"Blues for the Dead"

New from Severn House: Blues for the Dead (A Trevor Finnegan Novel, 4) by Aaron Philip Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a notorious investigation into Los Angeles’s darkest criminal network thrusts private investigator Trevor Finnegan into the national spotlight, the fallout is immediate—and lethal.

Evil just got an upgrade.

Haunted by his past as a cop and driven by an obsession with justice for the dead, Finnegan has spent years hunting the powerful men who profited from torture and murder on the dark web. But when a billionaire suspect dies in federal custody and the agents involved turn up dead under suspicious circumstances, Finnegan finds himself facing a far more insidious enemy. One that doesn’t just silence people but drives them to the edge.

As Finnegan digs deeper, his search leads him into the orbit of a brilliant, charismatic tech mogul promising a cleaner, safer future through artificial intelligence. And the line between progress and cruelty blurs beyond recognition.

With his pregnant wife at risk, his agency on the brink of collapse, and his own moral compass under siege, Finnegan must decide how far he’s willing to go—and what he’s willing to lose—to stop a force that claims it can conquer death itself.

The new shocking, completely gripping Trevor Finnegan thriller by an author at the top of his game. Blues for the Dead is perfect for fans of S.A. Cosby.

Visit Aaron Philip Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: Under Color of Law.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Like Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Black Sojourner Press"

New from Columbia University Press: The Black Sojourner Press: Experiments in Black Periodical Culture Between Emancipation and Decolonization by Marina Bilbija.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Black periodical editors roved across oceans and between empires, bearing newspaper texts, formats, and genres with them. As they migrated, they also exported and adapted broader ideas about the distinctive role of the Black journal from one part of the Black world to another.

The Black Sojourner Press traces the travels of multiple generations of itinerant Black editors, demonstrating how they transformed Black political and literary culture in the United States, West Africa, and Britain. Reading Nigerian, African American, Ghanaian, and Black British newspapers side by side, Marina Bilbija reconstructs how wandering journalists connected print cultures across what she calls the Black Anglosphere. Wherever they traveled, these sojourners founded experimental journals that addressed Black readers as members of new global communities. Over and over again, they mobilized periodicals to critique the violent and coordinated spread of two “Anglo-Saxon” empires and, likewise, to speculate about the entwined political destinies of these “Anglo” overlords and their Black imperial subjects.

Bilbija explores cases including a Jamaican editor in 1860s Lagos who reprinted US writers, journals in 1880s Britain that disseminated texts from the African American press, editors in 1920s New York who reframed Ghanaian literature for American readerships, and a pan-African news magazine in 1930s Lagos that serialized a speculative novel set in the United States. Revealing the links between seemingly disparate histories across the Black diaspora, this groundbreaking book offers a new understanding of the Black periodical as a world literary genre.

--Marshal Zeringue

"So It Grows"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: So It Grows: A Novel by Andie Burke.

About the book, from the publisher:

From USA Today bestselling author Andie Burke comes this cozy small town business-rivals-to-lovers romance about finding joy where you least expect it.

Felicity Gallagher thought inheriting her aunt’s plant shop would be the fresh start she needed after the worst year of her life. She never expected that the trendy, mac and cheese themed restaurant next door–and its inconveniently hot chef–might be her downfall.

Nicolas Holm-Bozic is arrogant and presumptuous and just flat-out gets under her skin. Felicity has made ignoring him an art form―until the exploding popularity of his restaurant leads to renewed interest in Felicity’s quirky corner of Kansas. Now, a greedy developer is threatening both their businesses with a towering parking garage that could steal the sunlight from her plants. With her shop’s future in jeopardy, Felicity must join forces with her least favorite neighbor.

As the pair fight back, Nic and Felicity’s formerly contentious relationship blooms into something new, but hidden battle scars, old secrets, and a devastating storm threaten everything they’ve built. Will they choose to cut and run, or are they finally ready to put down permanent roots?

Andie Burke’s So It Grows is chock-full of heat, heart, emotion, humor, and everything in between.

