Tuesday, December 31, 2019

"The Trials of Thomas Morton"

New from Yale University Press: The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England by Peter C. Mancall.

About the book, from the publisher:
A new look at Thomas Morton, his controversial colonial philosophy, and his lengthy feud with the Puritans

Adding new depth to our understanding of early New England society, this riveting account of Thomas Morton explores the tensions that arose from competing colonial visions. A lawyer and fur trader, Thomas Morton dreamed of a society where Algonquian peoples and English colonists could coexist. Infamous for dancing around a maypole in defiance of his Pilgrim neighbors, Morton was reviled by the Puritans for selling guns to the Natives. Colonial authorities exiled him three separate times from New England, but Morton kept returning to fight for his beliefs.

This compelling counter-narrative to the familiar story of the Puritans combines a rich understanding of the period with a close reading of early texts to bring the contentious Morton to life. This volume sheds new light on the tumultuous formative decades of the American experience.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Purgatory Bay"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Purgatory Bay by Bryan Gruley.

About the book, from the publisher:
Twelve years ago, her life was torn apart. Now those who wronged her will pay.

Jubilee Rathman is a straight-A student and star soccer goalie destined for Princeton—until her family is brutally murdered. Twelve years later, she lives in a virtual fortress on Purgatory Bay near Bleak Harbor, plotting revenge on the people she considers responsible.

In her crosshairs is former reporter Michaela “Mikey” Deming, who Jubilee believes got her family in trouble with the Detroit mob. As retribution, Jubilee kidnaps Mikey’s sister and daughter, and that’s just the start in her ruthless quest for justice.

Bleak Harbor police chief Katya Malone, still reeling from her failure to find a kidnapped boy, leads the investigation. She’s determined to keep history from repeating, but Jubilee is more cunning than Malone can imagine.

All Mikey and Katya can do is follow Jubilee’s dangerous trail of clues. But in Bleak Harbor, nothing is what it seems, and no one can be trusted. As an ominous end draws ever nearer, the women must face the misdeeds of the past to find the kidnapping victims before it’s too late.
Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Secret Chapter"

New from Ace: The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman.

About the book, from the publisher:
Time-travelling, dimension-jumping, Librarian-spy Irene and dragon-prince Kai will have to team up with an unlikely band of misfits to pull off an amazing art heist—or risk the wrath of a dangerous villain with a secret island lair.

A Librarian’s work is never done, and Irene is summoned to the Library. The world where she grew up is in danger of veering deep into chaos, and she needs to obtain a particular book to stop this from happening. Her only choice is to contact a mysterious Fae information-broker and trader of rare objects: Mr. Nemo.

Irene and Kai make their way to Mr. Nemo’s remote Caribbean island and are invited to dinner, which includes unlikely company. Mr. Nemo has an offer for everyone there: he wants them to steal a specific painting from a specific world. But to get their reward, they will have to form a team, including a dragon techie, a Fae thief, a gambler, a driver, and the muscle. Their goal? The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in an early twenty-first-century world, where their toughest challenge might be each other.
Visit Genevieve Cogman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Masked City.

Writers Read: Genevieve Cogman (October 2016).

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, December 30, 2019

"Oasis"

New from Imprint: Oasis: A Novel by Katya de Becerra.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this young adult thriller for fans of Lost and The Twilight Zone, a group of teens are saved when they come across a mysterious oasis. But who will save them from the oasis?

Alif had exciting summer plans: working on her father’s archeological dig site in the desert with four close friends ... and a very cute research assistant. Then the sandstorm hit.

Their camp wiped away, Alif and the others find themselves lost on the sands, seemingly doomed ... until they find the oasis. It has everything they need: food, water, and shade—and mysterious ruins that hide a deadly secret. As reality begins to shift around them, they question what’s real and what’s a mirage.

The answers turn Alif and her friends against each other, and they begin to wonder if they’ve truly been saved. And while it was easy to walk into the oasis, it may be impossible to leave...
Visit Katya de Becerra's blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Topics of Conversation"

New from Knopf: Topics of Conversation: A novel by Miranda Popkey.

About the book, from the publisher:
For readers of Rachel Cusk, Lydia Davis, and Jenny Offill–a compact tour de force about sex, violence, and self-loathing from a ferociously talented new voice in fiction

Miranda Popkey’s first novel is about desire, disgust, motherhood, loneliness, art, pain, feminism, anger, envy, guilt–written in language that sizzles with intelligence and eroticism. The novel is composed almost exclusively of conversations between women–the stories they tell each other, and the stories they tell themselves, about shame and love, infidelity and self-sabotage–and careens through twenty years in the life of an unnamed narrator hungry for experience and bent on upending her life. Edgy, wry, shot through with rage and despair, Topics of Conversation introduces an audacious and immensely gifted new novelist.
Visit Miranda Popkey's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Signs of the Americas"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu by Edgar Garcia.

About the book, from the publisher:
Indigenous sign-systems, such as pictographs, petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, and khipu, are usually understood as relics from an inaccessible past. That is far from the truth, however, as Edgar Garcia makes clear in Signs of the Americas. Rather than being dead languages, these sign-systems have always been living, evolving signifiers, responsive to their circumstances and able to continuously redefine themselves and the nature of the world.

Garcia tells the story of the present life of these sign-systems, examining the contemporary impact they have had on poetry, prose, visual art, legal philosophy, political activism, and environmental thinking. In doing so, he brings together a wide range of indigenous and non-indigenous authors and artists of the Americas, from Aztec priests and Amazonian shamans to Simon Ortiz, Gerald Vizenor, Jaime de Angulo, Charles Olson, Cy Twombly, Gloria Anzaldúa, William Burroughs, Louise Erdrich, Cecilia Vicuña, and many others. From these sources, Garcia depicts the culture of a modern, interconnected hemisphere, revealing that while these “signs of the Americas” have suffered expropriation, misuse, and mistranslation, they have also created their own systems of knowing and being. These indigenous systems help us to rethink categories of race, gender, nationalism, and history. Producing a new way of thinking about our interconnected hemisphere, this ambitious, energizing book redefines what constitutes a “world” in world literature.
--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, December 29, 2019

"Dear Edward"

New from Dial Press: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano.

About the book, from the publisher:
What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?

One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery—one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life?

Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.
Learn more about the book and author at Ann Napolitano's website.

Writers Read: Ann Napolitano (August 2011).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Nameless Queen"

New from Crown Books for Young Readers: Nameless Queen by Rebecca McLaughlin.

About the book, from the publisher:
Everyone expected the king’s daughter would inherit the throne. No one expected me.

It shouldn’t be possible. I’m Nameless, a class of citizens so disrespected, we don’t even get names. Dozens of us have been going missing for months and no one seems to care.

But there’s no denying the tattoo emblazoned on my arm. I am to be queen. In a palace where the corridors are more dangerous than the streets, though, how could I possibly rule? And what will become of the Nameless if I don’t?
Visit Rebecca McLaughlin's blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, December 28, 2019

"Intervention Narratives"

New from Rutgers University Press: Intervention Narratives: Afghanistan, the United States, and the Global War on Terror by Purnima Bose.

About the book, from the publisher:
Intervention Narratives examines the contradictory cultural representations of the US intervention in Afghanistan that help to justify an imperial foreign policy. These narratives involve projecting Afghans as brave anti-communist warriors who suffered the consequences of American disengagement with the region following the end of the Cold War, as victimized women who can be empowered through enterprise, as innocent dogs who need to be saved by US soldiers, and as terrorists who deserve punishment for 9/11. Given that much of public political life now involves affect rather than knowledge, feelings rather than facts, familiar recurring tropes of heroism, terrorism, entrepreneurship, and canine love make the war easier to comprehend and elicit sympathy for US military forces. An indictment of US policy, Bose demonstrates that contemporary imperialism operates on an ideologically diverse cultural terrain to enlist support for the war across the political spectrum.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Three Things I Know Are True"

New from HarperTeen: Three Things I Know Are True by Betty Culley.

About the book, from the publisher:
Fans of Jandy Nelson and Marieke Nijkamp will love this deeply moving novel in verse about the aftermath of a gun accident.

Life changes forever for Liv when her older brother, Jonah, accidentally shoots himself with his best friend Clay’s father’s gun. Now Jonah needs round-the-clock care just to stay alive, and Liv feels like she’s the only person who can see that her brother is still there inside his broken body.

With Liv’s mom suing Clay’s family, there are divisions in the community that Liv knows she’s not supposed to cross. But Clay is her friend, too, and she refuses to turn away from him—just like she refuses to give up on Jonah.

This powerful novel is a stunning exploration of tragedy, grief, compassion, and forgiveness.
Visit Betty Culley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The God Game"

New from St. Martin's Press: The God Game: A Novel by Danny Tobey.

About the book, from the publisher:
With those words, Charlie and his friends enter the G.O.D. Game, a video game run by underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone-screens and high-tech glasses, the teens’ realities blur with a virtual world of creeping vines, smoldering torches, runes, glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs. Slaying a hydra and drawing a bloody pentagram as payment to a Greek god seem harmless at first. Fun even.

But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. Complete a mission, however cruel, or the game reveals their secrets and crushes their dreams. Tasks that seemed harmless at first take on deadly consequences. Mysterious packages show up at their homes. Shadowy figures start following them, appearing around corners, attacking them in parking garages. Who else is playing this game, and how far will they go to win?

And what of the game’s first promise: win, win big, lose, you die? Dying in a virtual world doesn’t really mean death in real life—does it?

As Charlie and his friends try to find a way out of the game, they realize they’ve been manipulated into a bigger web they can’t escape: an AI that learned its cruelty from watching us.

God is always watching, and He says when the game is done.
Follow Danny Tobey on Twitter and Facebook.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, December 27, 2019

"Capitalism on Edge"

New from Columbia University Press: Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia by Albena Azmanova.

About the book, from the publisher:
The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism’s terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction.

Azmanova’s new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form—precarity capitalism—marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism’s unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation.
--Marshal Zeringue

"You Were There Too"

New from Berkley: You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley.

About the book, from the publisher:
Acclaimed author Colleen Oakley delivers a heart-wrenching and unforgettable love story about a woman who must choose between the man she loves and the man fate has chosen for her, in a novel that reminds us that the best life is one led by the heart.

Mia Graydon’s life looks picket-fence perfect; she has the house, her loving husband, and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too—unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he’s been dreaming of her too.

Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if?
Visit Colleen Oakley's website.

Writers Read: Colleen Oakley (March 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, December 26, 2019

"The Proximity of Other Skins"

New from Oxford University Press: The Proximity of Other Skins: Ethical Intimacy in Global Cinema by Celine Parreñas Shimizu.

About the book, from the publisher:
Transnational films that represent intimacy and inequality produce new experiences that result in the displacement of the universal spectator, in a redefinition of the power of cinema for today's global audiences. The Proximity of Other Skins examines transnational films that achieve global prominence in presenting a different cinematic language of love and sex. Author Celine Parreñas Shimizu traverses independent films by Gina Kim and Ramona Diaz to the global cinema of Laurent Cantet, Park Chan-wook and Cannes award-winning director Brilliante Mendoza and their representations of transnational intimacies. In doing so, she addresses unexpected encounters in the global movement of people and goods within their geopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts. In these celebrated films that move across continents, she finds ways to expand our definition of intimacy, including explicit sex and relations that go beyond sex, enabling us the opportunity to theorize how people now live together in many spheres of contemporary life. Readers can then better understand how intimacy can affirm and express love, but also alienate and oppress, revealing the loneliness, pain, and suffering within transnational, national, and personal relations of power and hierarchy. In studying representations of intimacy, the book calls to expand our vocabulary of moving images and its role in redefining care work and affective relations between people across difference and inequality. The book addresses cinematic intimacies between husbands/wives/lovers, understanding between sex workers and clients, close familiarity between rich and poor, and new affinities between citizen and refugee and laborer and capitalist.
Visit Celine Parreñas Shimizu's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Hand on the Wall"

Coming soon from Katherine Tegen Books: The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson.

About the book, from the publisher:
Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph...

She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.

At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.

Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.
Visit Maureen Johnson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

"Moral Compass"

New from Delacorte Press: Moral Compass: A Novel by Danielle Steel.

About the book, from the publisher:
At an elite private school in Massachusetts, a wide circle of lives will be forever changed by a devastating series of events in Danielle Steel’s riveting new novel.

Saint Ambrose Prep is a place where the wealthy send their children for the best possible education, with teachers and administrators from the Ivy League, and graduates who become future lawyers, politicians, filmmakers, and CEOs. Traditionally a boys-only school, Saint Ambrose has just enrolled one hundred and forty female students for the first time. Even though most of the kids on the campus have all the privilege in the world, some are struggling, wounded by their parents’ bitter divorces, dealing with insecurity and loneliness. In such a heightened environment, even the smallest spark can become a raging fire.

One day after the school’s annual Halloween event, a student lies in the hospital, her system poisoned by dangerous levels of alcohol. Everyone in this sheltered community—parents, teachers, students, police, and the media—are left trying to figure out what actually happened. Only the handful of students who were there when she was attacked truly know the answers and they have vowed to keep one another’s secrets. As details from the evening emerge, powerful families are forced to hire attorneys and less powerful families watch helplessly. Parents’ marriages are jeopardized, and students’ futures are impacted. No one at Saint Ambrose can escape the fallout of a life-altering event.

In this compelling novel, Danielle Steel illuminates the dark side of one drunken night, with its tragic consequences, from every possible point of view. As the drama unfolds, the characters will reach a crossroads where they must choose between truth and lies, between what is easy and what is right, and find the moral compass they will need for the rest of their lives.
--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

"St. Ivo"

Coming April 14 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: St. Ivo: A Novel by Joanna Hershon.

About the book, from the publisher:
Over the course of a weekend, two couples reckon with the long-hidden secrets that have shaped their families, in a charged, poignant novel of motherhood and friendship

It’s the end of summer when we meet Sarah, the end of summer and the middle of her life, the middle of her career (she hopes it’s not the end), the middle of her marriage (recently repaired). And despite the years that have passed since she last saw her daughter, she is still very much in the middle of figuring out what happened to Leda, what role she played, and how she will let that loss affect the rest of her life.

Enter a mysterious stranger on a train, an older man taking the subway to Brooklyn who sees right into her.Then a mugging, her phone stolen, and with it any last connection to Leda. And then an invitation, friends from the past and a weekend in the country with their new, unexpected baby.

