"No One Leaves the Manor"

New from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: No One Leaves the Manor by Kelly McWilliams.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A deliciously twisted, fast-paced YA horror, where debutante dreams become bloody nightmares—perfect for fans of House of Hollow and Their Vicious Games.

It’s 1921, and Mrs. Caroline Reginald Kane, the last surviving descendant of a family of oil barons, has invited four young debutantes to visit her at Greystone Manor. There, they'll compete for the ultimate prize: to become heir to her unspeakably vast fortune.

But only one girl can win.

And the manor is watching.

Dorothea is a thief, and the best liar in the American Northeast. Her mother vanished at Greystone years ago, and she’s determined to find out why—so long as no one uncovers her secrets first.

Vaughn isn’t crazy. She was born for this life—and she won’t let anyone come between her and the fortune she deserves.

Birdie doesn’t know why she’s been invited, but she believes everything happens for a reason…and that reason just might be divine.

Elspeth is called “pretty as a peach, dim as a doorknob.” But she sees things that the others can't: whispering birds, shifting doors, and a language that should never be spoken.

And there’s something else hidden behind these walls. Something sinister.

It doesn’t plan to let them leave alive.

Visit Kelly McWilliams's website.

The Page 69 Test: Agnes at the End of the World.

Q&A with Kelly McWilliams.

The Page 69 Test: Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Pogroms"

New from Oxford University Press: American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America by Daniel Byman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Amidst heightened rhetoric and increasing polarization in the United States, American Pogroms chronicles the causes and consequences of two centuries of mob violence in American history, highlighting exactly what's at stake when we allow leaders to legitimate violence and the mob to rule.

For much of American history, members of the majority population of the United States indiscriminately attacked and terrorized minority communities. In some parts of the country, mob violence seemed a near-constant part of the region's history, while in others it was a brief, horrific spasm that perpetrators--but not victims--quickly forgot.

In American Pogroms, terrorism expert Daniel Byman argues that there is a word for this type of communal violence: pogrom. Although pogroms are historically associated with the orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence in Tsarist Russia, Byman asserts that pogroms have been an all-too-frequent feature of American history. Tracing two centuries of communal violence, Byman recounts cases of attacks against American religious minorities such as Catholics and Mormons, the killing of thousands of ethnic Mexicans in Texas, the murder and wholesale expulsion of Chinese workers from the American West, and the repeated attacks on the Black community that killed thousands and enabled decades of brutal discrimination. In all these cases, pogroms helped cement a system of injustice that left religious, ethnic, and racial minorities politically and economically marginalized. While the idea of mob violence now strikes most Americans as unthinkable, Byman warns that increased polarization and selective news consumption in recent years has coarsened discourse and legitimized violence, raising the risk that at least some violence will return.

A broad-ranging synthesis of how and why majorities have so frequently resorted to community-level violence to restore or cement their power, American Pogroms illustrates the outsized role of violence in U.S. history and how it shapes the country today.

The Page 69 Test: The Five Front War.

The Page 99 Test: A High Price.

Writers Read: Daniel Byman (June 2011).

The Page 99 Test: Spreading Hate.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fire Must Burn"

New from Severn House: Fire Must Burn (A Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery, 8) by Allison Montclair.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The owners of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are back, and more determined than ever to bring love matches to the residents of Post-WWII London . . . so something as trivial as being dragged into a spy mission isn’t going to stop them!

Sparks fly when an old friend comes to town...

London, 1947. After recent events have left the normally steadfast Iris Sparks thoroughly shaken, she’s looking forward to some peace. With The Right Sort doing well, she and business partner Gwen Bainbridge are due a holiday. Until Iris’s former boss enlists their help for a secret mission.

Iris, who left British intelligence after the war, is being recruited for her Cambridge connection to one Anthony Danforth. She hasn’t seen Tony in almost ten years, yet she and Gwen must manipulate him into hiring their marriage service.

Tony’s suspected of being a Soviet operative, and an undercover agent posing as his perfect match could discover the truth. Despite her reluctance at being dragged back into the world of espionage, Iris agrees. After all, Tony was once a very good friend. If he’s innocent, she’ll happily prove it. If not? Well, no one ever said being a spy was easy...

Those who enjoy reading Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Mysteries and Dorothy Sayers will adore this warm and witty historical mystery!

Visit Alan Gordon's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

Q&A with Allison Montclair.

My Book, The Movie: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Enduring Illegality"

New from the University of Calfornia Press: Enduring Illegality: Time and the State of Waiting in Undocumented Middle Life by Angela S. García.

About the book, from the publisher:

Enduring Illegality chronicles the lives of undocumented Mexican immigrants who have spent decades in the United States waiting for a path to legalization that has yet to arrive. Based on longitudinal fieldwork, this book traces how people who migrated as young adults have transitioned into middle age still undocumented, caught in a state of legal and temporal suspension. Focusing on parents who would have qualified for the failed Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program, Angela S. García argues that illegality is not only a legal condition but a temporal one, produced and reproduced through decades of waiting for reform. Even in the face of such exclusion, migrants sustain lives, labor, and care across borders. Enduring Illegality offers a critical account of how the state uses time as a mechanism of immigration control, structuring lives and inequality in ways that outlast any single policy or presidential administration.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Erebus-13"

New from Orbit: Erebus-13 (Red Space, 3) by David Wellington.

About the book, from the publisher:

The crew of the Artemis has escaped the nightmare of Paradise-1, but at great cost.

Parker is gone. Petrova’s past continues to haunt her. Worst of all, Erebus—a timeless entity of pure darkness—has been released from its prison.

Now it’s headed for Earth.

Petrova must rally her crew for one final mission. Somehow, they must find a way to unite the disparate factions of the solar system—the United Earth Government, the Lunar colonies, and the outer planets—and find a way to stop Erebus.

The fate of humanity—and the galaxy—is in their hands.

Learn more about the book and author at David Wellington's website.

The Page 69 Test: Chimera.

The Page 69 Test: The Hydra Protocol.

The Page 69 Test: Positive.

My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Astronaut.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Who Is American?"

New from Princeton University Press: Who Is American?: Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship by Lila Corwin Berman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A groundbreaking history of how modern American citizenship has worked—and not worked—for Jews in the United States

The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Yet this story fundamentally misses how citizenship rights worked for Jews and countless others who arrived on American shores. In Who Is American? Lila Corwin Berman draws on case law, statutes, and debates to argue that both the laws of American citizenship and Jews’ position in them changed repeatedly across the twentieth century. Courts, policymakers, and the public persistently asked what it meant to be Jewish under the law. Were Jews a race, a nationality, a religion—or some combination of each? The answer carried profound legal consequences. Not only did it determine Jews’ citizenship status, but it also affected the rights they could exercise. Just as significantly, the meaning of the categories under law changed over time, affecting Jews’ self-understanding, their political ideals, and their relationships to other groups of Americans.

Who Is American? tells a history that resonates powerfully with today’s high-stakes battles over citizenship and rights. As Berman concludes, citizenship law has always been better at posing questions about the terms of belonging than at providing any ultimate resolution. The tangled story of Jewish citizenship demonstrates the limits of law and explains why the United States continues to fall into new and, often, unsettling debates about who is American.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Astronaut!"

New from W.W. Norton: Astronaut!: A Novel by Oana Aristide.

About the book, from the publisher:

A darkly funny and politically resonant novel by an acclaimed new novelist.

Romania, 1989, the twilight of Ceau?escu’s dictatorship: Daily news flashes of seemingly random murders grip the nation. The suspect? A man-eating bear.

