"Scar the Sky"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Scar the Sky: A Novel by J. Todd Scott.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lightning never strikes twice —until it does.

A killer is hunting down survivors of lightning strikes in this dark and twisting thriller, perfect for fans of J. H. Markert and Richard Chizmar.

Everything changed for Andi Ellis when she was struck by lightning and her heart stopped. Andi was resuscitated, but she was never the same—electronics strangely malfunction in her presence: clocks can’t keep time; batteries swiftly die. And while many lightning strike victims are left with temporary "lightning tree" markings, on her they are permanent scars.

Years later Andi, her eight-year-old daughter, and a fellow lightning strike survivor have fled Texas and Andi’s dangerous ex to go off the grid in a strange and secluded desert community.

Meanwhile, two private investigators pursue a US senator's missing daughter who they find too late. When searching for information on the strange lightning scars on the girl's body, they find themselves pulled into an FBI investigation—people who have been struck by lightning are being murdered.

As the death toll mounts, the task force traces the killer farther west—closer and closer to Andi Ellis and her daughter, and the haven she's carefully created.

Thriller and horror readers will be enthralled by the dark turns in Scar the Sky.

Visit J. Todd Scott's website.

The Page 69 Test: High White Sun.

My Book, The Movie: High White Sun.

My Book, The Movie: This Side of Night.

The Page 69 Test: This Side of Night.

Q&A with J. Todd Scott.

The Page 69 Test: Lost River.

The Page 69 Test: The Flock.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Work of Reform"

New from Cornell University Press: The Work of Reform: Literature and Political Ecology from Langland to Spenser by William Rhodes.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Work of Reform interweaves literary, economic, and environmental history to trace the influence that William Langland's harsh vision of enforced agrarian labor in Piers Plowman had on later medieval and early modern thinking about land and improvement in Britain and Ireland, culminating with Edmund Spenser's colonial writing. William Rhodes brings together a rich poetic archive with agrarian husbandry manuals, prose polemics, and imperial tracts to connect conflicts over land and labor on the English manor to those of Tudor Ireland, offering a new eco-Marxist literary history of ecological transformation across the medieval-modern divide.

In the aftermath of the Black Death, the depopulation of the countryside, and the beginnings of the Enclosure Movement, English poets imagined enforced labor as a panacea for social unrest precipitated by environmental catastrophe. Arguing that Piers Plowman established how poetry could envision religious and economic transformation based on agrarian production, The Work of Reform reveals that the Piers Plowman tradition's valorization of agrarian toil was open to appropriation by later writers developing totalizing, top-down colonialist projects.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Fairest"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Fairest (Book 2 of 2: Arles Shepherd Thriller) by Jenny Milchman.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a young girl seeks out sanctuary with a total stranger, a nightmare follows in this riveting novel of suspense by Jenny Milchman, the USA Today bestselling author of The Usual Silence.

Author Kara Parsons is at a book signing in the town where she was raised. Before it’s over, a young girl approaches with a copy of Kara’s book containing a handwritten inscription: I am a missing child.

Most people would alert the police, but Kara knows what happens to the young and vulnerable when the system fails them. She turns to her former therapist, Arles Shepherd, who’s recovering from injuries and staying off the grid. But even Arles, who’s seen everything, finds something off about this girl who refuses to reveal her own name. What is she running from? And how much of what she says can be believed?

When a man with a gun manages to locate Arles’s remote wilderness home, the true threat is revealed, and Arles and Kara go on the run. But fleeing only gets them so far. To save this child, Arles must allow her to be found. And that’s when the real danger begins.

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Milchman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: The Second Mother.

The Page 69 Test: The Second Mother.

Q&A with Jenny Milchman.

My Book, The Movie: The Usual Silence.

The Page 69 Test: The Usual Silence.

Writers Read: Jenny Milchman (October 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Strategies for Approval"

New from Yale University Press: Strategies for Approval: Building Support for Military Intervention at the UN Security Council by Stefano Recchia.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thoughtful analysis of how major powers can obtain UN Security Council approval for military intervention

Powerful states often seek UN Security Council approval for their military interventions to enhance legitimacy, but how can they secure this approval when veto-wielding permanent members have grave misgivings? In this groundbreaking study of UNSC diplomacy, Stefano Recchia tackles this question by drawing on hundreds of declassified documents and interviews that he conducted with top diplomats from multiple countries.

Recchia demonstrates that since the early 1990s, powerful states facing significant opposition at the UNSC have not been able to rely solely on economic and political leverage to obtain a resolution of approval. Instead, they have had to combine exertions of leverage with credible signals that they would act with restraint and in line with core international norms. This often required that they agree to incorporate costly limitations on the use of force, such as time limits and multilateral oversight, into the requested resolution. Recchia argues that for better or worse accepting such constraints will be critical in the future if powerful countries, including the United States, are to secure UN approval in an increasingly competitive international environment.

Visit Stefano Recchia's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"House of Dusk"

New from DAW: House of Dusk by Deva Fagan.

About the book, from the publisher:

A romantic epic fantasy featuring a fire-wielding nun grappling with her dark past and a young spy caught between her mission and a growing attraction to an enemy princess

With complex relationships, a rich and mythic world, and brisk pacing, this standalone novel is perfect for fans of Tasha Suri, Samantha Shannon, and Shannon Chakraborty

Ten years ago, Sephre left behind her life as a war hero and took holy vows to seek redemption for her crimes, wielding the flames of the Phoenix to purify the dead. But as corpses rise, a long-dead god stirs, and shadowy serpents creep from the underworld, she has no choice but to draw on the very past she's been trying so hard to forget.

Orphaned by the same war Sephre helped win, Yeneris has trained half her life to be the perfect spy, a blade slipped deep into the palace of her enemies. Undercover as bodyguard to Sinoe, a princess whose tears unleash prophecy, Yeneris is searching for the stolen bones of a saint. Her growing attraction to the princess, however, is proving dangerous, and Yeneris struggles to balance her feelings for Sinoe with her duty to her people.

As gods are reborn and spirits destroyed, the world trembles on the edge of a second cataclysm. Sephre must decide whether to be bound by her past or to forge a better future, even if it means renouncing her vows and accepting a new and terrible power. Meanwhile, when the real enemy makes their bid for power, Yeneris must find a way to remain true to her full self and save both her mission and her heart.

As dead gods rise and corruption creeps across the world, this sweeping standalone fantasy tale of forbidden sapphic love and dark betrayal will set your heart ablaze.

Visit Deva Fagan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Trust and Cooperation"

New from Oxford University Press: Trust and Cooperation by Paul Faulkner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Trust is a cooperating enabling attitude. We cooperate both practically and epistemically: we coordinate our actions and share what we know, and in both cases, trust enables this cooperation. By virtue of trusting, it is rational to rely on others. When this is taken to be the function of trust, two distinct attitudes emerge as trusting. One is situated within an objective view of the world and constitutes a prediction of behaviour, which in the interpersonal case amounts to some calculation of interest from sanctions and rewards. The other can only be interpersonal and requires these interactions be approached from the participant stance.

In Trust and Cooperation, Paul Faulkner considers how these two distinct attitudes of trust--predictive and affective--support cooperation and how the two perspectives on our interpersonal life within which each is embedded engage with each other. Affective trust is a response to another's commitment, which sees the commitment itself as constituting a reason to believe and places on the trusted an expectation of this commitment being fulfilled. It is a commitment indexed expectation. In being optimistically held, trust in this sense constitutes a form of recognition and respect. So we can wrong others in relying only on calculation of the probability of outcome. But our actual engagements can be messy; as well as being an interpersonal act, cooperation can equally be calculated coordination.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder Your Darlings"

Coming January 13 from Harper: Murder Your Darlings: A Novel by Jenna Blum.

About the book, from the publisher:

For every woman who’s ever fallen for a bad man comes a hilarious and eviscerating tale of love, loss, and deadlines from New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum.

Known for such brilliant historical novels as Those Who Save Us and The Lost Family, A Mighty Blaze co-founder and New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum now offers a contemporary, suspenseful novel about love, loss, and revenge in the world of books.

Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam is worrying where her life is going when she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author William Corwyn, renowned for his female-centric novels. When William and Sam meet and his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One.

But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem. William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. He lives on a remote Maine island, where his writer life resembles The Shining. And when writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit—William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?

Narrated by Sam, William, and The Rabbit, Murder Your Darlings is a wickedly witty look at today’s literary landscape and down-the-rabbit-hole tale of how far people will go for love.

Visit Jenna Blum's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Family.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Illegality and the Production of Affluence"

New from the University of California Press: Illegality and the Production of Affluence: Undocumented Labor and Gentrification in Rural America by Lise Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Over several decades, the influx of wealthy, white "lifestyle" migrants has transformed the economic, social, and ecological fabric of many rural communities across the United States—from alpine towns of the Rockies to forest and lake communities of the Southeast—in a process akin to urban gentrification. Illegality and the Production of Affluence explores an underappreciated dimension of this process: its dependence on low-wage Latine immigrant workers, many undocumented, who build and maintain gentrified landscapes and lifestyles. Drawing on fine-grained qualitative data, Lise Nelson explores how employers recruited an unfamiliar workforce to places "off the map" of immigrant settlement. The book also reveals insights into how business practices and profitability shifted through the use of racialized, "illegal," and highly precarious labor. Finally, the book investigates the disjuncture between Latine immigrants' vital role in rural gentrifying economies and their social, civic, and racialized exclusion in the spaces of everyday life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I Killed the King"

New from Storytide: I Killed the King by Rebecca Mix and Andrea Hannah.

About the book, from the publisher:

One of Us Is Lying meets Knives Out—with beasts, murder, and magic—in this first book in a thrilling locked-room whodunnit YA fantasy duology by Andrea Hannah and New York Times bestseller Rebecca Mix.

After a decade of war, the kingdoms of Avendell and Istellia have finally agreed to peace. As nobles and magic wielders from both countries arrive at remote Castle Avendell for a historic all-night masquerade to celebrate, King Costis summons an unlikely group to his chambers: the crown prince, his Istellian bride-to-be, his personal guard, a wild beast tamer, and the palace’s questionable new healer. But before Costis can reveal why he has gathered them, the castle goes dark.

When the lights come back, the king is dead—murdered with the princess’s knife, in a weak spot only his guard knew of, and with venom from one of the beast tamer’s monsters lacing the blade.

With no clear killer—and everyone a suspect—they make a risky pact: Tell no one until the treaty is signed. But when a winter storm seals everyone inside and someone aware of the king's untimely death begins to pick off guests one by one, the six suspects must work together to discover who killed the king . . . before one of them is next.

Visit Rebecca Mix's website and Andrea Hannah's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"On the Move"

New from Stanford University Press: On the Move: Migration Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean by Andrew Dan Selee, Valerie Lacarte, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Diego Chaves-González.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Americas is a region on the move and is both the source and recipient of some of the largest migrations in the world today. While much scholarship and public commentary focus on the considerable movement of people northward toward the United States, most of the millions of migrants from the Americas are in fact, the authors reveal, staying within other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through a combination of engaging narratives and evidence-based analysis, On the Move tells a story of both triumph and tragedy. The authors explore the complex composition of migration flows and the varied and uneven ways in which host countries in the region have responded. This book takes readers beyond the typical debates on US immigration policy and represents the first comprehensive look at how countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are reacting to an unprecedented wave of people around the world who choose—or are forced—to move across borders.

--Marshal Zeringue