessions,” is retrieved from the vaults. Over the course of four days, a cavalcade of voices rises up from the Akkad boy, each one striving to tell his or her own story. Some of these voices are familiar: Osama Bin Laden, L. Paul Bremer, Condoleezza Rice, Mark Zuckerberg. Others are less so. But each one has a role in the world shaped by the war on terror. Each wants to tell us: this is the world as it exists in our innermost selves. This is what has been and what might be. This is The Infernal.

Visit Mark Doten's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Price of Blood"

New from Viking: The Price of Blood: A Novel by Patricia Bracewell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Menaced by Vikings and enemies at court, Queen Emma defends her children and her crown in a riveting medieval adventure

Readers first met Emma of Normandy in Patricia Bracewell’s gripping debut novel, Shadow on the Crown. Unwillingly thrust into marriage to England’s King Æthelred, Emma has given the king a son and heir, but theirs has never been a happy marriage. In The Price of Blood, Bracewell returns to 1006 when a beleaguered Æthelred, still haunted by his brother’s ghost, governs with an iron fist and a royal policy that embraces murder.

As tensions escalate and enmities solidify, Emma forges alliances to protect her young son from ambitious men—even from the man she loves. In the north there is treachery brewing, and when Viking armies ravage England, loyalties are shattered and no one is safe from the sword.
Rich with intrigue, compelling personalities, and fascinating detail about a little-known period in history, The Price of Blood will captivate fans of both historical fiction and fantasy novels such as George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series.

Learn more about the book and author at Patricia Bracewell's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Shadow on the Crown.

Writers Read: Patricia Bracewell (April 2013).

My Book, The Movie: Shadow on the Crown.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mr. Wilson Makes It Home"

New from Skyhorse: Mr. Wilson Makes It Home: How One Little Dog Brought Us Hope, Happiness, and Closure by Michael Morse.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Story of a Small Dog Who Needed a Home and the Couple Who Needed Him

When Michael and Cheryl Morse slowly drifted apart amid an empty nest, her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, his symptoms of PTSD, and the grief of losing their two beloved dogs—put down on the same day three years prior—it became apparent their lives were in need of a little joy. Enter an energetic, white ball of fluff known as Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Wilson’s story begins in Arkansas, where he was left in a leaky, drafty barn for days—the result of a child who couldn’t care for him and a woman who wouldn’t. An escape artist, he eventually found himself on a country road where he was discovered by a neighbor. Familiar with his current living conditions, she took him in, cleaned him up, and created an online adoption profile for him. In Rhode Island, Cheryl Morse clicked on Mr. Wilson’s photo and instantly fell in love.

A few days later, Mr. Wilson arrived in Rhode Island by a tractor trailer full of dogs needing homes. Upon meeting the Morses, he was happy, affectionate, and excited—but how long would it last? Would they be able to care for him and themselves? Had he finally found his forever home? What if they had cats?

In Mr. Wilson Makes It Home, the joy Michael and Cheryl so badly needed comes in the form of an adorable schnoodle named Mr. Wilson. This animal rescue story tells of the love, recovery, faith, and hope that a pet can bring to a brokenhearted family.

Visit the Mr. Wilson Makes it Home blog.

See: Coffee with a Canine: Michael Morse & Mr. Wilson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shutter"

New from Feiwel & Friends: Shutter by Courtney Alameda.

About the book, from the publisher:

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat -- a girl　who　sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With　an　analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.

When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain.　As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends　will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before . . . or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.

Visit Courtney Alameda's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Hunger of the Wolf"

New from Simon & Schuster: The Hunger of the Wolf: A Novel by Stephen Marche.

About the book, from the publisher:

A breakout book from Stephen Marche, The Hunger of the Wolf is a novel about the way we live now: a sweeping, genre-busting tale of money, morality, and the American Dream—and the men and monsters who profit in its pursuit—set in New York, London, and the Canadian wilderness.

Hunters found his body naked in the snow…

So begins this bold and breathtakingly ambitious new novel from Stephen Marche, the provocative Esquire columnist and regular contributor to The Atlantic whose last work of fiction was described by the New York Times Book Review as “maybe the most exciting mash-up of literary genres since David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.” In The Hunger of the Wolf, Marche delivers a modern morality tale about the rapacity of global capitalism that manages to ask the most important questions we face about what it means to live in the new Gilded Age.

The body in the snow belonged to Ben Wylie, the heir to America’s second-wealthiest business dynasty, and it is found in a remote patch of northern Canada. Far away, in post-crash New York, Jamie Cabot, the son of the Wylie family’s housekeepers, must figure out how and why Ben died. He knows the answer lies in the tortured history of the Wylie family, who over three generations built up their massive holdings into several billion dollars’ worth of real estate, oil, and information systems despite a terrible family secret they must keep from the world. The threads of the Wylie men’s destinies, both financial and supernatural, lead twistingly but inevitably to the naked body in the snow and a final, chilling revelation.

The Hunger of the Wolf is a novel about what it means to be a man in the world of money. It is a story of fathers and sons, about secrets that are kept within families, and about the cost of the tension between the public face and the private soul. Spanning from the mills of Depression-era Pittsburgh to the Swinging London of the 1960s, from desolate Alberta to the factories of present-day China, it is a powerfully affecting work of fiction that uses the story of a single family to capture the way we live now: an epic, genre-busting tale of money, morality, and the American Dream.

The Page 99 Test: How Shakespeare Changed Everything.

Visit Stephen Marche's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Marauders"

New from Crown: The Marauders: A Novel by Tom Cooper.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the BP oil spill devastates the Gulf coast, those who made a living by shrimping find themselves in dire straits. For the oddballs and lowlifes who inhabit the sleepy, working class bayou town of Jeannette, these desperate circumstances serve as the catalyst that pushes them to enact whatever risky schemes they can dream up to reverse their fortunes. At the center of it all is Gus Lindquist, a pill-addicted, one armed treasure hunter obsessed with finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. His quest brings him into contact with a wide array of memorable characters, ranging from a couple of small time criminal potheads prone to hysterical banter, to the smooth-talking Oil company middleman out to bamboozle his own mother, to some drug smuggling psychopath twins, to a young man estranged from his father since his mother died in Hurricane Katrina. As the story progresses, these characters find themselves on a collision course with each other, and as the tension and action ramp up, it becomes clear that not all of them will survive these events.

Visit Tom Cooper's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Of Irish Blood"

New from Forge Books: Of Irish Blood by Mary Pat Kelly.

About the book, from the publisher:

It’s 1903. Nora Kelly, twenty-four, is talented, outspoken, progressive, and climbing the ladder of opportunity, until she falls for an attractive but dangerous man who sends her running back to the Old World her family had fled. Nora takes on Paris, mixing with couturiers, artists, and "les femmes Americaines" of the Left Bank such as Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Beach. But when she stumbles into the centuries-old Collège des Irlandais, a good-looking scholar, an unconventional priest, and Ireland’s revolutionary women challenge Nora to honor her Irish blood and join the struggle to free Ireland.

Author Mary Pat Kelly weaves historical characters such as Maud Gonne, William Butler Yeats, Countess Markievicz, Michael Collins, and Eamon de Valera, as well as Gabrielle Chanel, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Nora Barnicle, into Of Irish Blood, a vivid and compelling story inspired by the life of her great-aunt.

Visit Mary Pat Kelly's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prudence"

New from Riverhead: Prudence: A Novel by David Treuer.

About the book, from the publisher:

A haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire in World War II–era America.

On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family’s rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him at the Pines are those he’s about to leave behind: his hovering mother; the distant father to whom he’s been a disappointment; the Indian caretaker who’s been more of a father to him than his own; and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.

With Prudence, Treuer delivers his most ambitious and captivating novel yet. Powerful and wholly original, it’s a story of desire and loss and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it’s about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can’t help but tell, and who—and how—we’re allowed to love.

Visit David Treuer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue