"A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord"

New from Berkley: A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord (The Heiress Hunters) by Shana Galen.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A down-on-her-luck shop girl and the son of an earl find they have more in common than they thought—including sexual chemistry they can’t resist—in this fresh Regency romance by Shana Galen.

Tamsin Archer might just be having the worst year of her life. And that’s saying something, considering her father is dead, her mother was maimed at work, and her family regularly sleeps under London’s bridges. But when her younger siblings go missing, Tamsin decides it’s time to step up and fight.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Tamsin’s more than willing to take a few risks to reunite with her siblings. But while disguising herself to sneak into homes and steal from the rich, Tamsin is caught by Garret Kildare, the second son of an earl. Much to Tamsin’s surprise, Garret doesn’t want to turn her in. He wants to help her. Though Tamsin’s wary—she’s learned to never trust supposed “good luck”—the unlikely pair form an alliance, one that quickly muddles their class differences.

Garret knows he must be careful. Falling for a woman of a lower class could be the nail in the coffin for his family’s tenuous social standing, and there are eyes everywhere. Ignoring their attraction proves impossible, though, and soon the lines they’ve drawn around their partnership begin to blur. As more focus lands on Tamsin and Garret, they wonder if their red-hot connection means giving up everything—and everyone—they’ve ever known.

Visit Shana Galen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spheres of Control"

New from Oxford University Press: Spheres of Control: The Origins of Government in Early Rome by Fred K. Drogula.

About the book, from the publisher:

The origins and development of early Rome had already faded into legend by the time its people began writing down the history of their city. Rome's first historians relied heavily on cultural memory when reconstructing the past, but memory constantly reinterprets and reshapes the information it preserves to keep it relevant and meaningful to successive generations. The stories familiar to those first historians had already gone through many generations of reworking and adaption, a process that disguised change and caused the historians to present the government of early Rome as being anachronistically similar to the government of the later Republic. This gradual recontextualization resulted in the surviving narrative tradition, which minimizes and even conceals developments and presents the Roman government as remaining largely unchanged over five centuries.

In Spheres of Control, Fred K. Drogula argues first that understanding Roman historiography makes it possible to identify and remove many of the most common errors, anachronisms, and fictions that appear in these narratives. He also argues that--once any erroneous material is removed from traditional accounts--the remaining information not only maps easily onto the new historical framework, but doing so creates a more logical and cohesive reconstruction of Rome's early development and resolves many problems that scholars have identified with the existing narrative tradition. Drogula shows that a new reconstruction of the development of government in early Rome can be found by removing material from the traditional narratives that is likely to be erroneous and by recontextualizing the material that remains into a framework based on archaeological discoveries and new readings of ancient texts.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Come Apart"

New from TriQuarterly: The Come Apart: A Novel by Susannah Felts.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An authentic rock band story from Chicago to Nashville and, just maybe, back again

On the cusp of turning thirty, Chicago indie musician Maggie Corbin has hustled for a decade, set on making her rock and roll dreams come true. Her band, Spinning Birds, fronted by Maggie and her romantic partner Matt Turkish, releases a debut record to critical acclaim, hits the road, and begins working on a follow-up. From the outside, her path looks like success―but as streaming deconstructs the industry and Maggie’s relationships shift and slip, the question remains: Can you live for art alone?

When a sudden move back to the South forces Maggie to reframe her dreams and reckon with familial rifts and her past―while still fighting to reimagine what her future could be―a natural disaster in Nashville and a surprise encounter with a character from her childhood shift her perspective on healing, community, and the ties that bind. Drifting in and out of songwriting sessions, cozy kitchens, and moments of bearing witness to the curious power of the natural world, The Come Apart celebrates the times when we must come fully undone in order to put ourselves back together.

Visit Susannah Felts's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fugitive Religion"

New from Yale University Press: Fugitive Religion: The Ghost Dance and Indigenous Resistance After the U.S. Civil War by Tiffany M. Hale.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bird’s-eye look at the Ghost Dance, the first instance of modern, collective racial self-consciousness for Native peoples in the United States

From the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) to the Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890), Indigenous religious practices―legally banned after 1883―took on new meanings as acts of defiance against colonialism and white supremacy. By reexamining the familiar story of the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Massacre and placing it into the context of resistance by Black and Native peoples during Reconstruction and Redemption, historian Tiffany M. Hale explains the Ghost Dance not just as a religious movement but also as a complex social phenomenon that enabled Indigenous people to maintain their identities and communities despite the pervasive force of colonialism and the challenges of modernity.

Chronicling how individual Native people, their families, and communities navigated the fraught post–Civil War conditions of the United States, Hale suggests that Ghost Dances hold something in common with blues traditions of working-class African Americans. By giving Ghost Dance participants a chance to reflect on their lived experiences of warfare, deracination, and diplomacy, “fugitive religion” helped create modern racial self-consciousness in the United States.

Visit Tiffany M. Hale's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Obstetrix"

New from Tordotcom: Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer.

About the novella, from the publisher:

From the Hugo award-winning author Naomi Kritzer comes a tense portrait of a future we desperately hope to escape.

O Lord, deliver us.

Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she's kidnapped.

They're not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN.

