"The Claus Conspiracy"

New from Poisoned Pen Press: The Claus Conspiracy by Tamara Berry.

About the novel, from the publisher:

It's beginning to look a lot like murder in this holly-jolly mystery from award-winning author Tamara Berry!

Amber Winslow thought she'd left chaos behind when she traded bounty hunting for small-town life in Arizona. Between her job as a barista and recording a true-crime podcast with a lively group of retirees at Seven Ponds Retirement Community, life has finally settled into something resembling calm.

Until a battered, amnesiac teenager crashes into it―literally.

The girl knows only one thing for certain: Amber's voice from the podcast. Clutching a Post-it note with Amber's address, she arrives with no memory of who she is…and a dead Santa Claus in her trunk.

Determined to uncover the truth, Amber and her sharp-witted octogenarian crew begin digging―and quickly discover this is no holiday mishap. Their search uncovers a trail of rogue Mall Santas, a dangerous drug operation, and secrets someone is willing to kill to protect.

As the bodies pile up and the past closes in, Amber must untangle a mystery that's far bigger―and far more personal―than she ever imagined.

Visit Tamara Berry's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bridge to an Unseen Shore: New Age Music as Visionary Art"

New from the University of California Press: Bridge to an Unseen Shore: New Age Music as Visionary Art by Jacob Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

An audiovisual journey into the visionary heart of New Age music

Today, with Spotify “Relaxation” playlists and 24-hour YouTube ambient streams, New Age music feels ubiquitous and familiar. But its roots are stranger than is commonly known, tracing back to the spiritual exploration of the 1970s, when a cohort of musicians created cosmic soundscapes sparkling with the afterglow of ecstatic spiritual revelations, psychedelic experiences, near-death encounters, and meditative practices.

In Bridge to an Unseen Shore, Jacob Smith argues that early New Age musicians formed a distinct artistic movement, a school of visionary art expressed through recorded sound. Their music sought to dissolve boundaries between mind and body, self and cosmos, offering listeners sonic pathways to heightened awareness and holistic experience. This was a multimedia movement as well as a spiritual one, and New Age music was paired with painting, planetarium shows, laser light shows, experimental films, and television soundtracks. Drawing on extensive interviews with the genre’s pioneers, Smith delivers the first comprehensive cultural history of New Age music, from its countercultural origins in the 1970s to its 1980s cassette underground and mainstream crossover to its lasting influence today. Engaging and richly researched, this book reframes New Age music as a vital chapter in the history of spiritual and sonic culture.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dancer and the Dream Thief"

New from Redhook: The Dancer and the Dream Thief by Rowenna Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

A dancer finds herself at the center of a bootlegging scheme run by elfin creatures in this sweeping Prohibition-era historical fantasy from the author of The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill.

Working as a dancer in the Palace Ballroom, Evelyn Pulaski has become familiar with the idea of selling dreams. For a dime a dance she plays into a cheap fantasy of romance before returning to the independent life she’s made for herself. When a group of elfin bootleggers start to hang around the Palace, Evelyn and her friends grow wary. Several dancehall girls have disappeared, and the bootleggers are the prime suspects.

Raife is also in the business of selling dreams. One of the bootleggers at the Palace, he is part of an operation stealing dreams from humans and selling them in the elfinlands. Raife takes a shine to Evelyn, suspecting her to be a rare, vivid dreamer. As he investigates further, Rafe tells himself his interest is purely professional, but there is something entrancing about Evelyn.

When her best friend disappears, Evelyn forges an uneasy alliance with Raife to find her. But their rescue mission sets off a chain of events that endangers them both and reveals to Evelyn that her dreams hold more power than she could ever imagine.

Visit Rowenna Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Perilous Enchantment"

Coming October 27 from Atria Books: Perilous Enchantment: The True History of Faeries by Sarah Clegg.

About the book, from the publisher:

A compendium of fairies and fairy lore through the centuries, told through a magical year in search of the fae from the author of the “remarkable” (Literary Review) Woman’s Lore.

Fairy stories and fae lore are ancient—yet fairy stories continue to transform and enthrall our imaginations generation after generation. From Tolkien’s elves to Sarah J. Maas’s high fae, storytellers have reinterpreted the same set of traditions and texts over and over again.

Perilous Enchantment presents a definitive new cultural history of the fairy, from ancient times to now, across Europe and North America. By visiting a different fairy site each month—including fairy hills in Yorkshire, to a nymph’s cave in Delphi, to a contemporary fairy ball in Los Angeles—Cambridge PhD and folkloristSarah Clegg illuminates all the facets of the elusive, capricious figure.

