"The First Emancipation"

New from Princeton University Press: The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France by Jeremy D. Popkin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new history of slavery and the French Revolution

The First Emancipation is a dramatic account of how slavery and race profoundly influenced the course of the French Revolution and had a central impact on the lives of key leaders, including Mirabeau, Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon. Acclaimed historian Jeremy D. Popkin brings this often-forgotten story to life, highlighting the arguments put forward by French abolitionists and their opponents and the profound repercussions of the first abolition of slavery in a Western empire.

When the French revolutionaries passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, they immediately faced a burning question: did that document’s first article—“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”—apply to the 800,000 enslaved Black people in the country’s colonies? Over the next dozen years, revolutionary leaders fought over this question. The First Emancipation tells how French lawmakers initially protected slavery in their constitution but reversed themselves in 1794, making France the first western country to abolish slavery throughout its empire. Yet only eight years later, in 1802, Napoleon tried to force the emancipated Black populations of the colonies back into slavery. His decision led to his first major military defeat and to the proclamation of the independence of the Black nation of Haiti, but also to the reestablishment of slavery in other French colonies, where it would not finally be abolished until 1848.

The story of how France emancipated its enslaved people and declared them full citizens only to return many of them to bondage, The First Emancipation reveals that the course of abolition in the modern world was more winding and halting than is often remembered.

The Page 99 Test: A New World Begins.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Last Sunday in May"

New from Lake Union: The Last Sunday in May: A Novel by Kate Clark Stone.

About the novel, from the publisher:

She’s a single mom, a devoted daughter, and an Indy 500 hopeful daring to dream in an exhilarating and emotional novel about family, ambition, and second chances.

Mack Williams was the next big thing in motorsports. Until her wild ways forced her to leave racing in her rearview mirror. Ten years later, she’s a single mom in rural Indiana, with a struggling family business and a dad who needs full-time care. The fastest woman on four wheels now drives car pool, her dreams turned to dust.

But Mack’s childhood idol, Janet Joyner, still sees the spark. Famed for breaking gender barriers on the track, Janet gives Mack a last-ditch chance to qualify for the coveted Indy 500. Mack thought her days of impulsive choices were over, but she can’t say no, whatever the risks―moving in with her estranged sister, facing down her daughter’s absentee father, and working with Mack’s new teammate, Leo. He’s gorgeous, supportive, and every kind of distraction Mack can’t afford.

Juggling her personal life with a professional dream close within reach, Mack won’t let a second chance slip away again. Win or lose, the stakes have never been higher.

Visit Kate Clark Stone's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Fanatics"

New from NYU Press: American Fanatics: Religion, Rebellion, and Empire in the Nineteenth Century by Jeffrey Wheatley.

About the book, from the publiser:

Shows how religious fanaticism became a tool used to police subversive and targeted religions at home and abroad

In 1822, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the “atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism.” Indeed, during the nineteenth century the United States was full of radical theologies, messiahs, utopian dreams, passionate exhortations, and sacred violence. This book seeks to uncover the history, rationales, and effects of understandings of religious fanaticism, and how the term was wielded to describe and denigrate a diverse array of religious groups in the United States.

American Fanatics traces the development and popularization of religious fanaticism—a precursor to today’s categories of religious terrorism, radicalism, and extremism—and explores the violence hidden in its usage. From the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s to the US occupation of the Philippines in the early 1900s, the book follows the rise of the concept through distinct conflicts over evangelical revivals, abolition, literature, psychiatry, and colonial anthropology. It charts how the term “fanatic” started out as a marker for excessive religious practices, but evolved into a religio-racial category that framed resistance to power as overly emotional, delusional, and inherently violent.

American Fanatics illuminates how from the colonial period to the nineteenth century, Americans transformed “fanaticism” from a term of Christian theology into one of religio-racial security, wielding it as a tool of domestic and imperial governance.

Visit Jeffrey Wheatley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hot Wings and Homicide"

Coming soon from Crooked Lane Books: Hot Wings and Homicide: A Food Truck Mystery by Carmela Dutra.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Twins Beth and Seth Lloyd are on the chopping block in the follow-up to A Murder Most Fowl, where a perfect recipe for murder is stirred up.

Business at Kluckin’ Good is smoking hot. To keep momentum going, Beth and her twin brother, Seth, just scored a prime spot at the Flavors of the Bay Food Festival. For three and a half days, food lovers will flock to the Bay Area’s biggest culinary event to enjoy gourmet food trucks, cook-offs, and live music, but this recipe for success is also the perfect setup for murder.

When the infamous food critic Brad Dawson—also Beth’s ex—turns up dead, the only clue at the scene of the crime is a Kluckin’ Good tumbler mug. The timing couldn’t be worse. Beth and Brad were seen in a heated altercation, and days prior, witnesses saw Seth punch Brad. Suspicion naturally falls on the twins. With the cops hot on their trail, Beth will have to avoid the flames to clear their names and save her food truck’s reputation.

But the chickens are out of the coop, and as Beth digs into Brad’s final hours, she will uncover rivalries, grudges, and a different side of Brad she never knew. If she doesn’t crack the case soon, she might be the next one to get cooked. Best of cluck!

A mouthwatering mystery for fans of Joanne Fluke that will leave you peckish for more.

Visit Carmela Dutra's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond Belief"

New from Princeton University Press: Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works by Helen Pearson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The remarkable story of the global movement championing the idea that evidence, not opinions, should guide our decisions

Today, more and more people around the globe are using scientific evidence to figure out what works—in health, government and business as well as conservation, schools and parenting. This wasn’t always the case. This book tells the story of the evidence revolution—a worldwide movement that promotes evidence-based thinking—and shows how it can help us all, especially in an age of alternative facts.

For many years, most medical advice was based on doctors’ opinions and conventional wisdom, not solid science. Helen Pearson describes how evidence-based medicine swept the world in the 1990s—becoming the predominant form of medicine practiced today—and how the idea that evidence should guide decisions is quietly transforming a host of other fields as well. Do police patrols reduce crime? Do performance appraisals boost job performance? Do welfare programs help the poor? Do smaller classes aid learning? Do smartphones harm teenagers? At a time when science is under attack and questionable claims run rampant, Pearson underscores the importance of evidence in all facets of our lives, empowering each of us to sift fact from falsehood and misinformation from the truth.

Essential reading for the rational-minded, Beyond Belief is an engaging portrait of the mavericks, visionaries and rebels who share the simple belief that decisions based on evidence make the world a better place.

Visit Helen Pearson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lifeguard"

New from Red Hen Press: The Lifeguard: A Novel by Laura Kasischke.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is a novel about grief and ambition, innocence and blame—a tale that spools out of and around a Midwestern swimming pool one summer afternoon, 1969, and into the future of an America yet to be imagined.

In the town of Mission Hills, Michigan, an elementary school child drowns in the Olympic-sized pool at a summer swim club. By most, but not all, the lifeguard on duty that afternoon—a teenage girl who becomes the town’s scapegoat, bearing the weight of their grief and fears—is seen as responsible for the tragedy.

Kasischke weaves together overlapping narratives and shifting perspectives, gradually peeling back the layers of what really happened that day. Through poetic, sensory-rich prose, she explores the liminal spaces between memory and reality, innocence and culpability, childhood and adulthood. The story probes the arbitrary, inexorable nature of fate—how a single moment can alter lives forever, and how the search for answers can reveal unsettling truths about ourselves and those around us.

