"Seeing Red"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Seeing Red (DI Nick Dixon Crime) by Damien Boyd.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the bestselling DI Nick Dixon crime series, secrets, lies, and a truth buried in a borrowed grave.

A body is found in a newly dug grave in a rural Somerset churchyard. The murder matches a series of brutal attacks blamed on a serial killer in Devon, and a DNA profile neatly points to the same suspect.

Fresh from another bruising encounter with the Professional Standards Department, Acting Detective Superintendent Nick Dixon knows the scene is wrong and the evidence staged―someone else has engineered this killing to silence the victim.

Ordered not to overcomplicate the investigation, and with his judgement under scrutiny, Dixon must choose between the convenient solution or digging deeper to uncover a truth someone is desperate to hide.

Visit Damien Boyd's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rebellious Citizens"

New from University of Nebraska Press: Rebellious Citizens: Social Upheaval and Democracy in Revolutionary Mexico by Ulices Piña.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Rebellious Citizens Ulices Piña shows that democracy in Mexico has never been the exclusive domain of elites, nor confined to the ballot box. Focusing on the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20, Piña explores how citizens forged a substantive democratic culture in the crucible of three successive social upheavals that shook the established social order in the central western state of Jalisco during the 1920s and 1930s―a formative period in the nation’s political history.

Piña examines how ordinary Mexicans actively shaped the political process, made their own history, and fought for equality in the country’s long fight for democracy. The long-term effects of the recurring uprisings in Jalisco were central to the new political system produced by the postrevolutionary state: After each rebellion, authorities consolidated institutional power, elected officials debated the strictures of government, and ordinary people grappled with the promise and limits of political emancipation. Because of the contradictions that arose from the creation of this modern political system, especially those that emerged at the nexus of democratic inclusion and authoritarian rule, seemingly powerless populations claimed equality, exercised participation rights, and demanded respect, even amid the violence and surveillance the state deployed against marginal groups to achieve its goals. Rebellious Citizens brings into focus the struggles of ordinary people to experiment with new ways of doing politics to remake the nation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Meet Me in the Garden"

New from Flatiron Books: Meet Me in the Garden: A Novel by Nina LaCour.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING author Nina LaCour comes a GORGEOUS FAMILY STORY about self-discovery and love in all forms, inspired by the author's Creole roots

New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom.

But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.

Profound and expansive, a story of love and longing, art and motherhood, friendship and desire, Meet Me in the Garden is a decades-spanning tour de force, inspired by the author’s family and tracing the history of the Great Migration.

Visit Nina LaCour's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beholden to Beauty"

New from Oxford University Press: Beholden to Beauty: Aesthetic Value and the Authority of Pleasure by Keren Gorodeisky.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beauty surrounds us―in art that captivates, in landscapes that move us, and in countless aspects of life. Yet beauty remains philosophically puzzling. How can something so deeply tied to feeling also demand rational responsiveness? How can aesthetic value be at once personal, social, and universal?

In Beholden to Beauty, Keren Gorodeisky confronts these questions with rigor and insight. She argues that our sense of being beholden to beauty―and its inseparable connection to feeling―is not a paradox but a key to understanding the nature of aesthetic value. Beauty, like admirability or suffering, calls for emotional responsiveness. To be true to beauty is not merely to recognize its worth but to feel a distinctive kind of pleasure―one that belongs to a rational capacity for feeling, a core dimension of human agency. Rejecting views that reduce aesthetic value to the goodness of pleasure or the goodness of the capacity for feeling it, Gorodeisky shows that the pleasure that is responsive to beauty is not opaque to the world but rather revelatory of it. In doing so, she resolves some of the deepest puzzles about beauty, revealing it as intelligible only in light of our shared human capacity for feeling.

Profound, original, and elegantly argued, Beholden to Beauty offers a transformative account of why beauty matters―and why our response to it is essential to who we are.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Just the Good Parts"

Coming September 29 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Just the Good Parts by Robbie Couch.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow comes a stunningly romantic, speculative novel about a teen looking for his missing dad, who keeps getting pulled into others’ memories and crossing paths with a handsome stranger who also doesn’t belong there.

Caspen Coolsby’s dad is missing. But even though it’s only been a few months, everyone has given up on finding him. Except for Caspen.

He finally gets a break in the case when he meets his new upstairs neighbors and discovers he can somehow transport himself into each of the college students’ memories using candle scents that remind them of important moments. No one loved candles more than his dad, so Caspen is sure there must be clues pointing toward where to find him hidden in the memories.

His thinking hits a snag, though, when a handsome boy named Lars keeps popping up in memories where he also doesn’t belong. As the lines between memory and reality begin to blur, Caspen can’t help but fall for the mysterious boy who keeps chipping away at the rose-colored lens he’s always seen life through. But will Caspen be able to find his dad and his crush outside of these stolen moments if it means reliving the hard truths of his past and not just the good parts?

