"Harbour of Hungry Ghosts"

New from Orbit: Harbour of Hungry Ghosts (Chronicles of the Yiugwai Hunters, 1) by Eliza Chan.

About the novel, from the publisher:

"My name is not Kim, it's Kiamling. It means Sword Spirit. I was forged to cut down the undead. Demons and monsters aren't just in your storybooks, they walk among us."

The Au family serve the people of Hong Kong: blessing shrines, honouring the dead and dealing with dangerous monster incursions. The expectations on eldest daughter Kiamling are high, which is not something her strict grandmother will let her forget.

When the British disrupt the Hungry Ghosts festival and her grandmother is seized by a strange new monster, Kiamling must step up and lead the search. She is aided by unexpected allies: Archie, an earnest civil servant, Hoi gor, childhood sweetheart turned merchant-pirate and Jingling, her younger sister keeping secrets of her own. Kiamling must figure out who is behind the incursion and more importantly, how to defeat them.

With British fables mingling with local Chinese monsters, can Kiamling prove herself, when the old rules no longer seem to apply?

Babel meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer—a family of demon hunters find their hands full when unfamiliar monsters start stalking the streets of Opium War-era Hong Kong, in this historical fantasy adventure from No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller Eliza Chan.

Visit Eliza Chan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lady Daredevils"

New from the University of Illinois Press: Lady Daredevils: American Women and Early Aviation by Barbara Ganson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though often restricted as aviators, women helped build a stable aircraft industry that became the envy of the world. Barbara Ganson delves into the lives of the women whose work as test pilots, flight school owner-operators, airport managers, and in other roles impacted and reflected larger trends in society.

Women aviators challenged social norms that considered them inept with machinery and incapable of handling early flight’s very real dangers. Ganson follows how the New Woman ethos of freedom of movement and career inspired engagement with aviation. Despite resistance, women pushed limits by setting records for speed, altitude, distance, and endurance. The fashions of airwomen, meanwhile, reflected changing attitudes of women toward traditional roles and the pursuit of their career aspirations.

Informed by interviews and rare archival information, Lady Daredevils tells the stories of the pioneering women of early aviation history and reveals their dynamic interactions with social and technological change.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Night of Madness"

Coming September 29 from Simon Pulse: Night of Madness by Ryan Douglass.

About the book, from the publisher:

Teen influencers compete in a horror movie–themed overnight competition, only to realize the real test is staying alive in this chilling, blood-soaked horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Taking of Jake Livingston and the production company behind Clown in a Cornfield.

Mara is a horror buff whose only fond memories of her dad are bonding over movies by Jack Stanley—the producer of the eighties. Stanley’s campy slasher movies may have kept Mara’s fraught parental relationship on life support and gained a cult following, but the man himself has faded from the public eye…until he announces a contest centered around Asylum, his most terrifying film. Five teen influencers will be invited to spend the night on the fully constructed set; whoever sticks it out until morning wins a hundred thousand dollars.

Stuck in a dead-end job, Mara seriously needs that cash. She may not be a famous influencer, but there has to be a way to manufacture an online presence that will capture Stanley’s attention. With the help of her brother and best friend, Mara finds some creative solutions to her dilemma and lands herself onto the roster of the lucky chosen few by way of her engaging authenticity.

When Mara and the other contestants arrive on set, it’s a horror fan’s dream being immersed in the asylum setting, but as the night wears on, they realize the danger is more than movie magic… They’re not there to win or lose but to live or die. As Mara fights to survive, she discovers an inner ruthlessness she didn’t know she had. Just how far will she go to see the sunrise—and will she still recognize herself by the end?

Visit Ryan Douglass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain"

New from Oxford University Press: Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Thomas Leonard-Roy.

About the book, from the publisher:

The eighteenth century was the great age of hate-writing and hate-reading. Hatred, contempt, resentment, and disdain were immensely generative feelings for authors in Britain, written into not only malicious satires and belligerent pamphlets but also novels, biographies, letters, journals, and the margins and flyleaves of books. Writerly Hate restores the animosities of major authors from across the century--Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Horace Walpole, and Frances Burney--and shows how hatred and its sister feelings were creative forces in a thriving print market and combative literary culture.

There was no shortage of invective and abuse in eighteenth-century writing. But authors also hated in a rich variety of other styles: half-joking prejudice, withering criticism, confessional self-hate, haughty 'indifference and contempt', resentful doublespeak. Hate could be harsh and jarring, but it could also be subtle, refined, and dazzling. One does not have to look far to find warnings about hate's harmfulness, but the feeling could also be good in the way it staked out moral principles, condemned cruelty and sin, gave pleasure, and entertained loved ones. Hate vitalized eighteenth-century literary culture, and later helped shape the field of eighteenth-century studies.

Visit Thomas Leonard-Roy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"My Best French Wedding"

Coming August 11 from St. Martin's Griffin: My Best French Wedding: A Novel by Amanda Sellet.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Will it be l’amour the merrier or too haute to handle when rival reporters with a tangled history compete to tell the story of the year at a ritzy destination wedding?

Once upon a time, Walter was Hildy’s favorite person―until he crushed her teenage dreams. A decade later, she has a new beloved: the magazine she built from the ground up. Unfortunately, getting rid of Walter isn’t as easy as shedding her romantic illusions. He’s always around, vying for the juiciest scoops on the elite wedding circuit and provoking her into public displays that don’t scream “mature and sophisticated media maven.”

When Hildy scores exclusive access to the wedding of the season―a week-long parade of luxury in southern France―it’s a chance for her magazine to finally make its mark. Except Walter isn’t sitting at home crying; he’s right there in France, trying to steal Hildy’s story. Again.

Now it’s a head-to-head battle to see whose coverage will make it to print. The problem? Between the champagne and the chateaux, it’s easy to lose sight of the prize. Hildy knows better than to believe in fairy tales, but Walter is doing his best to convince her they could have a part deux.

In this gender-flipped twist on His Girl Friday, Hildy has seven days to prove she is totally over it, living her best life, and definitely not hung up on the past . . . or Walter.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (December 2022).

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (August 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Odds of Getting Even.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Darn Hot"

New from Oxford University Press: Too Darn Hot: Kiss Me, Kate & the Making and Remaking of a Broadway Musical by Hannah Robbins.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Kiss Me, Kate premiered in its first try-out performance, its future was anything but certain. Conceived and staged in just nine months of intense, sometimes chaotic collaboration, the show was a bold experiment: a backstage musical built around a Shakespearean comedy. But once the reviews rolled in, all doubts vanished. The production was a triumph, becoming the most successful stage work of both Cole Porter and the writing duo Sam and Bella Spewack.

Yet Kiss Me, Kate has never been without controversy. At its heart, the show is a backstage comedy built around a play-within-a-play adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. That choice has long invited scrutiny. From its earliest performances to its most recent revivals, Kiss Me, Kate has sparked discussion about adaptation, gender politics, and the evolving tastes of audiences. From its 1948 debut to its 75th anniversary revival, the musical has been both celebrated and critiqued, reflecting shifting cultural attitudes and artistic sensibilities.

In Too Darn Hot, author Thuraisingam Robbins traces the remarkable journey of this enduring musical, charting its development from concept to curtain call, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the artistic decisions that shaped its legacy. Through several case studies--including the lavish MGM film adaptation, a Viennese operetta-style staging, and modern Broadway revivals--Robbins examines how Kiss Me, Kate has remained relevant, provocative, and beloved. Too Darn Hot offers a compelling portrait of a show that continues to ignite conversation and captivate audiences.

Visit Hannah Robbins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killer Art"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Killer Art: A Novel by Jon St. Denis.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A pair of newbie academics find themselves reluctant sleuths and even more reluctant targets when a fellow professor turns up dead.

When art professor Vika Chen discovers the strangled body of Professor McGuire in a campus art studio, she becomes the prime suspect in a murder connected to an exhibition exposing AI-generated art.

Since local law enforcement fails to find any optional leads, Vika and her partner, journalism professor Sam Worthing, take the investigation into their own hands. Vika, who until recently worked as a curator at MoMA, and Sam, a former crime reporter for the New York Times, find themselves uniquely suited for the job.

Much to the chagrin of the police chief, the pair’s investigation pinpoints multiple suspects who might have felt threatened by the exhibition. But the stakes become deadly when someone tries to run Vika off the road.

As more bodies pile up, Vika and Sam uncover a collage of secrets that someone would kill to keep buried.

Visit Jon St. Denis's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Piratical States"

New from Cambridge University Press: Piratical States: British Imperialism in the Indian Ocean World, c.1780–1850 by Simon Layton.

About the book, from the publisher:

This deeply researched, innovative study demystifies the way we think about the pirates of world history. Simon Layton encourages readers to look beyond eighteenth-century Atlantic paradigms of rogue individuals or revolutionary collectives, placing piracy as a concept at the heart of the British imperial project in Asia in the nineteenth century. Piratical States reveals an empire bent on wresting sovereignty over maritime space with its own forms of institutional and outsourced violence. A discourse developed in the official mind of colonial 'men-on-the-spot' castigated an array of indigenous seafaring communities and interrupted state-building across the corridors and chokepoints of global trade. In reports, diaries, correspondence, and memoranda, Britain's self-declared pirate-hunters retold history through a mythology of their own making, transforming piracy into an inherently political and racial category, legitimising the wholesale erasure of their enemies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When She Was Ours"

New from Lake Union: When She Was Ours: A Novel by Anna Nordberg.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Thea Erickson, a renowned surgeon, is filled with both joy and grief as her family gathers at their home on a summer night in 1995. Her elder daughter Phoebe is getting married, but even the happiness of the day feels bittersweet, as Thea grapples with a terminal cancer diagnosis. She worries she won’t be around to support her younger daughter Astra, who’s still in college, but even Thea cannot foresee what is to come―a terrible accident the night of the wedding that changes Astra’s life forever.

In a last-ditch effort to protect her family, Thea arranges a secret meeting with an old family friend and extracts a promise that will reverberate long after she’s gone.

Years after her mother’s death, Astra has moved forward with a career and relationship, but she still struggles with her grief. When a man reaches out to her and Phoebe, offering a window into their mother’s past, Astra must make a choice, and her decision forces her to face what it means to love someone after they’re gone, who we decide to forgive, and how families reckon with the past.

Visit Anna Nordberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The First Elections"

New from the University Press of Kansas: The First Elections: The Rise of Electoral Democracy in the Early American Republic by Jay K. Dow.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this groundbreaking and comprehensive look at Congressional elections in pre–Jacksonian America, Jay K. Dow examines the origins of our modern electoral politics.

When did the United States become a recognizably modern republic? The traditional understanding is that elections in the Age of Jackson introduced institutionalized political parties, campaigning, partisanship, position-taking, stump speeches, high elector turnout, and other familiar features of electoral democracy. Before that, so the story goes, elections were less organized along party lines, often uncompetitive, and frequently dominated by elites rather than average citizens. The First Elections offers a compelling alternative to this interpretation of the early American republic.

Through systematic analysis of an impressive new collection of early American election returns known as A New Nation Votes, Jay K. Dow has discovered what these results tell us about the development of Congressional elections between 1796 and 1825. The so-called first party era marks the transition from a “deferential” politics in which local elites exercised great influence over elections to a more recognizably democratic politics. But the extent of this transition has been largely opaque before these new data became available. Focusing on House of Representatives as the foundational institution in national republican government, Dow uses these election returns to provide a more fine-grained picture of United States electoral development than ever seen before. In doing so, he reveals more party-centric, competitive, and developed elections than scholars have generally recognized.

The First Elections begins with the election to the Fifth Congress in 1796, the year that elections first became truly contested following the Federalist and Anti-Federalist period. It concludes with the elections to the Nineteenth Congress, which marked the start of the Jacksonian Second American Party System. Because American politics is territorial politics—in general, but especially in this era—Dow’s work is organized geographically, giving due attention to how electoral democracy developed unevenly across each region of the early United States. Since the states used different methods to elect their representatives, The First Elections pays special attention to the variety of electoral systems that characterized the political mosaic of early America.

The First Elections is a groundbreaking look at what elections were like in the dawn of the new American nation.

--Marshal Zeringue