Visit Laura Kasischke's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prison Song"

New from the University of Michigan Press: Prison Song: Music and Incarceration in the United States by David Metzer.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Johnny Cash to Jay-Z, musicians have long used their voices to challenge the injustices of the prison system. Prison Song: Music and Incarceration in the United States reveals how musicians have confronted the prison system by telling the life stories of imprisoned individuals, creating empathetic bonds between listeners and those individuals, and critiquing the racial and social inequalities that incarceration preys upon. Prison Song takes a broad, interdisciplinary approach to explore how artists across genres—hip hop, country, blues, folk, rock, jazz, and classical—have protested the prison system. David Metzer examines the works of incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and non-incarcerated musicians from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including prison records, government reports, legislation, court decisions, and scholarship from carceral studies, each chapter reveals how musicians responded to developments in the prison system at particular historical moments and how their works have shaped public understanding of the prison system in the United States.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wake-Up Calls"

New from Montlake: Wake-Up Calls: A Novel by Mariah Stewart.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman’s surprising inheritance opens the door to her family’s secrets in a moving novel about healing, forgiveness, and second chances by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart.

Kit Porterfield is coping with the upheaval of her personal life when another shock blindsides her. Maxine Meadows, an aunt she never knew existed, has bequeathed to her a rustic campground in Maine. With it comes a long-buried family secret that Kit’s late mother took great pains to hide for her entire life.

When Kit arrives to tenuously claim her inheritance, she learns the town’s history and finds the lakeside sporting camp and its beautiful wooded acres in need of restoration to their former glory. But it’s Kit’s own history that compels her to stay, and she’s not returning home until she uncovers the secrets that tore two sisters apart so many years ago.

Kit soon discovers clues in old photographs and in the tale of a tragic and enduring love story, but the most startling revelations are yet to come. For Kit, they could be the path to understanding the mystery that defined her mother’s life―and her own.

Visit Mariah Stewart's website.

Writers Read: Mariah Stewart (March 2019).

The Page 69 Test: The Goodbye Café.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Man Who Knew Russia"

New from Stanford University Press: The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior by Jonathan Daly.

About the book, from the publisher:

Richard Pipes was a longtime Harvard University professor, historian of Imperial and Soviet Russia, and influential Soviet expert during the Cold War. A towering figure in his field, Pipes produced work that shaped the study of Russian and Soviet history, and he influenced U.S. foreign policy as a public intellectual and political advisor, including as a member of the National Security Council during the Reagan administration. At the same time, Pipes was a controversial figure; his tendency to swim against the intellectual tide and challenge consensus views alienated some colleagues and angered others.

In this biography, Daly cuts through the controversy surrounding Pipes to present a nuanced portrait of his life, thinking, and the philosophical and ethical principles that underpinned his work. Placing Pipes' scholarship and political career in the context of Russian studies, U.S.-Soviet relations, and the Cold War, Daly elucidates Pipes' impact, and argues that his broad learning, keen historical judgment, and humanistic approach permitted him to attain a deep understanding of Russia's historical and contemporary development that continues to resonate today.

Visit Jonathan Daly's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All Us Saints"

Coming May 19 from Bloomsbury: All Us Saints: A Novel by Katherine Packert Burke.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the author of the "vibrantly, brilliantly alive" (James Frankie Thomas) Still Life, a haunted family reenacts the violent night their lives changed forever.

Exactly 19 years ago, in May of 1992, 17-year-old Roland St. Cloud fatally stabbed his twin sister Edna's three best friends. The slaying became instant tabloid fodder leading to a bestselling true-crime book and horror movie franchise. Each year on the anniversary of her family's undoing, Edna reenacts the murders. She is joined by her husband, Roger, the night's definitive chronicler; her younger sister Calla, a failed playwright who spends her days lost in online gaming; her younger brother James and his girlfriend Heather; and her teenage daughter Wren. Together, the St. Cloud family seals the windows and doors of the house and lights a grim candle. After their macabre theatrics there's nothing to do but wait for dawn, talk among themselves, and remember.

All Us Saints is a literary family drama packaged as a two-act play. Behind the curtain, Packert Burke unveils Roland's childhood as a closeted trans girl in the early 90s and offers a brilliant and scathing commentary on the cisgender gaze.

Visit Katherine Packert Burke's website.

--Marshal Zeringue