Amid the fear of informants, official lies, and daily rationing, two bright lives collide. Constantin, an idealistic police detective prone to scribbling fairy tales in his notebook, is tasked with solving the string of mysterious deaths. Lia, a rebellious, inquisitive schoolgirl pining for more color in her life, is unwittingly drawn into an eccentric elderly neighbor’s secret plot against the regime. While everyone around them is flattened into submission, the two find the spirit to carry out small acts of defiance. Their decisions will have sweeping consequences―for themselves, for their families, and for their country.

Masterfully plotted and psychologically astute, Astronaut! is both a chilling detective novel and a moving coming-of-age tale. It carries a powerful message: the lies we accept today become the truths of tomorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mountains Are Calling"

New from the University of Nebraska: The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park by Michael W. Childers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Yosemite National Park hosts more than four million visitors annually, a number that underscores both the national park’s immense popularity and its limits. Large numbers of visitors means air pollution from car emissions, noise pollution that drowns out the sounds of nature, and destroyed habitat―especially near campgrounds and crowded hiking trails. From the first party of tourists in 1855 to the millions who visit today, Yosemite’s visitors have played a primary role in shaping the park’s history. Visitors drove Yosemite’s development and, ultimately, its popularity, but in doing so, they have turned out to be the greatest threat to the very experiences they seek.

In seeking to understand how visitors’ perceptions and experiences have shaped their understanding of the purpose of national parks, and nature more broadly, The Mountains Are Calling places visitors at the center of Yosemite’s story. In histories of the national parks, environmental historians traditionally focus on either a conflict between preservation or exploitation, or a celebration of its founders, but such approaches often overlook the millions of visitors or depict them as backdrops in a larger morality play over the preservation of nature. Michael W. Childers instead addresses the lived experiences of visitors and their role in creating national parks, within the context of national park policy shifts and broader American cultural history. Foregrounding the stories of Indigenous people, tourists, innkeepers, soldiers, rangers, climbers, concessioners, and administrators, The Mountains Are Calling tells a more complete story of the park’s past to make sense of tourism’s environmental costs.

Visit Michael W. Childers's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Demon Star"

New from DAW Books: The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon.

About the novel, from the publisher:

On a ruined planet oppressed by eldritch gods, a rebel leader forces his son to become the vessel of a god-killing demon. Caught in a conflict spanning galaxies and millennia, two unlikely allies must decide whether to save the child, their world, or themselves.

The otherworldly religious conflict of Dune, the cosmic strangeness of Gideon the Ninth, and the heart-pounding action of Red Rising converge in this horror-tinged epic science fantasy debut

Ysira Naktis was a human sacrifice, destined for death. But unlike the thousands “harvested” each year, she did the unthinkable. She survived—and what she brought back with her could rewrite the fate of her civilization.

When Ysira’s son is chosen for demonic possession, she is faced with a choice: allow him to harness cosmic power at an unspeakable cost or doom millions to save him. She finds an unlikely ally in Brother Jacen Kheris, once a gifted exorcist, now an addict desperate for purpose.

From a demon-haunted canyon to a starbound satellite, they must battle their way through cultists, aliens, and the gods themselves. The truths they unearth send them hurtling down a path that can only lead to apocalypse.

Visit Jesse Aragon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"One Nation Under Law"

New from Cambridge University Press: One Nation Under Law: The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence by Carlton F. W. Larson.

About the book, from the publisher:

This groundbreaking volume shatters many longstanding myths about the Declaration of Independence. Although states-rights advocates have long claimed that the Declaration created thirteen independent nations, Carlton F. W. Larson shows that the Declaration announced the birth of a new nation: the United States of America, a nation governed by an unwritten constitution in which the states were confederated and subject to national authority from the very beginning. Larson counters libertarian claims that the Declaration views government as a necessary evil, demonstrating instead how it embraces constitutionalism, active government, and the rule of law as positive goods. Along the way, Larson debunks other myths, such as the notion that the Declaration is the parchment text enshrined in the National Archives and that it was authored by Thomas Jefferson. By exploring the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, One Nation Under Law helps us better understand America itself.

Visit Carlton F. W. Larson's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Trials of Allegiance.

--Marshal Zeringue