Guarded, isolated, without access to the outside world, Liz nevertheless is treated with respect as the only doctor on the compound, but she is very aware of what happened to the last obstetrician they kidnapped.

She must escape, and bring help to the girls trapped at the compound, if it's the last thing she does.

Visit Naomi Kritzer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Frenzy in Early Modern England"

New from Cambridge University Press: Frenzy in Early Modern England: Madness, Brain Disease and the Soul by Philippa Carter.

About the book, from the publisher:

Today, frenzy is the stuff of newspaper headlines. Five hundred years ago, it described a disease which could kill its sufferers within days. This book offers the first full-length study of frenzy, providing a fresh perspective on early modern understandings of mental illness, mind-body relations, and personhood. Frenzy was frightening not just because it killed its sufferers, but because it changed them beyond recognition. It gave the impression that what was then the most precious part of the person – the soul – was as easy to damage as the body. Frenzy in Early Modern England deepens and complicates our sense of what madness meant in this period, both to those who assigned the label, and to those who lived with it. This is an important intervention in the often-fragmented historiography of early modern madness, combining intellectual, social, and cultural history with the history of medicine.

--Marshal Zeringue

"World News from Waverley High"

Coming September 8 from She Writes Press: World News from Waverley High: A Novel by Linda Kass.

About the book, from the publisher:

A tale of identity, activism, and finding your voice in a world on fire, this coming-of-age novel set at an urban high school captures a singular moment in American history—through the eyes of one unforgettable girl.

1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests—while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.

As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena’s own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace—and to hope for a better world.

Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.

Visit Linda Kass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Landscaping Africa"

New from the University of California Press: Landscaping Africa: The Politics of Place and Belonging in Senegal by Michael C. Lambert.

About the book, from the publisher:

How has European imperialism (re)made the world? How can we understand this long process and its consequences in ways that capture both the materiality and the subjectivity of political domination? Inspired by Frantz Fanon's insight that colonization entails the (re)crafting of geographic space, Landscaping Africa develops the concept of "landscaping" to explore the enduring global impact of European imperialism. Written by an Indigenous anthropologist, this book also demonstrates how Indigenous peoples, in Africa and beyond, are building upon and tearing apart European colonial projects. Michael C. Lambert probes three cases of landscaping involving the West African nation of Senegal: the forging of an international border between Senegal and Mauritania, the imposition of rural-urban distinctions, and the deployment of immigration policy to divide the Global North and South. This book illuminates how borders and boundaries are made, and made meaningful, through domination, resistance, and struggles over belonging.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Man Overboard!"

Coming July 7 from Gallery Books: Man Overboard!: A Novel by Kathleen Rooney.

About the book, from the publisher:

Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle.

Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping? He can’t remember as the all-inclusive drinks on the cruise he was taking with his extended family were, well, inclusive) Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea.

As the waves crash over him, so too do the thoughts and memories of just how he got there. A Thanksgiving cruise with an obnoxious brother-in-law he has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at. A father who gives the Great Santini a run for his money. And a mother who already left the family boat, so to speak, a long time ago. His family may be complicated, and the pains of life may seem unbearable—infuriating enough to leap from the deck—but maybe the will to survive is stronger.

Man Overboard! is an inventive, slyly hilarious, and inspiring novel about what it means to be alive and stay alive, and what keeps us going no matter how choppy the waves of our journey become. Hold on for dear life!

Visit Kathleen Rooney's website.

The Page 99 Test: Live Nude Girl.

The Page 99 Test: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

The Page 69 Test: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

My Book, The Movie: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (July 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Where Are the Snows.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2022).

The Page 69 Test: From Dust to Stardust.

My Book, The Movie: From Dust to Stardust.

Q&A with Kathleen Rooney.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Unlocking Justice"

New from Princeton University Press: Unlocking Justice: The Power of Data to Confront Inequity and Create Change by Chad M. Topaz.

About the book, from the publisher:

How we can challenge social injustice—with data and humanity

The American legal system does not offer equal justice to all; we can see obvious racial disparities in sentencing, policing, and incarceration. In Unlocking Justice, Chad Topaz offers a concrete way forward, demonstrating how a candid dialogue between social justice and data science can empower communities, spark informed debate, and inspire advocacy. In addition to big ideas, Topaz brings the receipts—the data. Drawing on unedited police call logs, chaotic city websites, fragmented judicial records, and other overlooked sources, Topaz explains how social forces shape the data we collect, influencing whose voices are heard and whose remain unheard. From a rural New England town plagued by police misconduct to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail, the stories Topaz tells demonstrate how numbers can expose injustice—and how data can underpin activism.

Topaz shows readers how to interpret data in context and question underlying assumptions, providing even those who might be math-averse with practical tools to challenge inequities. He takes readers through his own data science activism, including an examination of public judicial data that revealed the identities of judges who imposed excessive bail; a data-driven investigation of racial disparities in policing, prompted by a police station’s openly displayed portrait of Hitler; and an analysis of Florida’s controversial risk algorithm, COMPAS, for racial bias. The book’s “Show Your Work” companion website connects readers to data sources and the studies behind the stories. When we are armed with the facts and the numbers, Topaz assures us, we can all be effective advocates for transparency, accountability, and justice.

Visit Chad M. Topaz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue