"Served Him Right"

Coming March 10 from Park Row Books: Served Him Right: A Novel by Lisa Unger.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman’s brunch with friends quickly turns dark in this gripping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger

Ana Blacksmith has gathered her closest friends and sister Vera for a brunch to celebrate her recent breakup from her boyfriend Paul. But when shocking news about Paul arrives, all eyes are on Ana, the angry ex with a bad reputation. Suspicions only intensify when Ana’s best friend falls deathly ill after the brunch.

But Ana is not the only one who had a score to settle with Paul. As the investigation unfolds, rumors of a secret network that uses ancient methods to obtain justice begin to emerge. Vengeance is sweet, but it can also be deadly. Ana and Vera are determined to find the truth before Ana takes the fall and their own long—buried history comes to light.

Visit Lisa Unger's website.

Q&A with Lisa Unger.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Affairs of Humanity"

New from Yale University Press: Affairs of Humanity: The Religious Origins of Humanitarian Diplomacy in Britain and Europe, 1690-1748 by Catherine Arnold.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new look at the origins of humanitarian intervention

We are encouraged to empathize with the suffering of distant strangers every day, from ads for UNICEF to the outcry over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But where did this type of politics come from?

Historian and practicing barrister Catherine Arnold locates the religious origins of humanitarian politics in early eighteenth‑century Britain and Europe. In the late seventeenth century, British politicians argued for “confessional intervention”—in other words, for interventions to protect Britain’s fellow Protestants in continental Europe. By the 1740s, however, a cadre of high‑ranking British officials was advocating instead for a new form of “humanitarian intervention,” using natural law–inflected language to justify its claims. Between 1690 and 1745, British officials intervened diplomatically to protect not only Protestants in France, northwestern Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire, but also Jewish fugitives from Portugal, Catholic dissidents in France, and Jewish refugees in Bohemia.

Arnold shows that this new type of intervention was intended to stop states from torturing, imprisoning, or expelling their subjects and was justified with humanitarian arguments. British officials contended that state persecution—that is, using state authority to punish a subject only because of her religious beliefs—violated natural law. They asserted that Britain had a duty to prevent states from violating natural law and an ethical obligation to aid sufferers of all religious faiths out of common humanity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You Can Scream"

New from Kensington: You Can Scream (A Laurel Snow Thriller) by Rebecca Zanetti.

About the book, from the publisher:

Twisted family relationships, sociopaths and conspiracy theories abound in the icy Cascade Mountains of Washington State in New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Zanetti's heart-pounding series about an FBI profiler and her equally brilliant sister on the wrong side of the law. For fans of Karen Rose, Heather Gudenkauf, Allison Brennan, and Melinda Leigh.

Laurel’s family was never simple—but her half-sister, Abigail, a brilliant, unpredictable psychopath, just made it lethal. Accused of murdering their father, a man she always called a monster, Abigail claims self-defense. As the trial unfolds and long-buried family secrets explode into headlines across Washington State, Laurel’s hard-won privacy is shattered. And the nightmare is just beginning.

Even as Abigail’s trial consumes public attention, new dangers close in as the murder of a prominent scientist and the illegal poaching of a rare Pacific plant point to something insidious. Laurel turns to Washington Fish and Wildlife captain Huck Rivers, her partner in work and life, for help. But the deeper they dig, the more the case seems to echo the chaos unraveling Laurel’s world.

With danger tightening around her, Laurel faces an impossible choice: trust Abigail in one crucial, treacherous alliance, or risk losing everything. Her career, her relationships, even her life hang in the balance. The clock is ticking—and if the threat breaks loose, nothing will be fast enough to stop it.

Visit Rebecca Zanetti's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree"

New from Columbia University Press: Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree by Russell Fielding.

