"Speaking Parts"

New from Princeton University Press: Speaking Parts: Conversation, Character, and Social Worlds in Nineteenth-Century British Novels by Tara Menon.

About the book, from the publisher:

How direct speech in the novel shapes our understanding of literary characters and their social worlds

For many readers, to think of nineteenth-century fiction is to recall characters speaking: Elizabeth refusing Darcy in Pride and Prejudice; Jane excoriating Rochester in Jane Eyre; Dorothea and Celia discussing Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch. And yet literary critics have had surprisingly little to say about the narrative effects of dialogue. In Speaking Parts, Tara Menon shows how direct speech—words enclosed in quotation marks that appear to be the exact utterances of characters—shapes our understanding of fictional characters and the social worlds they inhabit. Combining computational tools and close literary analysis, Menon reinstates direct speech to its rightful place in narrative theory, worthy of the critical seriousness afforded to such other features of narrative as free indirect discourse.

After quantifying direct speech in nearly one thousand British novels written between 1789 and 1901, Menon turns her attention to several canonical nineteenth-century works of fiction by Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot. She considers, among other things, the ways that Austen establishes sympathy for certain characters through her allotment of speech; the narrative significance of speaking characters not given proper names in Jane Eyre; and the social isolation of Dorothea in Middlemarch, as revealed by speech networks. Menon shows not only how the study of direct speech allows us to make new arguments about these well-known texts but also that data analysis of speech can change the way we think about characters, individual novels, and even genres.

Visit Tara Menon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"#AuthorLife"

New from Bad Hand Books: #AuthorLife by Joe Zagets.

About the book, from the publisher:

Writing novels wasn't supposed to be a blood sport. After selling his first thriller novel for six figures, Mackenzie "Mack" Lane quit his job as a journalist to become a full-time author. But now, a few years later, his career is spiraling downward. With each book doing worse than the last, he fears his status as a Boring White Dude is partly to blame. With his bank accounts dwindling, Mack has to find a way to make more money: his ex-wife wants to send their son to a private high school, and his current wife wants to have a baby. Mack begs his agent and editor to sing the praises of his new novel and do everything in their power to encourage his publisher's marketing team to make the book a bestseller. But as Pub Day for his fourth novel approaches—without the interviews and publicity he'd so hoped for—Mack knows his book is in trouble. And with it, his career and personal life. Growing more desperate, Mack concocts a risky and more-or-less unethical idea for a publicity stunt. His agent, Wallis Wallace, reluctantly goes along with it—after all, if it works, she stands to gain 15% of his windfall. And if it doesn't work, Mack is the one who will suffer the consequences of being ridiculed and cancelled. #AuthorLife is a satire about an author who gets the wrong sort of inspiration from his dying career—because publishing is a bloody hard business.

Visit Joe Zaget's Instagram page.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Psychopath and the Twentieth-Century American Novel"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Psychopath and the Twentieth-Century American Novel by Frederick Whiting.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Psychopath and the Twentieth-Century American Novel examines the psychopath as a new kind of monster. Frederick Whiting reads novels – ranging from pulp fiction to belles lettres – that draw on science, law, and popular journalism to try to explain this threatening new creature. Through these readings, this book uncovers the ways in which the figure of the psychopath that populated so many twentieth-century American novels expressed cultural anxieties about sexuality, race, gender, and class – even as the psychopath marked the shifting boundaries of the category of 'the human.' Whiting offers an interdisciplinary analysis showing how literature, science, law, and popular journalism inform each other. Ultimately, he concludes, this episode in the genealogy of monstrosity amounts to a transformation in the evolving concept of the monstrous itself – from a violation of our nature to a violation of our narratives.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The River Runs Black"

Coming October 6 from Severn House: The River Runs Black (A North Country Novel, 2) by Tessa Wegert.

About the book, from the publisher:

James Patterson meets Louise Penny: New York’s Thousand Islands are set to lose their battle against drugs in this pulse-pounding police procedural from acclaimed author Tessa Wegert.

A small town on the water where things aren’t as perfect as they look...

After the recent death of a teenager by overdose, a record drug seizure along the Canadian border is a game changer for New York State’s criminal investigation team. The detectives are relieved that the haul will never make it to the idyllic small-town streets of Alexandria Bay.

But drugs are still circulating, and the lab results confirm it: the cocaine that killed the teenager and the cocaine from the bust are not the same.

Investigator Tim Wellington and his team seem to be chasing a network of ghosts who use the North Country as their criminal playground.

How long will it be until another Thousand Islands youth becomes not just a victim, but a target? Because the dangerous players won’t shy away from violence when protecting their valuable goods―even if it means gambling with innocent lives...

This twisty mystery coupled with heart-pounding suspense will appeal to fans of the Chief Inspector Gamache Mysteries and the Alex Cross thrillers, as well as books by Meg Gardiner, Ann Cleeves, and Ruth Ware.

Visit Tessa Wegert's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Dead Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Season.

Q&A with Tessa Wegert.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Wind.

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (April 2022).

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (December 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Devils at the Door.

The Page 69 Test: The Coldest Case.

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (November 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

'The Literary Agency of Medieval Women"

New from Oxford University Press: The Literary Agency of Medieval Women: Kunigund Niklasin and the Library of St. Catherine's in Nuremberg by Sara S. Poor.

About the book, from the publisher:

What do we miss when we see women's agency only through the lens of transgression? What happens when we expand our notion of authorship to include women who were writing books but not necessarily composing 'original' texts? To answer these questions, Sara Poor explores the writing work of the prolific nun, Kunigund Niklasin (d. 1457), scribe and compiler of at least thirty-one books by the 1450s, and the librarian for her convent's large and singular library (close to 600 German-language manuscripts). Appointed to the office of librarian sometime after the convent underwent observant reform in 1428, Niklasin created two inventories of the convent's books, one of privately owned books, the other of the convent library. The latter was part of a unique manual designed to facilitate table reading, the reading (aloud) that took place during daily meals. The analysis of this table reading manual reveals that there is in fact a wide range of writing activity attributable to women in this period.

Building on scholarship about women's literacy, as well as about the connections between women in fifteenth-century reformed convents and what has been called an explosion of literary production in German-speaking areas, The Literary Agency of Medieval Women explores the wider implications of this rich resource for a more inclusive theory of female agency, an expanded notion of authorship, and a nuanced appreciation of the important roles of medieval women as writers--and authors--in the history of the book.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Taxi Dancer"

Coming soon from Red Hen Press: Taxi Dancer: A Novel by Marivi Soliven.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Based on a true story, Taxi Dancer is a gripping historical novel by Marivi Soliven that illuminates the hidden world of Depression-era Filipino taxi dance halls, weaving a forbidden interracial romance with a high-stakes murder mystery to explore race, desire, survival, and the Filipino American experience in 1930s California.

“If we can’t marry white girls, we can at least dance with them.” In response to Depression-era California laws that criminalized interracial marriage, Filipinos established taxi dance halls where they could mingle with American women. When Filipino farmworker Eli and American taxi dancer Lucinda fall in love, they hope to move to Washington State where they can legally wed. Their plans are derailed when Eli is arrested for the shooting death of a dance hall owner. As Lucinda fights to exonerate Eli, she uncovers a murder conspiracy orchestrated by Mamie Savage, a rival dance hall owner and Sal, her Filipino bartender. The capital punishment trial brings to light abhorrent secrets concealed by the conspirators, the victim, and Lucinda herself. Inspired by true events in San Diego’s Stingaree district.

Visit Marivi Soliven's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Emancipationists"

New from Yale University Press: The Emancipationists: Nineteenth-Century Jews' Campaign for Citizenship by David Sorkin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thought-provoking exploration of the roots of modern Jewish politics

This is the first book to explore the nineteenth-century political movement led by Jewish leaders seeking equality―a movement that historian David Sorkin calls emancipation politics. The emancipationists, most of whom had received a formal secular education, pioneered the key practices of modern Jewish politics: law, philanthropy, the press, and diplomacy. In so doing, Sorkin argues, the emancipationists renovated the venerable “vertical alliance,” the diaspora Jewish practice of aligning with the highest political authority, now the modern administrative and constitutional state. They also forged “horizontal alliances” with social and political groups, first to gain rights and then to defend them in the face of the new political antisemitism.

Sorkin studies this history in five European regions (England, France, Germany, Habsburg lands/Dual Monarchy, and Russia) and the United States over the course of the long nineteenth century (1789–1914), when emancipation politics developed and took root. These political forms and practices would be characteristic of virtually all Jewish politics to follow―namely, the nationalism, socialism, and religious orthodoxy that organized at the turn of century to compete with the emancipationists and each other.

The Page 99 Test: Jewish Emancipation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Study in Sparkling"

New from Atria Books: A Study in Sparkling: A Novel (Love Notes) by Jodi McAlister.

About the book, from the publisher:

The author of the “brilliant” (Library Journal) An Academic Affair proves that the best love stories start with a pop with this sizzling romance about a recently separated single mom who’s absolutely not looking for another relationship...only to fall for the younger owner of her favorite wine bar.

Fiona Fisher thought she had it all: a loving husband, three kids, and a life far away from the suffocating expectations of her family. But when her husband reveals that he’s leaving her for his secret second family, Fiona is left devastated and humiliated.

Satoshi Tsukamoto wants it all. He’s the owner of a popular wine bar, and he’s studying for the hardest test in the world: the Master Sommelier exam. There aren’t enough hours in the day for anything else—except maybe for Fiona, his favorite customer, and the woman he’s absolutely, catastrophically in love with.

On paper, Fiona and Satoshi make no sense. He’s eight years younger than her and has no time for romance. She’s a single mother and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to trust anyone again. But how can Fiona resist when Satoshi suggests they give into their mutual attraction and let off some steam? And how can Satoshi resist when the woman he adores is finally within his grasp—even if they’ve agreed to keep things casual?

The perfect read for fans of Jasmine Guillory and Abby Jimenez, A Study in Sparkling proves that Jodi McAlister truly is “a writer to watch” (Booklist).

Visit Jodi McAlister's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Boundless Biddy Mason"

Coming October 13 from the University of California Press: The Boundless Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American West by Kevin Waite.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Biddy Mason crossed the continent, broke free from slavery, and built Black Los Angeles.

Born in bondage, Biddy Mason endured one of the longest forced migrations in American history—three thousand miles on foot from Georgia to California. She and her daughters labored in slavery in the “free” state of California for five years before launching a landmark emancipation suit in 1856. Free at last, she defied barriers of race and gender, rising to prominence as a healer, philanthropist, church builder, and real estate entrepreneur whose commercial properties stood at what became known as the “Wall Street of the West.” By the time of her death in 1891, she had laid the foundations of Black Los Angeles and ranked among the richest women of color in the United States.

In this first book-length biography of Mason, prizewinning historian Kevin Waite uncovers an extraordinary story of survival that carries readers from the cotton South to metropolitan California, and through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the dawn of Jim Crow. By retracing Mason’s odyssey, he illuminates both the continental sweep of American slavery and the fragile, hard-won possibilities of freedom in the West.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder on 34th Street"

Coming October 6 from Minotaur Books: Murder on 34th Street: A Novel by Mariah Fredericks.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of The Girl in the Green Dress comes a delightful and captivating novel about a fictional murder mystery at the iconic Macy's parade leading up to the holidays in historic New York City.

New York, 1932. Grace Verlander is the secret beating heart of Macy's. She's the "assistant to the assistant to the someone who's in charge", the go-to person for keeping everything running smoothly behind-the-scenes at the famous, bustling store.

It's not every day you get a letter from Santa Claus, but three days before the Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, Grace arrives at work to find a note from the store Santa Claus in her locker: someone has sent him a death threat. Shocked, Grace promises to look into it and speaks to the store detective about the parade's security, confident that they've found a solution that will keep everyone safe. But on the day of the parade, despite all their precautions, a dead body is found on one of the floats.

Using her wits and deep knowledge of the ways of the place, Grace is determined to find the killer and seek justice-not just for the dead man, but to save the reputation of this iconic store from ruin.

Steeped in glittering glamor and nostalgic wonder, this is a remarkable, unpredictable mystery set in the evocative world of one of New York's most memorable institutions.

Visit Mariah Fredericks's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Park.

The Page 69 Test: A Death of No Importance.

My Book, The Movie: Death of an American Beauty.

The Page 69 Test: Death of an American Beauty.

Q&A with Mariah Fredericks.

The Page 69 Test: The Lindbergh Nanny.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Green Dress.

--Marshal Zeringue