Clegg shows us how shifts in culture, technology, and avenues of storytelling have shaped the image of the fairy and fairylands. Within, you’ll trace how hyper-localized nature spirits in the first century BC became otherworldly tricksters and temptresses, then scions of purgatory or the devil, to adorable Victorian children’s book characters, and ultimately, our contemporary romantasy love interests.

For fans curious for some of the inspiration behind their favorite novels to storytellers interested in adding their own twists to this rich lore, Perilous Enchantment provides a nuanced look at fairyland, from its most extraordinary tales to its darkest corners, showing us just how much faerie has always been a mirror to our own human imaginations, fears, and desires.

Visit Sarah Clegg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Written in Starlight"

New from Atria Books: Written in Starlight: A Novel by Sloane Brooks.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A storybook chambermaid’s and an intergalactic bounty hunter’s worlds—and hearts—collide through a magical book, threatening to rewrite fate in this romantic portal fantasy with a cosmic twist. Perfect for fans of Tusk Love and The Spellshop.

Della Farley has always known her place: scrubbing floors, keeping her head down, and dreaming of something more. But when she stumbles upon a strange book that seems to be writing itself—a story about a man named Ansel Tulzok, a wanted fugitive traveling the stars—her quiet life turns extraordinary.

Light-years away, Ansel finds a mirror copy of the same book. Page by page, the story unfolds with details of a woman he’s never met—one whose words feel achingly familiar. As the two begin writing to each other through the mysterious pages, they open doors not just to each other’s worlds, but to their most vulnerable hopes and fears.

But every story has its price. And as their worlds entwine and their hearts collide, Della and Ansel must decide how far they’re willing to go to change the ending fate has written for them.

Visit Sloane Brooks's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Black Cicero"

New from Oxford University Press: Black Cicero: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Ancient Romans in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Mathias Hanses.

About the book, from the publisher:

Black Cicero examines the black American scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois's lifelong engagement with the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. To Du Bois, Cicero's life and his opposition to Caesar provided a foundational example of anti-tyrannical thought and action, a tradition of which he considered himself a part alongside his ancient Roman forerunner. Despite this continuity in Du Bois's extensive oeuvre, the image of ancient Mediterranean life that informed his self-fashioning as a "Black Cicero" underwent tremendous changes as the nineteenth century yielded to the twentieth. Considering Cicero a white man at the start of his career, Du Bois later came to advertise ancient Rome's multi-continental positioning at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as the diversity of that space's populations. Du Bois travelled, read, and interacted with thinkers from across these same continents--and the Americas--evincing a complex intertextual rhizome within which Cicero ultimately turned non-white. From the Jim Crow era, through World War I and II, to the Cold War and his move to newly independent Ghana at the end of his life, Du Bois celebrated those who pursued liberty, and he condemned imitators of the imperialist oppression that he observed in the Roman empire.

Black Cicero embeds this duality in the discourses about the ancient Mediterranean that were proliferating at the time. Probing Du Bois's attractive yet also notably distorted view of a freedom-loving Cicero, this book traces how one of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' most engaging thinkers and compelling writers made ancient Rome relevant to discussions about white supremacism and anti-blackness, to decolonial and anti-colonial thought, to communism, and to the fight against fascism.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Resurrection Kill"

Coming October 27 from Crooked Lane Books: Resurrection Kill: A Novel by Laura Joh Rowland.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An amnesic psychiatrist returns to the hospital where she was institutionalized as a teen to find answers, perfect for fans of The Silent Patient and Shutter Island.

Forgetting can be dangerous. Remembering can be fatal.

New York State, 1953. Dr. Claire Kendall is a psychiatrist-in-training at Resurrection Kill Hospital, a luxurious private and isolated mental institution for the wealthy. But under her mask of professionalism, Claire has a secret: She was a patient at the hospital when she was fourteen.

With gaps in her memory, Claire is determined to discover what really happened the summer she was institutionalized—even if it means uncovering the dangerous secrets hiding at Resurrection Kill. Before long, Claire takes a special interest in a teenage patient, Rory Kirkpatrick—a free-spirited girl who is also determined to uncover Resurrection Kill Hospital’s dark past. Claire indulges Rory’s rebellious nature, hoping to glean clues that might help in her own search for the truth.

But the hunt for answers triggers flashbacks of Claire’s painful childhood—her father’s cruelty, her mother’s alcoholism, her beloved older brother’s death. The deeper she probes her own past, the more she remembers about the summer that changed everything. And as she delves deeper into her own mind, she’ll come to find that her sanity grows more fragile by the day and that some secrets are meant to stay buried. She’ll discover that remembering may come at the cost of her life.

Visit Laura Joh Rowland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The People's Paper"

New from Columbia University Press: The People's Paper: The Rise and Fall of the New York Daily News by Matthew Pressman.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the New York Daily News launched in 1919, it didn’t just sell papers―it reinvented them. Brash, populist, and impossible to ignore, the United States’ first tabloid quickly became the country’s best-selling newspaper, reaching millions of readers and reshaping the way Americans consumed news. The swaggering epitome of big-city journalism, it mixed sensationalist stories about crime and celebrities with in-depth reporting about local and national politics. Yet by the 1970s, the paper was struggling to adapt to changes both in New York City and in how Americans got their news. On top of that, the Daily News faced bruising competition with Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, a devastating strike, a shrinking newsroom, and repeated accusations of racism. Somehow, for decades, it weathered these setbacks―until the late 2010s, when the cuts went so deep that they reduced the publication to a shadow of its former self.

Drawing on never-before-cited documents and more than sixty interviews, The People’s Paper tells the story of the Daily News through the eyes of the owners, journalists, and readers who defined it. Matthew Pressman shows how the paper both reflected and shaped the transformations of New York City and American journalism. He argues that tabloids, despite their reputation, were crucial to an informed public, giving ordinary people reliable news in a relatable, digestible way. Lively and definitive, The People’s Paper links the history of the Daily News to today’s crises in media and politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"She Dies in the End"

New from Thomas & Mercer: She Dies in the End by Elle Marr.

About the novel, from the publisher:

To hide her darkest secret, a woman must submit to a killer’s twisted demands in a shocking novel of psychological suspense from bestselling author Elle Marr.

Body broker Penny Lin keeps her distance from the past as she transports donated cadavers in Portland, Oregon, to laboratories, universities―anyone who can justly benefit from the dead. Then, among the deceased, Penny finds murder victim Cesar Velasquez, her ex-lover and a major figure in medical research, whose body comes with an anonymous warning: Don’t tell a soul.

The sender knows too much about Penny and the traumas she’s fled from. The grifting family members she left behind. The dark and devastating secrets she carries. To keep them hidden, Penny must comply with a killer and dispose of the dead, laundering their remains. When the blackmailer begins delivering more bodies to Penny’s shop, she’s torn between wanting justice for the victims and fearing her complicity in murder. Then, Penny is attacked, shattering any illusion of safety she once held.

As the maddening game continues, Penny begins to question her memories, her sanity, and how to escape a killer’s twisted revenge―without becoming another body in her inventory.

Visit Elle Marr's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Missing Sister.

The Page 69 Test: Lies We Bury.

My Book, The Movie: The Lie She Wears.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Territorial Discontent"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Territorial Discontent: CHamorus, Filipinos, and the Making of the United States Empire in Guåhan by Kristin Oberiano.

About the book, from the publisher:

This one-hundred-year history of the island of Guåhan, also known as Guam, charts how Indigenous CHamorus and Filipino migrants navigated and negotiated the expansion of US imperialism and militarism in the Pacific. Throughout the twentieth century, CHamorus and Filipinos living in Guåhan expressed their discontent with the inequities created by the US empire. Instead of partaking in outright anticolonial movements, they advocated for liberal solutions such as individual rights, land ownership, economic opportunities, and US citizenship. In Territorial Discontent, Kristin Oberiano unravels this entangled history and exposes the limitations of liberalism in anticolonial resistance.

Tracing the long history of CHamoru-Filipino relations, from the exile of Filipino revolutionaries to Guåhan to the burgeoning CHamoru self-determination movement, Territorial Discontent grapples with the varied motives that propelled CHamorus and Filipinos to rely on the limited liberal promise of freedom. Oberiano reveals that implementing these solutions for one group too often required the continued colonization of the other, entrenching US colonialism in Guåhan and enflaming tensions between CHamorus and Filipinos. Examining these antagonisms, Oberiano argues that building relationships with the CHamoru virtue of inafa’maolek—“to make good”—can nurture CHamoru-Filipino solidarities and illuminate alternative possibilities for Guåhan’s ongoing decolonization movement.

--Marshal Zeringue