About the book, from the publisher:

Breadfruit trees are staples of the tropics, bearing cantaloupe-sized green-skinned fruits whose taste and texture resemble potatoes. More than three thousand years ago, breadfruit fueled the Pacific voyages of discovery that settled islands throughout Oceania. In the late eighteenth century, the British expedition that ended with the mutiny on the Bounty aimed, but failed, to introduce breadfruit to the West Indies as food for enslaved African laborers on sugar plantations. A later voyage resulted in the fruit’s widespread distribution and complicated role within modern Caribbean food cultures. In recent years, breadfruit has been touted as a tool for sustainable development and as a “superfood” with both health benefits and culinary versatility.

Russell Fielding tells these stories and many others, exploring breadfruit’s fascinating global history and varied present-day uses. Bringing together extensive research and vivid travelogues, including learning directly from local agriculturists, chefs, scientists, and holders of traditional knowledge, he provides an immersive narrative of breadfruit’s contributions. Fielding argues that breadfruit’s history comprises two journeys: first, from its origins in Southeast Asia across the Pacific; and second, its transplantation to the Caribbean. Today, a third journey is taking place, one that is spreading breadfruit throughout the world.

Engagingly written and compellingly argued, this book draws timely lessons from breadfruit’s past to forecast its future potential.

Visit Russell Fielding's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Honeysuckle"

Coming March 24 from Bloomsbury: Honeysuckle: A Novel by Bar Fridman-Tell.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Bear and the Nightingale meets Weyward in this enchanting, deeply compelling debut about love and power, autonomy and consent.

Once upon a time, on the edge between meadow and forest, there was a lonely child with only his older sister for company. In exchange for being left in peace, his sister made him a playmate-Daye, a girl woven from flowers and words. And for the first time, this boy, Rory, had a friend.

Rory couldn't be happier, until he learns that Daye is a short-lived creature. At the end of each season, she must be woven back together or fall gruesomely apart. And every time Daye falls apart might be her last.

As Rory and Daye grow older and the line between friendship and romance begins to blur, Rory becomes desperate to break this cycle of bloom and decay. But the farther Rory pushes his research and experiments to lengthen Daye's existence, the more Daye begins to wonder just how much control she really has over her own life.

As a loose reimagining of the story of Blodeuwedd from Welsh mythology, Honeysuckle is an entrancing, inventive, and unsettling debut.

Visit Bar Fridman-Tell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Illegality in the Heartland"

New from the University of California Press: Illegality in the Heartland: Latinidad, Indigeneity, and Immigration Policies during Times of Hate by Andrea Gómez Cervantes.

About the book, from the publisher:

Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic participant observation, Illegality in the Heartland interrogates existing understandings of illegality and Latinidad by centering the voices and experiences of Indigenous and mestizo Latino immigrants in the American heartland during the first Trump administration, a distinct era of political uncertainty. Immigration policies and political narratives have long tied those suspected of being "illegal" to perceptions of Mexican origin and stereotypes associated with Hispanics more broadly. Likewise, Latin American immigrants in the United States have been positioned as a single group, thereby collapsing ethnoracial distinctions under the umbrella identities of Hispanic, Latina/o, or Latinx/e. Andrea Gómez Cervantes examines these ethnoracial divides among Latino immigrants as they seek to navigate life and make Kansas their home while undocumented. This work shines a crucial light on how immigration laws, racialization, and gender mechanisms intersect in spaces where immigrants are not yet an established part of the public imaginary—even as they make essential contributions to their communities and mobilize as increasingly influential constituents in their own right.

Visit Andrea Gómez Cervantes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ways to Find Yourself"

Coming May 1 from Little A: Ways to Find Yourself by Angela Brown.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman adrift finds a unique path forward in a charming and heartfelt novel about memories, identity, and the wonderful mysteries of life by the author of Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time.

Grace Whittaker's life is coming apart.

In the wake of her mother's death, a stalled writing career, and a slow-motion separation from her husband, Grace is more directionless than ever. But when she returns to Sea Drift, the beach town where she and her mother summered for years, Grace's life comes together in the most unexpected ways.

