"The Foreign Correspondent's Wife"

Coming October 20 from Crooked Lane Books: The Foreign Correspondent's Wife: A Novel by Jenna Helwig.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Set in post-WWII Paris, the wife of an American foreign correspondent stumbles on the body of her murdered classmate at culinary school and becomes tangled in a web that stretches from the halls of diplomacy to the city’s underworld. Paris, 1949. It’s been five years since the war ended. The City of Light is only just beginning to rediscover its joie de vivre. Americans are arriving in droves, including the fiercely independent former reporter Kat Kelly and her husband—a hotshot foreign correspondent. Forced out of journalism by the old boys’ club, the tenacious Kat has moved on to pursue her love for French cuisine. But this new chapter turns deadly when she finds the bloody body of an American classmate, Toby. After giving her statement to the police and breaking the news to Toby’s girlfriend, Kat quickly suspects that Toby’s life—and death—were more complicated than she imagined. The more Kat learns, the more certain she is that the police are only scratching the surface of the case. When another body turns up, Kat and her husband, Charlie, find themselves embroiled in the investigation. With the killer on the loose and time running out, Kat races to solve the case and save her marriage—and her life. In a glittering city desperate to forget the devastation of war, some secrets refuse to remain buried. But when agonizing truths are forced into the light, no one is safe.

Visit Jenna Helwig's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Romantic Media and Wartime Networks"

New from Stanford University Press: Romantic Media and Wartime Networks by Deven Parker.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book tells the story of how Britain revolutionized its state communication networks on an unprecedented scale during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, setting the stage for our modern infrastructure state where connectivity and surveillance go hand in hand. Deven Parker argues that Romantic literary representations of this state communications network managed to reveal—and, on occasion, to resist—its ideological functions.

In a wide-ranging study drawing upon an archive of military surveys, spy reports, trial records, and even ladies' hand fans, Parker reveals the scope and impact of the British government's investments in shutter telegraphs, mapping projects, and postal routes across two decades of war with France. The writers of the Romantic period, meanwhile, were cognizant of the political motivations undergirding the state's overhauled networks, which were designed to facilitate and speed up but also to more easily control communications. Taking up familiar writers including Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Charlotte Smith, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Thomas De Quincey—as well as lesser-known figures such as radical playwright John Dent, inventor Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and the proto-science fiction novelist Jane Loudon—Parker reads Romantic literature for its astute chronicling and interrogation of the material hardware of the state's media ecology.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lethal Kiss"

Coming October 20 from Tor Nightfire: Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe.

About the book, from the publisher:

A blood-soaked love story of rage, revenge, and belonging, Taylor Grothe's adult debut is a sapphic horror/romance that's as grotesque as it is beautiful.

Something ravenous lurks below the marble floors of Preston University…

Marcella might be a monster, but she’s careful. After getting hired at Preston University, she intends to lay low and keep her meals discreet.

Trapped in the rat race of academia, all Lacie wants is to make tenure. This will be her year, and nothing is going to stand in her way.

That is, until bodies start dropping.

Marcella swears it isn’t her doing―as if she’d be that sloppy. Whatever’s killing their coworkers is older, and far less restrained. Lacie doesn’t know who to trust, but better the monster you know…

The deeper they dig, the more they’re drawn to each other… and the more something else is drawn to them.

After all, desire has teeth of its own.

Visit Taylor Grothe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Book of Greek Life"

New from Oxford University Press: A Book of Greek Life: The Ancient World Through Epigram by Gideon Nisbet.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Book of Greek Life: The Ancient World Through Epigram brings its readers into the realities and imaginations of the ancient world through its social media - the little poems we call epigrams. Epigram captures moments from ordinary and extraordinary ancient lives, inviting us to work, play, mourn, honour the gods, and fall in love alongside the ancients. Classical translator and scholar Gideon Nisbet presents hundreds of freshly made translations, each of which sparks a short essay packed with insights about a lost world that shapes us even as we shape it. A Book of Greek Life is made for non-specialists and for browsing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Operation Icebreaker"

Coming October 6 from Severn House: Operation Icebreaker (A Rake Ozenna Thriller, 5) by Humphrey Hawksley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Major Rake Ozenna faces dangerous choices and deadly consequences in this rip-roaring political thriller that takes you from the icy plains of Greenland to Washinton D.C., London and back again . . . Buckle up, this is a thrilling ride!

It was meant to be a routine visit. It became a bloodbath.

Special Forces veteran Major Rake Ozenna lands at America’s remote Arctic base in Greenland. His mission is simple. Build trust between allied communities on the frontline of a changing world. Instead, violence erupts, leaving Rake with a loss he cannot forget.

The devastating attack is blamed on Inuit extremists. Rake knows it’s a lie. There were assassins in the snow. And he will make sure they’re brought to justice.

But when things take a sinister political twist, Rake finds himself on the run from his own country. Someone deep inside in the Pentagon is determined to stop him and turn the base attack into something far bigger.

As global tensions reach breaking point, Rake must expose the truth before a war is ignited at the top of the world—pitting America against its closest allies…

Operation Icebreaker is the fifth Rake Ozenna thriller and will leave readers breathless . . . and eagerly anticipating the next heart-racing adventure!

Visit Humphrey Hawksley's website.

The Page 69 Test: The History Book.

My Book, The Movie: Security Breach.

My Book, The Movie: Man on Ice.

Writers Read: Humphrey Hawksley (May 2018).

The Page 69 Test: Man on Ice.

The Page 69 Test: Man on Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Digital Activism in the Mexican Nations"

New from Rutgers University Press: Digital Activism in the Mexican Nations: Resistance, Catharsis, Transformation by David S. Dalton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Digital Activism in the Mexican Nations analyzes Mexico’s rich history of digital activism, which is among the most vibrant of any country in the Hispanic world. The book begins with a discussion of the Zapatista uprising of 1994―which is widely understood as the first digital social movement in the history of the world―and ends with a discussion of the digital strategies of migrant communities trekking through Mexico into the present.

Conceptualizing (digital) activism as a type of performance, the book opens a dialogue with Brecht’s binary of cathartic and transformative performance. As such, it suggests that activist movements centered on expressive manifestations of emotion tend to stifle a social movement’s revolutionary potential by stifling their ability to resonate with potential allies outside their community. At the same time, it argues that the most successful digital social movements seek strategies to build connections with allies who can help them to shift state policy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder in the Upper Crust"

Coming October 27 from Minotaur Books: Murder in the Upper Crust: A Deep Dish Mystery by Mindy Quigley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The sixth book in the delectable Deep Dish Mystery series, set in a Wisconsin pizzeria.

Chef Delilah O’Leary is going where no deep dish pizza chef has gone before: a swanky wellness retreat, where she's agreed to cater for a crowd of the who’s who. Instead of cashing a fat check for an easy gig, though, she encounters a diabolical plot with more layers than one of her signature pies.

The exclusive event, hosted by superstar guru Rhiannon Frost, promises inner transformation―but when a spiteful attendee turns up dead during the guided meditation, Delilah smells more than incense in the air. Every guest has a motive…and access to a sinister walled garden brimming with exotic poisonous plants.

With her restaurant short-staffed, and her boyfriend, Detective Calvin Capone, splitting his time between bartender duties and undercover sleuthing, Delilah’s got her hands full. Can she slice through the lies before the killer strikes again? Or will this luxe getaway turn into a one-way trip to the great beyond?

Visit Mindy Quigley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Storytellers"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Storytellers: Reading the Masterpieces of Nineteenth-Century Short Fiction by Michael Gorra.

About the book, from the publisher'

Tracing the origins of the modern short story, Michael Gorra provides the first fully realized picture of a century’s worth of great tales.

The Storytellers offers a far-reaching account of the rich tradition of short narratives that flourished in nineteenth-century Europe and America, one that both prepared for and eventually gave way to the modern short story. Tracing unexpected resemblances across languages and decades, Michael Gorra restores a wide-angle view of the form in which works usually treated as stand-alone classics reveal themselves as parts of a single, lively conversation.

What unites these tales, Gorra argues, is their blend of novelty and unity. The book’s heart lies in a series of accessible readings of great tales by Herman Melville, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Guy de Maupassant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt, and many more. Beyond its consideration of individual works, The Storytellers examines the formal and thematic concerns that bind the century together: the use of frame tales, accounts of social marginality, and an abundance of ghosts and uncanny coincidences. Over time, Gorra shows, these qualities yielded to a cooler realism, with Anton Chekhov as the key transitional figure. His compressed studies of ordinary lives inspired the modern short story and consigned the gothic flourishes of earlier tales to genre fiction.

What do we want from a story? What makes a tale worth telling? The nineteenth-century tale sought not the grand “meaning of life” promised by the novel, Gorra shows, but sudden revelations from singular events. The Storytellers gives readers an incomparable guide to a vast body of tales that still has the power to thrill and entertain.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mistletoe All the Way"

Coming October 6 from Atria Books: Mistletoe All the Way: A Novel by Lauren Blakely.

About the book, from the publisher:

She wants to make him Mr. Holiday. He wants to stay a certified Grinch. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Blakely comes a small-town spicy holiday romance about a guarded cowboy veterinarian and a Christmas-loving optimist who team up for a town holiday competition.

Dr. Noah Lennox lives by three holiday rules—avoid his hometown, cheerful people, and Christmas itself.

But when his beloved grandfather announces he’s retiring and handing the cherished sleigh-ride farm to either Noah or his slick cousin Stephen, the first rule goes out the window. Back home in Evergreen Falls, the veterinarian vows to fight for the farm that means everything to him. The problem is, the town doesn’t exactly welcome its resident Scrooge with open arms.

Except for one very charming holiday enthusiast. Eloise Langston, a sunny tourism bureau hopeful, needs a win to land her dream job—and to pay the rent. Her holly jolly plan? Turn the broody, broad-shouldered grump into a festive front-runner to help the town’s Mr. Holiday Competition draw record crowds.

Transforming a camera-shy cowboy vet into a small-town sweetheart isn’t exactly in her job description—but neither is falling for him.

Soon, Noah and Eloise find themselves tangled in twinkle lights, fake kisses, and one very real attraction. But with the farm’s future at stake, Stephen’s scheming, and Eloise’s career on the line, there’s a blizzard of reasons to put their feelings on ice.

Or will they fight to turn their holiday fling into forever under the mistletoe?

Visit Lauren Blakely's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House That Family Money Built"

New from the University of California Press: The House That Family Money Built: How Inequality Governs Debt and Wealth Management by Allison Anna Tait.

About the book, from the publisher:

At both ends of the wealth spectrum, the laws governing credit and debt hardwire patterns of both privilege and poverty. They drive financial extraction by creating a flow of assets from the pockets of low-income families into the bank accounts of high-wealth ones. In short, some families are legally enabled as they accumulate and preserve great fortunes that get passed down through generations―while others are locked into a cycle of scraping by, just hoping to find affordable housing and put food on the table.

This book traces the joint forces of law, geography, and narrative that have built this superstructure of inequality and extraction: "the house of family money." Allison Anna Tait reveals how this monumental piece of economic architecture can be deciphered by the blueprints that guided its construction, navigated by maps that reveal its hidden shortcuts, and ultimately renovated by lasting reforms.

--Marshal Zeringue