"Way of the Walker"

Coming soon from Angry Robot: Way of the Walker by Salinee Goldenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

Return to the Thai-inspired world of Suyoram in this vicious follow up to 2024's The Last Phi Hunter, exploring mythology, colonialism, and feminine rage. A perfect read for fans of Iron Widow and The Sword of Kaigen.

With her constant connection to the Everpresent – the mystical plane where hunters draw their powers – Isaree’s a natural Phi Hunter, with a future predetermined by tradition: to stalk the Kingdom of Suyoram’s haunted lands and slay troublesome ghosts.

But the more Ree learns about the Phi Hunter Guild’s legacy, the more she questions their rigid doctrine. And as colonizing forces from Grisland tighten their grip across the region, Ree begins to wonder if the hunter’s path is her true calling.

Elsewhere, the famed Storm Prince Tanung has one desire: death or glory. Grappling with a fading legacy and a mysterious illness, his ambition drives him on a mission to capture a brutal rebel leader known for leaving horrific massacres in their wake. But the further he goes, the further he’s drawn into a war rumbling beyond his reality, and out of anyone’s control.

Their paths were never meant to cross. But unmoored by their legacies, the shadows they cast decide whether they’ll be remembered as heroes – or villains.

Visit Salinee Goldenberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Counterpoints of Ecstasy"

New from the State University of New York Press: Counterpoints of Ecstasy: Music, Mysticism, and the Enchantment of Modern America by Lytton N. McDonnell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cultural history of the relationship between music and trance in America, from the early colonial era to the Jazz Age.

Counterpoints of Ecstasy provides an engaging exploration of the relationship between music and self-transcendent experiences in America from the 1620s to the 1920s. It investigates how diverse Americans-from Puritan settlers to vaudeville entertainers-used music to find meaning in ecstasy, trance, and other mystical experiences that drastically altered their senses of subjectivity. These moments of profound transformation unfolded in settings as diverse as revival tents, concert halls, parlors, and movie theaters. The book introduces four distinct modes of self-transcendent experience-supernatural, natural, internal, and equivocal-demonstrating how various interpretations of ecstasy evolved out of and alongside each other. Blending historical analysis with cultural theory, the book integrates traditional narratives of disenchantment and re-enchantment, offering a richly textured account of music's power to dissolve boundaries and foster connection. A vital contribution to the histories of religion, spirituality, music, and American culture, Counterpoints of Ecstasy invites readers to reconsider the profound, sometimes paradoxical, role that music played in the quest for meaning beyond the self.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Loon Point"

Coming soon from Lake Union: Loon Point: A Novel by Carrie Classon.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the rugged beauty of the northern woods, the heartwarming first novel by columnist Carrie Classon explores how chosen family can sweeten bitterness into surprising joy.

Alone in the Northwoods, Norry Last settles in for another springtime lull at the remote resort she inherited from her father. She’s content with the solitude, maybe resigned. But when a blizzard hits, those little cabins by the lake start to fill up fast.

First to arrive is Lizzie, an eight-year-old with resilience and wisdom beyond her years, neglected by a mother struggling with addiction. Next comes Wendell, a cantankerous old fellow whose house collapses in the storm, the same way hope collapsed inside him long before. And then there’s Bud, the helpful handyman who’s always buzzing around, his kindness thawing something Norry thought she’d buried deep in the Minnesota snow.

As white melts to green, the Last Resort’s unlikely companions learn to share space, stories, and quiet comforts―an unexpected family that makes perfect sense. After all, Lizzie needs to be cared for. Wendell needs to care. Norry needs to open up. And Bud? Bud just might fix everything.

Visit Carrie Classon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Republic of Producers"

New from Yale University Press: A Republic of Producers: Completing Our Jeffersonian Economy with Hamiltonian Finance by Robert C. Hockett.