Soon after arriving on the picturesque coastline that meant so much to her, Grace discovers more than she remembers, and for reasons she can't possibly fathom. Amid the weathered surf shops, pastel motels, and sloping beaches, Grace begins to encounter younger versions of herself. Each one is vivid, alive, and breathtakingly real.

As she navigates this most surreal week--reconnecting with old friends, trying to solve a quiet mystery about her mother, and revisiting a love she left behind--Grace is forced to remember who she used to be. It's the only way she can figure out who she can still become.

Visit Angela Brown's website.

The Page 69 Test: Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time.

Q&A with Angela Brown.

The Page 69 Test: Some Other Time.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Tower and the Ruin"

New from W.W. Norton: The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Creation by Michael D.C. Drout.

About the book, from the publisher:

A leading scholar draws on fifty years of reading and studying J.R.R. Tolkien to explain how he created an entire world.

No writer has surpassed the epic achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, who spent decades refining his world of Middle-earth—a world that has felt so real to so many readers that it is almost impossible to imagine that anyone could have created it, seemingly out of thin air. In The Tower and the Ruin, Michael D. C. Drout explores Tolkien’s genius, allowing us to glimpse the making of every work from The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion to lesser-known books such as The Fall of Gondolin as well as his poetry. We see how Tolkien invented myths, legends, cultures, languages, histories, and an intricate, multivocal narrative. We come to understand how, early on, Tolkien drew upon and modified material he found in Beowulf, the Kalevala, and other medieval literature from Northern Europe, and how he later developed the complex form of sorrow that is the primary theme of his mature works. Sweeping and hugely perceptive—and enhanced throughout by Drout’s personal reflections as a dedicated reader of Tolkien since childhood—The Tower and the Ruin illuminates Tolkien anew.

Visit Michael Drout's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You Can Tell Me"

Coming May 12 from Montlake: You Can Tell Me (Olivia Cruz) by Melinda Leigh.

About the book, from the publisher:

Crime writer Olivia Cruz is drawn into the dark secrets of a missing friend in a terrifying novel of suspense by #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

On the three-year anniversary of true crime writer Olivia Cruz’s horrific kidnapping, she’s scheduled to walk her podcaster friend Zoe March through the crime scene, but Zoe fails to show. Olivia knows Zoe would never stand her up―not today.

Zoe’s husband, who claims she never came home the night before, has reported her missing. But marital conflicts make the police suspect she has left him. Olivia thinks otherwise. The police aren’t looking for Zoe, so Olivia begins her own investigation. Retracing her friend’s last steps, she finds Zoe’s phone and a text with one chilling word: Run.

It soon becomes apparent that Zoe has been keeping secrets, and with her true crime podcast, there’s no telling what she has unearthed. To find her, Olivia must dig into her friend’s past. Did Zoe vanish to escape a killer, and is Olivia walking into a deadly trap?

Visit Melinda Leigh's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fictions of God"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Fictions of God: English Renaissance Literature and the Invention of the Biblical Narrator by Raphael Magarik.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new history of literary narration rooted in the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation.

We often identify secularization's characteristic literary form as the modern novel: out with divine scripture, in with human fictions. In Fictions of God, Raphael Magarik argues that this story overlooks the cultural upheavals of the Protestant Reformation. Early reformers imagined a Bible that was neither infallible nor inerrant but fictional, composed by a divine counterfactual: God crafted the text, they said, as if it had been written by the prophets. Early modern Protestants now found in their Bibles not a source of foundational truths but a model for unreliable narration, even fiction.

Fictions of God traces how this approach to literature passed from biblical commentators to poets like Abraham Cowley, John Milton, and Lucy Hutchinson amid the violent emergence of a new religious and political order—long before the eighteenth-century rise of the English novel. The result is a transformative account of the Reformation’s effect on imaginative literature and the secularization of the Bible itself.

--Marshal Zeringue