Visit Andie Burke's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Echoes of a Distant Republic"

New from the University of Virginia Press: Echoes of a Distant Republic: Italian Perspectives on the American and French Revolutions by Anna Vincenzi.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the American and French Revolutions were interpreted in the Italian states and how that understanding helped redefine the concept of revolution itself

In Echoes of a Distant Republic, Anna Vincenzi explores the evolving meaning of “revolution” in the eighteenth century by surveying the reactions in Italy to the upheavals in America and later France. Drawing on a wide range of sources―from periodicals and gazettes to diplomatic correspondence, ecclesiastical documents, and private letters―Vincenzi reveals how observers in Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples made sense of events across the Atlantic from the 1770s to the 1790s.

Italian political thinkers at first did not treat the American experience as a revolution in the modern sense―a radical break with the past meant to establish an egalitarian society―but rather as the culmination of a long age of reform. It was the French Revolution, Vincenzi shows, that made the American Revolution appear, only in retrospect, as the beginning of a new age. What had once seemed a circumscribed, reformist movement within the anglophone world came to be understood as an epoch-making event―an invitation to revolution in Europe against the monarchies of the Old Regime.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beignets and Big Feelings"

Coming October 13 from Lake Union: Beignets and Big Feelings: A Novel by Leslie Gray Streeter.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A grandma’s dying wish results in a weeklong scavenger hunt designed to reunite a family in a heartfelt and hilarious journey by the author of Family & Other Calamities.

When Grandma Olivia Hollis passes away, her funeral reunites four generations of heirs, complete with a surprise will. Grandma has orchestrated a New Orleans scavenger hunt for her female relatives, determined to bring her family back together if it’s the last thing she does. Everyone game? If not, no one gets a dime.

Of course, Grandma, bless her meddling heart, has other motives in mind for all of them. Especially for her guarded sister, Mona, who fled decades ago and never looked back. Following a preplanned itinerary for one revelatory week, the women find themselves on a Mississippi River jazz cruise, braving a bayou swamp tour, uncovering forgotten histories in old cemeteries, rekindling former flames, and, just as Grandma planned, unlocking what they’ve hidden from each other for far too long.

Amid beignets, popcorn shrimp, and chicory coffee―so bitter and sweet―these women just might discover that no matter what awaits them at the end, the real treasure is becoming the family they were meant to be.

Visit Leslie Gray Streeter's website.

My Book, The Movie: Family & Other Calamities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Action Bodies"

New from the University of Texas Press: Action Bodies: VFX, Identity, and Embodiment in Blockbuster Cinema by Drew Ayers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Exploring how digital visual effects have changed the representations of the body and identity in action films.

When Harrison Ford appeared digitally de-aged in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, audiences witnessed more than a technical feat; they saw how visual effects are reshaping what bodies can be on screen. In Action Bodies, Drew Ayers examines how the contemporary action genre redefines embodiment across human, superhuman, animal, and machine forms. Ayers argues that action films are a crucial site for understanding how popular media both reflect and shape cultural debates about identity, citizenship, disability, and ethics in the era of big data and algorithmic culture.

Through case studies including Top Gun: Maverick, The Woman King, The Fast & the Furious franchise, and Avatar: The Way of Water, Ayers explores how VFX-altered bodies carry ideological weight. While the action genre has long leaned conservative in its politics of identity, its digitally mediated bodies also generate unexpected opportunities: glimpses of more inclusive and flexible modes of embodiment. As artificial intelligence and synthetic imagery continue to transform film production, Action Bodies demonstrates why careful attention to action cinema is essential for understanding how contemporary culture imagines and engineers the future of the body.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Dangerous Bargain"

Coming September 22 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: A Dangerous Bargain by Erin Cotter.

About the book, from the publisher:

A young artist who has bargained away most of his life for divine inspiration pairs up with fellow apprentice Leonardo da Vinci to infiltrate the Medici family and find out the truth about his missing brother in this Renaissance-set young adult mystery perfect for fans of F.T. Lukens.

It’s the height of the Italian Renaissance. In the golden city of Florence, art is equal to holiness—and angels walk among us, bestowing their talents…for a price.

Seventeen-year-old artist Virgil is in trouble. To support his family, he’s bargained most of his life away to an angel—only to discover that his missing brother is in danger, and nothing but magic can rescue him. Now, with just a few months left to live, Virgil is desperate enough to try the one thing he swore he would never, ever do—team up with the infuriating, annoyingly talented, and most notorious playboy in all of Florence, the charming Leonardo da Vinci.

As the two journey through Florence’s gilded streets, luxurious cathedrals, and glorious Medici palaces, they unearth dark truths beneath the city’s facade.

Those in power will do anything to keep their deadly secrets safe, but with his feelings for Leonardo giving him new life, Virgil is determined to expose their lies before he runs out of time.

Even if it might cost him his soul.

Visit Erin Cotter's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mis(s) Communication"

New from Rutgers University Press: Mis(s) Communication: Stigma and the Miss America Organization by Rebecca J. Meisenbach.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mis(s) Communication: Stigma and the Miss America Organization explores the one-hundred-year history of the Miss America Organization (MAO) as a site of stigma management. Through five years of ethnographic, archival, and interview-based research, Rebecca J. Meisenbach shows how pageant participation is both valorized and stigmatized―making MAO a key lens for studying stigma as a dynamic, power-laden communication process. The book examines stigma across individual, organizational, and societal levels, focusing on moments like Rule Seven, which once barred nonwhite participants, and the 1968 protest by the New York Radical Women alongside the first Miss Black America pageant. Meisenbach also investigates how contestants navigate stigma tied to intelligence, body image, and the sexualization of women. She analyzes MAO’s 2018 elimination of the swimsuit competition as a stigma management move and its recent shift to a for-profit model under Miss America Opportunity. The book ultimately argues for understanding stigma as communicative and deeply intersectional.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Broken Glass Houses"

New from Lake Union: Broken Glass Houses by Lorna Lewis.

About the book, from the publisher:

When secrets are unleashed, two women must navigate a friendship tested to the extreme in an emotional novel of psychological suspense by the author of A Sky Full of Love.

In an affluent Louisiana community, Parker Montgomery has reached the pinnacle of success. Wealthy, influential, and unimpeachably respected, she’s attending a gala in her honor. Amid the applause Parker sees a ghost from her past―a ghost who knows her daughter’s dark secret. In a heartbeat, Parker’s carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Hers isn’t the only one.

Parker’s best friend, Carmen, consumed by her own family tragedy, is at a breaking point. Parker is Carmen’s last remaining anchor to sanity. She’s willing to do anything to protect her, to save her from what’s hidden in the past, and to make Parker see what’s truly important. All it takes for Carmen is one shocking decision that sends both of them spiraling.

Two women, two families under threat, and one desperate act that forces Parker and Carmen to confront whether their bond can survive the painful truths about identity, loyalty, and a friendship built on lies.

Visit Lorna Lewis's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Sky Full of Love.

Q&A with Lorna Lewis.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Speaking Parts"

New from Princeton University Press: Speaking Parts: Conversation, Character, and Social Worlds in Nineteenth-Century British Novels by Tara Menon.

About the book, from the publisher:

How direct speech in the novel shapes our understanding of literary characters and their social worlds

For many readers, to think of nineteenth-century fiction is to recall characters speaking: Elizabeth refusing Darcy in Pride and Prejudice; Jane excoriating Rochester in Jane Eyre; Dorothea and Celia discussing Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch. And yet literary critics have had surprisingly little to say about the narrative effects of dialogue. In Speaking Parts, Tara Menon shows how direct speech—words enclosed in quotation marks that appear to be the exact utterances of characters—shapes our understanding of fictional characters and the social worlds they inhabit. Combining computational tools and close literary analysis, Menon reinstates direct speech to its rightful place in narrative theory, worthy of the critical seriousness afforded to such other features of narrative as free indirect discourse.

After quantifying direct speech in nearly one thousand British novels written between 1789 and 1901, Menon turns her attention to several canonical nineteenth-century works of fiction by Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot. She considers, among other things, the ways that Austen establishes sympathy for certain characters through her allotment of speech; the narrative significance of speaking characters not given proper names in Jane Eyre; and the social isolation of Dorothea in Middlemarch, as revealed by speech networks. Menon shows not only how the study of direct speech allows us to make new arguments about these well-known texts but also that data analysis of speech can change the way we think about characters, individual novels, and even genres.

Visit Tara Menon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue