"The Postmistress of Puddlington"

New from Severn House: The Postmistress of Puddlington by Laura Jensen Walker.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Courage, love and survival . . . it’s all in a letter.

1934, Dorset. Nothing gives postmistress Hester Smith greater joy than cycling through the idyllic village of Puddlington, delivering the mail to her neighbours. Bookish Hester has always felt privileged to witness the highs and lows a single letter can bring.

But when war comes to Puddlington’s shores five years later, Hester suddenly finds herself in the devastating position of delivering news that no one should hear. As the community is directly impacted by tragedy on the battlefield and a shocking death occurs in the village, Hester’s spirit and resolve are tested like never before.

Can she and her fellow Puddlington women, including the vicar’s wife and the bohemian lady of the manor, find the courage to face their darkest times and come through a storm that will change their lives for ever?

This moving, heartbreaking and life-affirming novel set in an English village during World World II is a must-read for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Becoming Allies"

New from Cambridge University Press: Becoming Allies: Civil Liberties Activism in India by Ankita Pandey.

About the book, from the publisher:

What motivates individuals to stand up against injustices that don't personally affect them? Becoming Allies explores a vital but often overlooked dimension of social movements: the role of those who support a cause without being directly affected by its injustices. While most scholarship centres the conflict between social movements and the State, this book shifts the focus to allies-individuals who stand in solidarity and amplify marginalised demands. Drawing on interviews conducted with civil liberties activists and on documents from their private records, this book traces the evolving politics of allyship in India. Anchored in the histories of groups like the People's Union for Civil Liberties and the People's Union for Democratic Rights that rose in the context of the Naxalite Movement and the Emergency, the book sheds light on the ethics, dilemmas, and strategies of standing alongside others in struggle.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ransom"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Ransom by Leslie Wolfe.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a seductive socialite falls in love with the wrong man, a master manipulator meets her match in an ingeniously twisting novel of psychological suspense by Amazon Charts bestselling author Leslie Wolfe.

Everyone knows who Olivia Taylor is. Or so they believe.

She’s the glamorous philanthropist who just returned to her hometown after a long absence. She’s the new fiancée of the wealthy and charismatic Winston Donovan. She’s Las Vegas royalty, celebrated by the media and pursued by paparazzi at every turn.

And now she’s accused of murder in the first degree. If convicted, she’ll face death row.

Little by little, her life is picked apart and her relationships are torn to shreds. One by one, her lies disintegrate and her darkest secrets are exposed by scandalmongering socialites and bloodthirsty tabloids. Everyone has an opinion about Olivia Taylor and what she’s done.

But the truth is, no one really knows who Olivia Taylor is at all.

A dark psychological thriller about obsession and the deadly lengths we’ll go to for love, Ransom is a chilling exploration of how twisted, all-consuming passion can lead to betrayal and murder.

Visit Leslie Wolfe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond Laudato Si'"

New from Fordham University Press: Beyond Laudato Si': Ecotheology, Equitable Futures, and the Papal Turn to the Earth by Christiana Zenner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Engages with the prehistory and contemporary afterlives of Laudato Si’ through critical and constructive engagement with the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences using an intersectional, anti-colonial feminist methodology

Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis’s encyclical on ecology, was addressed to “every person living on the planet” and released in the of summer 2015 to critical skepticism and enthusiastic acclaim. From the professoriate to political pundits, from the apathetic to the atheistic, from Harvard economists to secular Jewish feminist thought leaders, Laudato Si’ (LS) got people’s attention. It remains the most important legacy of Pope Francis and stands as a historical referent of global moral clarity in a period of ecological degradations, racial capitalism, and widespread social suffering.

Beyond Laudato Si’ advances an intersectional feminist, anti-colonial method to explore the LS’s prehistory, its claims, its impact, its key contributions, and its recursively freighted concepts. With chapters that chart the trajectory of theology and science in the Catholic Church, the allure of integral ecology, the dangers of gendered theological abuse, and the turn to Indigenous values, Beyond Laudato Si’ elegantly charts the intellectual and ethical patterns that emerge and resurface in various theoretical and practical contexts of papal ecotheology. These topics, while not often considered together, reflect larger theological histories and collective behaviors and must be oriented toward integrity in theological reasoning and pursuit of equitable social formations in the present and future.

Characterized by rigorous interdisciplinarity (among the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) and grounded in an intersectional, anti-colonial feminist viewpoint, Beyond Laudato Si’ amplifies and engages key concepts from LS and its afterlives, while also elucidating persistent themes, troubles, and methods in Catholic ecotheology and ethics.

Visit Christiana Zenner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Istanbul Dreaming"

Coming September 29 from She Writes Press: Istanbul Dreaming: A Novel by Denise Derya Brandt.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Alka Joshi and Marjan Kamali, a gripping historical novel set in 1950s Turkey about a young woman who flees an arranged marriage to pursue independence in Istanbul, where she finds forbidden love with an American airman.

In 1950s Turkey, against the backdrop of the social and political unrest that will culminate in Turkey’s 1960 military coup d'état, a dutiful daughter is torn between family expectations and her dream of becoming a modern Turkish woman.

One night, seventeen-year-old Ayten sneaks away to Istanbul for a night of dancing with her best friend. When her father discovers her rebellion, he forces her into an arranged religious marriage to a distant relative who bullied her as a child. Initially, Ayten resigns herself to her fate—but after her husband sexually assaults her on their wedding night, she flees him and her family for haven in Istanbul.

Living with friends and working as a seamstress at her friend’s boutique, Ayten tries to rebuild her life. Then she meets Earl, an American airman, and they begin to fall in love—but as their connection deepens, secrets and her past threaten to upend all she’s built. Torn between her family and a future with Earl, Ayten must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice for freedom and forbidden love.

Visit Denise Derya Brandt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Disgustatory!"

New from the University of Alabama Press: Disgustatory!: A Gothic Rhetoric of Consumption by Jeremy Tirrell and Kate Maddalena.

About the book, from the publisher:

A critical exploration of how Gothic tropes infiltrate wellness discourse, revealing the rhetorical forces behind our cultural obsession with food, health, and bodily control.

Disgustatory! A Gothic Rhetoric of Consumption unearths the darkness behind modern obsessions with food, health, and bodily optimization. In this provocative and richly interdisciplinary work, Jeremy Tirrell and Kate Maddalena argue that contemporary discourses around food, medicine, and the body are steeped in Gothic rhetoric―where the promise of purity and control is shadowed by monstrosity, abjection, and the uncanny.

From Soylent and nootropics to probiotics and lab-grown meat, Tirrell and Maddalena show how wellness discourse is haunted by Gothic tropes: body horror, hybridity, and existential dread. Wellness culture, they argue, is not merely pseudoscience or fraud but a complex, persuasive rhetoric that blurs science and myth, purity and decay, medicine and mysticism.

Disgustatory! offers a fresh framework: a “Gothic rhetoric of consumption” that explains why we are drawn to weird diets, digital detoxes, and miracle cures. Through case studies of strange substances and stranger practices―Reddit fasting rituals, magic dirt supplements, fecal transplants― Tirrell and Maddalena reveal how fear, fascination, and the fantasy of bodily control animate our health choices. Each chapter explores a rhetorical element―quantification, hybridity, abjection, optimization, and regulation―to show how food becomes a site of cultural anxiety and existential longing. This book will appeal to rhetoricians, scholars of science and technology studies, cultural theorists, and anyone interested in the strange intersections of health, horror, and persuasion.

Visit Jeremy Tirrell's website and Kate Maddalena's faculty webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wonder of One"

Coming September 15 from Lake Union: The Wonder of One: A Novel by Suzanne Redfearn.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the #1 Amazon bestselling author of In an Instant comes an inspirational coming-of-age story about one extraordinary girl’s determination to chase a dream.

Vivien Kendall has always been different. Born with a birthmark covering much of her face, she’s bullied, ridiculed, and mistreated as a child. But at the age of six, Vivien learns that in each of us there burns a spirit flame―a deep belief in oneself that must be nurtured and never allowed to go out.

Living by that wisdom and through the enduring friendships of her nanny, her mentor, and the legend who eventually becomes her coach, she chases her dream to someday become the greatest figure skater in the world.

Along the way, she faces a rapidly evolving world full of modern prejudice and injustice. She falls in love, has her heart broken, learns what it means to win or lose, and discovers the wonder of one, the power within each of us to change things.

Visit Suzanne Redfearn's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Redfearn and Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: No Ordinary Life.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2016).

My Book, The Movie: No Ordinary Life.

My Book, The Movie: In an Instant.

The Page 69 Test: In an Instant.

Q&A with Suzanne Redfearn.

My Book, The Movie: Hadley and Grace.

The Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (March 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Moment in Time.

My Book, The Movie: Moment in Time.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2024).

Writers Read: S. E. Redfearn (October 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Two Good Men.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (October 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Call of the Camino.

The Page 69 Test: Call of the Camino.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Competing for Soft Power"

New from Cambridge University Press: Competing for Soft Power: China’s Image Making in Africa by Maria Repnikova.

About the book, from the publisher:

Through the critical case study of Ethiopia, Maria Repnikova examines the ambitious but disjointed display of Chinese diplomatic influence in Africa. In doing so, she develops a new theoretical approach to understanding China's practice of soft power, identifying the core mechanisms as tangible enticement with material and experiential offerings, ideational promotion of values, visions, and governance practices, and censorial power over the production and dissemination of China narratives. Through in-depth field work, including interviews and focus groups, Repnikova builds a clear picture of the uneven implementation and reception of this image-making, in which Chinese messengers can improvise official agendas, and Ethiopian recipients can strategically appropriate and negotiate Chinese power. Contrary to popular claims about China replacing the West in the Global South, this innovative research reveals the successes, but also the inconsistencies and limitations of Chinese influence, as well as the ever-present shadow of the West in mediating soft-power encounters.

Visit Maria Repnikova's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Where There's Smoke..."

New from Severn House: Where There's Smoke... (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery, 2) by E.J. Copperman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small town’s public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.

Don’t mess with a paint store owner’s safe haven!

Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and it’s clear from the beginning that it must be arson.

Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didn’t like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?

As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective father’s ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth―and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!

A light-hearted cozy mystery with a paranormal twist and Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.

Visit E. J. Copperman's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (November 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.

My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.

The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.

Q&A with E. J. Copperman.

The Page 69 Test: Same Difference.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (February 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Family Game Night"

New from the University Press of Kentucky: Family Game Night: Board Games from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties by Susan R. Asbury.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the rise of industrialization and a gendered division of labor set the stage for tastemakers, architects, and social reformers to elevate the home parlor as a space for leisure and family gathering. Board game makers and marketers capitalized on these trends by peddling a certain exclusionary brand of the American dream.

In Family Game Night, Susan R. Asbury provides a history of US board games from the 1880s through the 1920s, the morals and tropes they conveyed, and the influence game designers and manufacturers had on consumers. Drawing from historical documents, marketing materials, patents, diaries, and photographs, Asbury shows how games incorporated and promoted concepts related to progress and abundance, including a clear delineation of the purported beneficiaries: white middle-class families. Asbury further analyzes box covers and game components to uncover the ways in which manufacturers and designers crafted narratives to maintain a sense of cultural hegemony in a rapidly changing society.

Through the imagery and instructions woven into the framework of play, Family Game Night reveals how these board games influenced players' values and associations, shaping their worldview.

--Marshal Zeringue