About the book, from the publisher:

A radically original solution to our most intractable economic problems: wage stagnation, productive atrophy, and wealth inequality

This sweeping and ambitious book locates the source of American economic and social decline in a simple but profound observation: the nation’s forms of citizen ownership have not kept up with its sources of wealth. In the early republic, the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian citizenry, whose productive assets lay primarily in land ownership and their own education, more or less matched the productive sources of wealth in the nation as a whole. But as we grew from an agrarian nation to an industrial one, the forms of citizen ownership did not change with the economy: instead, efforts toward land ownership were transferred to ownership in unproductive real estate—that is, homes. It is the effort to draw wealth from limited and relatively unproductive sources that makes the average American citizen fall farther and farther behind in income, and also caused the artificial inflation of real estate that led to the 2008 crash.

Advancing a theory of “income-compositional symmetry,” Robert C. Hockett argues that in order to remedy wage stagnation, productive atrophy, and extreme wealth inequality, industrial, financial, and commercial forms of ownership need to be as universally accessible to citizens as land and education. Hockett presents a unique, financially engineered program for doing so, showing how it coheres with our political and legal traditions as well as what he calls our “endowment psychologies.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Boys Learn"

New from Soho Press: What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax.

About the book, from the publisher:

A twisty, jaw-dropping psychological thriller that unravels a mother's worst nightmare—that her child is capable of terrible violence—when her teenage son becomes a suspect in the murder of two classmates, from the author of The Deepest Lake.

Over one terrible weekend, two teenage girls are found dead in a wealthy Chicago suburb. As the community mourns, Abby Rosso, the girls’ high school counselor, begins to suspect that her son was secretly involved in their lives—and possibly, their deaths.

Abby doesn’t want to believe Benjamin hurt anyone. But she’s seen the warning signs before. Two decades ago, her brother was imprisoned for a disturbing crime—he was only a little older than Benjamin is now. And Abby has more troubling memories from her own adolescence that confirm what boys and men are capable of. As Abby searches for the truth about what happened to her students, she’s forced to face the question: Has she been making excuses for Benjamin for years?

Swirling with sharp questions about family and masculinity, What Boys Learn unravels a mother’s worst fears.

Learn more about the book and author at Andromeda Romano-Lax's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Spanish Bow.

The Page 69 Test: The Detour.

Writers Read: Andromeda Romano-Lax (February 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Metamorphosis, Landscape, and Trauma in Greco-Roman Myth"

New from Oxford University Press: Metamorphosis, Landscape, and Trauma in Greco-Roman Myth by Esther Eidinow.

About the book, from the publisher:

This study explores the hidden histories offered by Greco-Roman myths of metamorphosis, and what they can reveal about the lived experience of ancient men and women. It investigates the role of the body, and the embodied experiences of emotions in these stories, arguing that these narratives of transformation allow us to glimpse aspects of our historical subjects, which in other sources remain largely unseen.

In these narratives of metamorphosis, we discover ancient worldviews: they disclose the perceived inter-relationships of human, non-human, and more-than-human entities. They show us that the human body was understood not only as a part of an extended network of beings, but also to consist of, and interact with, the same substances that were believed to comprise the surrounding landscapes: earth, air, fire, and water.

By grouping together stories according to these elements, this study highlights the patterns that underline different metamorphoses, comparing the experiences of male and female protagonists. These stories, it argues, express risks of transgressions, both for individuals and for the wider community. They tell us about the dangers that were perceived to be inherent in social roles, and in relations with the gods; they describe bodies both at risk and of risk.

And among those risks are extreme emotions--appearing as both cause and result of these startling bodily changes. These are narratives of the body that capture one of its most ephemeral aspects: the experience of intense, even traumatic emotions, in which a person and the world around them comes to seem transformed. Drawing on psychological research, this study suggests that these stories evoke experiences that persist across time and place, conveying an experience of the emotional body that speaks to us still.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Very Slowly All at Once"

New from Harper: Very Slowly All at Once: A Novel by Lauren Schott.

About the book, from the publisher:

A propulsive and wickedly entertaining debut thriller for fans of Laura Dave and Ashley Elston that explores the dark underside of the American dream, about a couple whose financial problems are seemingly answered when they begin receiving growing sums of money from an unknown source . . . a windfall that will carry an unthinkable price.

Mack and Hailey Evans have worked hard to achieve their upper-middle-class life: promising careers, two beautiful children, and a brand-new house in the exclusive lakefront village of Bratenahl, Ohio. Not that everything’s perfect—aging parents, problems at work, and even the upkeep on that gorgeous house have been causing these two increasing amounts of worry.

When a small check appears in the mailbox from a mysterious company named Sunshine Enterprises, Mack assumes it’s from his wealthy, estranged father, trying to buy his way back into their lives. Though he’d rather rip it up, Mack deposits the needed funds. To his surprise the checks keep coming—each for a larger amount larger than the last. When Hailey finds out what’s going on, she has her own suspicions about the provenance of the payments. Despite growing uncertainty over the identity of their benefactor Mack and Hailey keep taking the money. After all, there are bills to pay.

It is a choice with dark repercussions, as the couple soon learn the hard way that nothing in life is free. Suddenly, the Evans find themselves in a harrowing arrangement with someone who will stop at nothing to get a return on their investment.

Visit Lauren Schott's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Not Your Founding Father"

New from Simon & Schuster: Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary by Nina Sankovitch.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thrilling celebration of a forgotten early American renegade, Not Your Founding Father reconsiders just how radical the American experiment could have been.

Early in the morning of October 9, 1776—in the small farming community of Cumberland, Rhode Island, in a house surrounded by cherry trees—twenty-three-year-old Jemima Wilkinson died, and the Public Universal Friend was born.

Old Cherry Wilkinson’s children had already gained a reputation for scandal. Two of his boys had been dismissed from the local Quaker meeting for joining the colonial militia, and one of the girls was expelled for having a baby out of wedlock. Now, here was another Wilkinson child, riding about the countryside, claiming to be a genderless messenger of God.

Yet something about the Public Universal Friend set war-ravaged New England ablaze. The young minister seemed to embody the possibilities offered by the new nation, especially the right to total self-determination. To authorities, however, the minister was “the devil in petticoats,” a threat to the men who sought to keep America’s power for themselves.

And so the Public Universal Friend ventured west to create an Eden on the frontier, a place where everyone would have the right to not only life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness, but also peace and shared prosperity. But into every Eden comes a snake. And soon, financial scams, contested wills, adultery, plagiarism, allegations of murder, and murmurs of another war with England would threaten to destroy this new American utopia.

Visit Nina Sankovitch's website, Facebook page, Medium blog, and follow her on Threads and Instagram.

The Page 99 Test: The Lowells of Massachusetts.

Writers Read: Nina Sankovitch (April 2017).

The Page 99 Test: American Rebels.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder"

New from Pantheon: How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder: A Novel by Nina McConigley.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel that begins with an uncle dead and his tween niece’s private confession to the reader—she and her sister killed him, and they blame the British.

Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin—newly arrived from India—into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die.

According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is:

a) a vivid portrait of an extended family
b) a moving story of sisterhood
c) a playful ode to the 80s
d) a murder mystery (of sorts)
e) an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence

Or maybe it’s really:

f) all of the above.

Visit Nina McConigley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ruthless"

New from Yale University Press: Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800 by Edmond Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revelatory new history of Britain’s industrial revolution and the exploitation that enabled it

Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result of its machines, which produced goods with miraculous efficiency? Was it the country’s natural abundance, which provided coal for its engines, ores for its furnaces and food for its labourers? Or was it Britain’s colonies, where a brutalized enslaved workforce produced cotton for its factories?

Acclaimed historian Edmond Smith shows how the world’s first industrial nation was founded on the ruthless exploitation of technology, people and the planet. This economic system linked the plantations of the Caribbean with the colossal cotton mills of northern England, applied the innovations of science and agriculture to colonial exploration, and formalised financial markets in self-serving ways. At the heart of these processes were Britons themselves, early capitalists who spun webs of expertise and investment to connect exploitative practices across the globe.

Ruthless offers an eye-opening account of Britain’s economic transformation—and the scale and breadth of brutality that it depended upon.

--Marshal Zeringue