Visit Robbie Couch's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tempering Power"

New from Cambridge University Press: Tempering Power: Beyond the Rule of Law by Martin Krygier.

About the book, from the publisher:

What is the rule of law for? What does that take? Why does it matter? There is little clarity and less agreement about any of these questions. That is partly because they are hard, but it is also because we generally do not think especially well about them. Yet they are rarely more important than today, and there are better ways to think. In this seminal book, Martin Krygier combines an account of conventional assumptions, a fundamental critique of them, and an alternative way of thinking about the purpose, the value, and the significance of the rule of law, in light of the goal it should serve: tempering power. In this time of widespread intemperate abuse of power throughout the world, these concerns are not merely analytical, academic, or even legal. They are social, political, and moral, and everyone's business. And the stakes are high.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything That Is Beautiful"

New from Harper: Everything That Is Beautiful: A Novel by Louise Nealon.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The #1 internationally bestselling, award-winning author of Snowflake returns with a luminous portrait of two Irish families riven by one great secret.

For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family. Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate—while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player.

Now, following a distressing series of events, those ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter who can’t understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago. Helen tries her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of old classmates. And Kate, living in Belfast, works to maintain her job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family's secrets.

As a family wedding looms, Niamh, Helen, and Kate find themselves face to face once again—and the knotty love that has bound them might just bring them back together again.

Told through the perspectives of three very different women, Everything That Is Beautiful is an unforgettable story of love and family, heartbreak and hope—and who we might become after we pick up the pieces.

Visit Louise Nealon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Social Influence and the Logic of Collective Action"

New from Princeton University Press: Social Influence and the Logic of Collective Action by Sergey Gavrilets.

About the book, from the publisher:

An integrated quantitative framework for understanding the dynamics of collective action

Collective action has been a fundamental aspect of human societies throughout history, from building irrigation systems and defenses in Neolithic times to coordinated disaster relief and scientific collaborations today. In this book, Sergey Gavrilets explains when and why groups of people cooperate, presenting a quantitative framework that unifies game theory with models of social influence, cognition, and individual and cultural variation. He shows how humans’ deep susceptibility to social influence—grounded in evolutionary need to cooperate and learn from peers, reinforced by deference to parents and elders, and extended to cultural, religious, and political leaders—shapes norms, beliefs, and collective outcomes.

Integrating previously separate literatures, Gavrilets introduces explicit dynamics for norms and beliefs, quantifies the effects of individual and cultural differences, and tests predictions across societies. Drawing on formal, data-based mathematical modeling supported by behavioral experiments and studies of online behavior, he concludes that successful collective action depends on six interacting forces: material payoffs, personal norms and attitudes, social influence, cognition, evolving social norms and beliefs about others, and individual and cultural differences. Lasting cultural change, he argues, depends on norms and institutions that shape behavior through persuasion, nudging, and enforcement. Gavrilets translates this theory into practical, testable strategies for policy and design, including targeted messaging, dynamic norms, and culturally sensitive approaches, and connects it to broader theories of behavior change.

Visit Sergey Gavrilets's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Art of Charming a Changeling"

Coming August 25 from Orbit: The Art of Charming a Changeling (Pigments & Paramours, 1) by Sylvie Cathrall.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cozy slice-of-life romantic fantasy set in a Regency-inspired world where humans and fairies compete for artistic supremacy, from Sylvie Cathrall, author of A Letter to the Luminous Deep.

On her first day working in the prince’s galleries, art conservator Florrie Hyverfell discovers that the most famous portrait in the collection is not only a fake―it’s also inhabited by Vern, a fairy trapped in the forged painting.

Tracking down the stolen original is the only way for Florrie to save her job and for Vern to escape his canvas. Yet as they journey to a famed fairy museum to find the missing artwork, Florrie finds herself taking more than an art historical interest in the changeling painting’s charming inhabitant.

Visit Sylvie Cathrall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Speak American"

New from the University of Hawaii Press: Speak American: The Politics of Race, Language, and Education in Territorial Hawai‘i by Christine R. Yano.

About the book, from the publisher:

Speak American explores how language tied together race, power, and citizenship in Territorial Hawai‘i from 1924 to 1960 via the public K–12 English Standard School System. In this segregated system, children were tested for spoken English fluency: those who passed were placed in elite classes or schools, while others remained in regular classrooms. Proposed by white mothers, the policy used language as a tool to implement de facto racial separation, privileging those who already spoke English rather than teaching it to those who didn’t. This dynamic was enabled by “listening regimes” (disciplinary practices that trained educators and the public to listen for and reward Standard English), while marginalizing Hawai‘i Creole English, the everyday language of plantation and urban life.

Drawing on archival records, interviews, and school alumni events, the book introduces the concept of the “panauricon”―a listening-based counterpart to Foucault’s visual panopticon―to describe how language surveillance reinforced and extended social hierarchies. A century later, debates over monolingualism and national identity persist, making this study of Hawai‘i’s historic linguistic politics both timely and urgent.

--Marshal Zeringue