Over the course of three hot September days, the two couples try to reconnect. Events that have been set in motion, circumstances and feelings kept hidden, rise to the surface, forcing each to ask not just how they ended up where they are, but how they ended up who they are.

Unwinding like a suspense novel, Joanna Hershon's St. Ivo is a powerful investigation into the meaning of choice and family, whether we ever know the people closest to us, and how, when someone goes missing from our lives, we can ever let them go.
Learn more about the author and her work at Joanna Hershon's website.

The Page 69 Test: The German Bride.

My Book, The Movie: The German Bride.

Writers Read: Joanna Hershon (May 2013).

The Page 69 Test: A Dual Inheritance.

My Book, The Movie: A Dual Inheritance.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Long Bright River"

New from Riverhead Books: Long Bright River: A Novel by Liz Moore.

About the book, from the publisher:
Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn’t be more different. Then one of them goes missing.

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.

Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.

Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.
Learn more about the book and author at Liz Moore's website.

The Page 69 Test: Heft.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, December 23, 2019

"Monsters to Destroy"

New from Oxford University Press: Monsters to Destroy: Understanding the War on Terror by Navin A. Bapat.

About the book, from the publisher:
Terrorism kills far fewer Americans annually than automobile accidents, firearms, or even lightning strikes. Given this minimal risk, why does the U.S. continue expending lives and treasure to fight the global war on terror? In Monsters to Destroy, Navin A. Bapat argues that the war on terror provides the U.S. a cover for its efforts to expand and preserve American control over global energy markets. To gain dominance over these markets, the U.S. offered protection to states critical in the extraction, sale, and transportation of energy from their "terrorist" internal and external enemies. However, since the U.S. was willing to protect these states in perpetuity, the leaders of these regimes had no incentive to disarm their terrorists. This inaction allowed terrorists to transition into more powerful and virulent insurgencies, leading the protected states to chart their own courses and ultimately break with U.S. foreign policy objectives. Bapat provides a sweeping look at how the loss of influence over these states has accelerated the decline of U.S. economic and military power, locking it into a permanent war for its own economic security.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Woven in Moonlight"

New from Page Street Publishing: Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez.

About the book, from the publisher:
Ximena is the decoy Condesa, a stand-in for the last remaining Illustrian royal. Her people lost everything when the usurper, Atoc, used an ancient relic to summon ghosts and drive the Illustrians from La Ciudad. Now Ximena’s motivated by her insatiable thirst for revenge, and her rare ability to spin thread from moonlight.

When Atoc demands the real Condesa’s hand in marriage, it’s Ximena’s duty to go in her stead. She relishes the chance, as Illustrian spies have reported that Atoc’s no longer carrying his deadly relic. If Ximena can find it, she can return the true aristócrata to their rightful place.

She hunts for the relic, using her weaving ability to hide messages in tapestries for the resistance. But when a masked vigilante, a warm-hearted princesa, and a thoughtful healer challenge Ximena, her mission becomes more complicated. There could be a way to overthrow the usurper without starting another war, but only if Ximena turns her back on revenge—and her Condesa.
Visit Isabel Ibañez's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, December 22, 2019

"Boys & Sex"

New from Harper: Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity by Peggy Orenstein.

About the book, from the publisher:
The author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter now turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men, once again offering “both an examination of sexual culture and a guide on how to improve it” (Washington Post).

Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women’s right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls—steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity—which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy.

Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word “hilarious” robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys’ understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men’s experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.
Visit Peggy Orenstein's website.

The Page 69 Test: Waiting for Daisy.

The Page 99 Test: Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

Writers Read: Peggy Orenstein (April 2016).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Buzz Kill"

Coming soon from 47North: Buzz Kill: A Novel by David Sosnowski.

About the book, from the publisher:
Pandora Lynch lives in Alaska with her single dad, an online therapist for Silicon Valley’s brightest and squirreliest. Homeschooled by computer and a self-taught hacker, Pandora is about to enter high school to learn how to be normal. That’s the plan at least.

NorCal runaway George Jedson is a hacker too—one who leaves the systems he attacks working better than before. After being scooped up by a social media giant, will George go legit—or pull off the biggest hack ever? Not even his therapist knows for sure, but maybe the headshrinker’s daughter…

After meeting in cyberspace, the two young hackers combine their passions to conceive a brainchild named BUZZ. Can this baby AI learn to behave, or will it be like its parents and think outside the box?

With a hilarious and deeply empathetic narrative voice, this elegiac and unapologetically irreverent novel is both humorous and tragic without ever taking itself too seriously.
Visit David Sosnowski's website.

My Book, The Movie: Happy Doomsday.

The Page 69 Test: Happy Doomsday.

Writers Read: David Sosnowski (September 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, December 21, 2019

"Herbs and Roots"

New from Yale University Press: Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace by Tamara Venit Shelton.

About the book, from the publisher:
An innovative, deeply researched history of Chinese medicine in America and the surprising interplay between Eastern and Western medical practice

Chinese medicine has a long history in the United States, with written records dating back to the American colonial period. In this intricately crafted history, Tamara Venit Shelton chronicles the dynamic systems of knowledge, therapies, and materia medica crossing between China and the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. Chinese medicine, she argues, has played an important and often unacknowledged role in both facilitating and undermining the consolidation of medical authority among formally trained biomedical scientists in the United States.

Practitioners of Chinese medicine, as racial embodiments of “irregular” medicine, became useful foils for Western physicians struggling to assert their superiority of practice. At the same time, Chinese doctors often embraced and successfully employed Orientalist stereotypes to sell their services to non-Chinese patients skeptical of modern biomedicine. What results is a story of racial constructions, immigration politics, cross-cultural medical history, and the lived experiences of Asian Americans in American history.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Hunting Ground"

Coming May 5 from Polis Books: Hunting Ground by Meghan Holloway.

About the book, from the publisher:
Fifteen years ago, Hector Lewis’s wife and young daughter vanished without a trace. People have long thought he was responsible, but the man he knows is behind their disappearance still walks free. As a police officer, he is sworn to uphold the law. But he has seen how little justice there is in the world. And when a newcomer’s arrival sparks a harrowing series of crimes, Hector finds himself in a race to catch a man he is convinced is a killer.

Evelyn Hutto knows what it is to be prey. She moved west to start over. But the remote town of Raven’s Gap, Montana, is not as quiet and picturesque as it appears. The wild borderlands of Yellowstone National Park are home to more than one kind of predator. Women are going missing, and Evelyn’s position at the local museum unearths a collection of Native American art steeped in secrets. As she traces the threads of the past and the present, she finds them tied to one man.

Hector is a man obsessed with finding answers. Evelyn is a woman with secrets of her own. As winter whittles the land to bone and ice, the body count rises, and both become locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a dangerous man. A man who is as cunning as he is charismatic. A man whose new hunting season is only just beginning.
Visit Meghan Holloway's website, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Istagram.

My Book, The Movie: Once More Unto the Breach.

The Page 69 Test: Once More Unto the Breach.

Writers Read: Meghan Holloway (May 2019).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Deification in Russian Religious Thought"

New from Oxford University Press: Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905-1917 by Ruth Coates.

About the book, from the publisher:
Deification in Russian Religious Thought considers the reception of the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) doctrine of deification by Russian religious thinkers of the immediate pre-revolutionary period. Deification is the metaphor that the Greek patristic tradition came to privilege in its articulation of the Christian concept of salvation: to be saved is to be deified, that is, to share in the divine attribute of immortality. In the Christian narrative of the Orthodox Church 'God became human so that humans might become gods'. Ruth Coates shows that between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Russian religious thinkers turned to deification in their search for a commensurate response to the apocalyptic dimension of the universally anticipated destruction of the Russian autocracy and the social and religious order that supported it.

Focusing on major works by four prominent thinkers of the Russian Religious Renaissance--Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Nikolai Berdiaev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Pavel Florensky--Coates demonstrates the salience of the deification theme and explores the variety of forms of its expression. She argues that the reception of deification in this period is shaped by the discourse of early Russian cultural modernism, and informed not only by theology, but also by nineteenth-century currents in Russian religious culture and German philosophy, particularly as these are received by the novelist Fedor Dostoevsky and the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev. In the works that are analysed, deification is taken out of its original theological context and applied respectively to politics, creativity, economics, and asceticism. At the same time, all the thinkers represented in the book view deification as a project: a practice that should deliver the total transformation and immortalisation of human beings, society, culture, and the material universe, and this is what connects them to deification's theological source.
--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, December 20, 2019

"Foul Is Fair"

Coming February 2020 from Wednesday Books: Foul Is Fair by Hannah Capin.

About the book, from the publisher:
Hannah Capin's Foul is Fair is a bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.

Jade and her friends Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of. Every party is theirs and the world is at their feet. Until the night of Jade's sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target.

They picked the wrong girl.

Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. Andrew’s Prep. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one. She'll take their power, their lives, and their control of the prep school's hierarchy. And she and her coven have the perfect way in: a boy named Mack, whose ambition could turn deadly.
Visit Hannah Capin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prison Truth"

New from the University of California Press: Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News by William J. Drummond.

About the book, from the publisher:
San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest prison and the nation’s largest, is notorious for once holding America’s most dangerous prisoners. But in 2008, the Bastille-by-the-Bay became a beacon for rehabilitation through the prisoner-run newspaper the San Quentin News.

Prison Truth tells the story of how prisoners, many serving life terms, transformed the prison climate from what Johnny Cash called a living hell to an environment that fostered positive change in inmates’ lives. Award-winning journalist William J. Drummond takes us behind bars, introducing us to Arnulfo García, the visionary prisoner who led the revival of the newspaper. Drummond describes how the San Quentin News, after a twenty-year shutdown, was recalled to life under an enlightened warden and the small group of local retired newspaper veterans serving as advisers, which Drummond joined in 2012. Sharing how officials cautiously and often unwittingly allowed the newspaper to tell the stories of the incarcerated, Prison Truth illustrates the power of prison media to humanize the experiences of people inside penitentiary walls and to forge alliances with social justice networks seeking reform.
--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, December 19, 2019

"Boundary Haunted"

New from 47 North: Boundary Haunted by Melissa F. Olson.

About the book, from the publisher:
Months after her battles in Wyoming, Allison “Lex” Luther is still struggling with the aftereffects of the psychic attack she suffered—and with the new developments in her own magic.

Then Lex’s boss, the cardinal vampire of Colorado, passes along a strange request from her counterpart in Atlanta. Hundreds of Civil War spirits have abruptly vanished in Beau Calhoun’s territory, and he wants Lex to figure out why. In exchange, Beau can help her understand boundary magic, which runs in his family line as well.

Despite her trepidation, Lex journeys to the Deep South, where she discovers that ghosts are everywhere…and that her host’s intentions are more complicated than he promised. It seems his teenage descendant is being hunted, and both Beau and Lex fear the young woman’s boundary blood may have made her a target.

With Atlanta’s history looming over her every move, Lex will have to face Beau’s ghosts—and her own—to prevent a boundary magic attack she never dreamed possible.
Visit Melissa F. Olson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"And Dangerous to Know"

New from Kensington: And Dangerous to Know by Darcie Wilde.

About the book, from the publisher:
When the ladies of the ton of Regency London need discreet assistance, they turn to Rosalind Thorne—in these mysteries inspired by the novels of Jane Austen...

Trust is a delicate thing, and no one knows that better than Rosalind Thorne. Lady Melbourne has entrusted her with recovering a packet of highly sensitive private letters stolen from her desk. The contents of these letters hold great interest for the famous poet Lord Byron, who had carried on a notorious public affair with Lady Melbourne's daughter-in-law, the inconveniently unstable Lady Caroline Lamb. Rosalind is to take up residence in Melbourne House, posing as Lady Melbourne's confidential secretary. There, she must discover the thief and regain possession of the letters before any further scandal erupts.

However, Lady Melbourne omits a crucial detail. Rosalind learns from the Bow Street runner, Adam Harkness, that an unidentified woman was found dead in the courtyard of Melbourne House. The coroner has determined she was poisoned. Adam urges Rosalind to use her new position in the household to help solve the murder. As she begins to untangle a web of secrets and blackmail, Rosalind finds she must risk her own life to bring the desperate business to an end...
Visit Darcie Wilde's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Working Girls"

New from Oxford University Press: Working Girls: Sex, Taste, and Reform in the Parisian Garment Trades, 1880-1919 by Patricia Tilburg.

About the book, from the publisher:
As the twentieth century dawned and France entered an era of extraordinary labor activism and industrial competition, an insistently romantic vision of the Parisian garment worker was deployed by politicians, reformers, and artists to manage anxieties about economic and social change. Nostalgia about a certain kind of France was written onto the bodies of the capital's couture workers throughout French pop culture from the 1880s to the 1930s. And the midinettes-as these women were called- were written onto the geography of Paris itself, by way of festivals, monuments, historic preservation, and guide books. The idealized working Parisienne stood in for, at once, the superiority of French taste and craft, and the political (and sexual) subordination of French women and labour. But she was also the public face of more than 80,000 real working women whose demands for better labour conditions were inflected, distorted, and, in some cases, amplified by this ubiquitous Romantic type in the decades straddling World War I. Working Girls bridges cultural histories of the Parisian imaginary and histories of French labour, and puts them in raucous dialogue with one another: a letter by a nineteen-year-old seamstress, a speech by a government minister; a frothy Parisian guide by a bon vivant, the minutes of a union meeting; a bawdy cafe-concert song, a policy brief on garment working conditions.
--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

"Unspeakable Things"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey.

About the book, from the publisher:
Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author’s hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet—or as safe—as it seems.

Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them.

All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.

One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed—violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who’s responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie’s own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.
Visit Jess Lourey's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Such a Fun Age"

New from G.P. Putnam’s Sons: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.

About the book, from the publisher:
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone “family,” the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
Visit Kiley Reid's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

"Dangerous Melodies"

New from W.W. Norton: Dangerous Melodies: Classical Music in America from the Great War through the Cold War by Jonathan Rosenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:
A Juilliard-trained musician and professor of history explores the fascinating entanglement of classical music with American foreign relations.

Dangerous Melodies vividly evokes a time when classical music stood at the center of twentieth-century American life, occupying a prominent place in the nation’s culture and politics. The work of renowned conductors, instrumentalists, and singers—and the activities of orchestras and opera companies—were intertwined with momentous international events, especially the two world wars and the long Cold War.

Jonathan Rosenberg exposes the politics behind classical music, showing how German musicians were dismissed or imprisoned during World War I, while numerous German compositions were swept from American auditoriums. He writes of the accompanying impassioned protests, some of which verged on riots, by soldiers and ordinary citizens. Yet, during World War II, those same compositions were no longer part of the political discussion, while Russian music, especially Shostakovich’s, was used as a tool to strengthen the US-Soviet alliance. During the Cold War, accusations of communism were leveled against members of the American music community, while the State Department sent symphony orchestras to play around the world, even performing behind the Iron Curtain.

Rich with a stunning array of composers and musicians, including Karl Muck, Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Kirsten Flagstad, Aaron Copland, Van Cliburn, and Leonard Bernstein, Dangerous Melodies delves into the volatile intersection of classical music and world politics to reveal a tumultuous history of twentieth-century America.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Liars' Legacy"

New from Kensington Books: Liars' Legacy by Taylor Stevens.

About the book, from the publisher:
They were born in the shadows. Schooled in espionage. Taught to kill and trained to disappear. In this captivating masterwork from bestselling author Taylor Stevens, elusive twins Jack and Jill take the global spy game to electric levels.

The assassin broker is dead. The power void has left the network he controlled without restraints, and the world’s deadliest killers free to pursue their own vendettas and political agendas. The United States government, unwilling to risk upheaval and global chaos, has mobilized killers of its own to preemptively hunt down and destroy each potential threat.

Among the most dangerous on that list are Jack and Jill.

Often estranged—always connected by a legacy they can’t escape—the siblings have eluded many who want them dead. As they board a flight to Berlin hoping to meet the father they’ve never known, they suspect a trap. What they can’t predict is how far a high-level Russian operation will go to secure their skills, or how hard the U.S. operatives sent to stop them will fight to assassinate them first.

For the twins, resistance and cooperation both mean death.

Caught between two superpowers with unlimited resources and unable to trust each other, brother and sister will match wit against skill in a life-threatening chase across Europe, back to the United States, and into an unholy alliance that could change the balance of global power forever.

Filled with pulse-pounding tension, blistering action, and intense human drama, Liars’ Legacy is world-class intrigue at its best.
Visit Taylor Stevens's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Mask.

The Page 69 Test: Liars' Paradox.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, December 16, 2019

"Hacking Diversity"

New from Princeton University Press: Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures by Christina Dunbar-Hester.

About the book, from the publisher:
Hacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by technologically skilled women are drastically lower in hacking communities than in industry and academia. Hacking Diversity investigates the activists engaged in free and open-source software to understand why, despite their efforts, they fail to achieve the diversity that their ideals support.

Christina Dunbar-Hester shows that within this well-meaning volunteer world, beyond the sway of human resource departments and equal opportunity legislation, members of underrepresented groups face unique challenges. She brings together more than five years of firsthand research: attending software conferences and training events, working on message boards and listservs, and frequenting North American hackerspaces. She explores who participates in voluntaristic technology cultures, to what ends, and with what consequences. Digging deep into the fundamental assumptions underpinning STEM-oriented societies, Dunbar-Hester demonstrates that while the preferred solutions of tech enthusiasts—their “hacks” of projects and cultures—can ameliorate some of the “bugs” within their own communities, these methods come up short for issues of unequal social and economic power. Distributing “diversity” in technical production is not equal to generating justice.

Hacking Diversity reframes questions of diversity advocacy to consider what interventions might appropriately broaden inclusion and participation in the hacking world and beyond.
--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wives"

New from Graydon House Books: The Wives by Tarryn Fisher.

About the book, from the publisher:
Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.

But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.

What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read.

You’ll have to grab a copy to find out why.
Visit Tarryn Fisher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, December 15, 2019

"World of Trouble"

New from Yale University Press: World of Trouble: A Philadelphia Quaker Family's Journey through the American Revolution by Richard Godbeer.

About the book, from the publisher:
An intimate account of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a Quaker pacifist couple living in Philadelphia

Historian Richard Godbeer presents a richly layered and intimate account of the American Revolution as experienced by a Philadelphia Quaker couple, Elizabeth Drinker and the merchant Henry Drinker, who barely survived the unique perils that Quakers faced during that conflict. Spanning a half‑century before, during, and after the war, this gripping narrative illuminates the Revolution’s darker side as patriots vilified, threatened, and in some cases killed pacifist Quakers as alleged enemies of the revolutionary cause. Amid chaos and danger, the Drinkers tried as best they could to keep their family and faith intact.

Through one couple’s story, Godbeer opens a window on a uniquely turbulent period of American history, uncovers the domestic, social, and religious lives of Quakers in the late eighteenth century, and situates their experience in the context of transatlantic culture and trade. A master storyteller takes his readers on a moving journey they will never forget.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Final Judgment"

Coming April 2020 from Thomas & Mercer: Final Judgment (Samantha Brinkman) by Marcia Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:
A murder investigation draws firebrand attorney Samantha Brinkman into her boyfriend’s past in this novel of high-risk suspense by bestselling author Marcia Clark.

When it comes to relationships and self-preservation, defense attorney Samantha Brinkman has always been cut and run. But it’s different with her new lover, Niko, an ambitious and globally famous entrepreneur. Sam is putting her faith in him. She has to. He’s also her new client—a suspect in the murder of an investor whose shady dealings turned Niko’s good life upside down.

He had the motive: revenge. As did many others who banked a fortune on the wrong man. That’s a point in Niko’s favor. So is his alibi for the day of the slaying. Until that alibi mysteriously disappears. As Sam’s feverish search for another viable killer begins, the investigation only leads deeper into Niko’s past and its secrets.

From the darkest suspicions to final judgment, fighting for Niko is Sam’s job. To do it, she must risk everything on a man who could make all her worst fears come true.
Visit Marcia Clark's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Piece of the Action"

New from Columbia University Press: A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood by Eithne Quinn.

About the book, from the publisher:
Hollywood is often thought of—and certainly by Hollywood itself—as a progressive haven. However, in the decade after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the film industry grew deeply conservative when it came to conflicts over racial justice. Amid black self-assertion and white backlash, many of the most heated struggles in film were fought over employment. In A Piece of the Action, Eithne Quinn reveals how Hollywood catalyzed wider racial politics, through representation on screen as well as in battles over jobs and resources behind the scenes.

Based on extensive archival research and detailed discussions of films like In the Heat of the Night, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Super Fly, Claudine, and Blue Collar, this volume considers how issues of race and labor played out on the screen during the tumultuous early years of affirmative action. Quinn charts how black actors leveraged their performance capital to force meaningful changes to employment and film content. She examines the emergence of Sidney Poitier and other African Americans as A-list stars; the careers of black filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Ossie Davis; and attempts by the federal government and black advocacy groups to integrate cinema. Quinn also highlights the limits of Hollywood’s liberalism, showing how predominantly white filmmakers, executives, and unions hid the persistence of racism behind feel-good stories and public-relations avowals of tolerance. A rigorous analysis of the deeply rooted patterns of racial exclusion in American cinema, A Piece of the Action sheds light on why conservative and corporate responses to antiracist and labor activism remain pervasive in today’s Hollywood.
--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, December 14, 2019

"Jack Kerouac Is Dead to Me"

Coming April 2020 from Wednesday Books: Jack Kerouac Is Dead to Me: A Novel by Gae Polisner.

About the book, from the publisher:
Fifteen-year-old JL Markham’s life used to be filled with carnival nights and hot summer days spent giggling with her forever best friend Aubrey about their families and boys. Together, they were unstoppable. But they aren’t the friends they once were.

With JL’s father gone on long term business, and her mother struggling with her mental illness, JL takes solace in the tropical butterflies she raises, and in her new, older boyfriend, Max Gordon. Max may be rough on the outside, but he has the soul of a poet (something Aubrey will never understand). Only, Max is about to graduate, and he's going to hit the road - with or without JL.

JL can't bear being left behind again. But what if devoting herself to Max not only means betraying her parents, but permanently losing the love of her best friend? What becomes of loyalty, when no one is loyal to you?

Gae Polisner’s Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a story about the fragility of female friendship, of falling in love and wondering if you are ready for more, and of the glimmers of hope we find by taking stock in ourselves.
Visit Gae Polisner's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Summer of Letting Go.

The Page 69 Test: The Memory of Things.

Writers Read: Gae Polisner (March 2018).

The Page 69 Test: In Sight of Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dust to Dust"

New from New York University Press: Dust to Dust: A History of Jewish Death and Burial in New York by Allan Amanik.

About the book, from the publisher:
A revealing look at how death and burial practices influence the living

Dust to Dust offers a three-hundred-year history of Jewish life in New York, literally from the ground up. Taking Jewish cemeteries as its subject matter, it follows the ways that Jewish New Yorkers have planned for death and burial from their earliest arrival in New Amsterdam to the twentieth century.

Allan Amanik charts a remarkable reciprocity among Jewish funerary provisions and the workings of family and communal life, tracing how financial and family concerns in death came to equal earlier priorities rooted in tradition and communal cohesion. At the same time, he shows how shifting emphases in death gave average Jewish families the ability to advocate for greater protections and entitlements such as widows’ benefits and funeral insurance. Amanik ultimately concludes that planning for life’s end helps to shape social systems in ways that often go unrecognized.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Good Girls Lie"

New from MIRA: Good Girls Lie: A Novel by J. T. Ellison.

About the book, from the publisher:
Goode girls don’t lie…

Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond.

But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous.

In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder.

When a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide.

But look closely…because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened.
Visit J.T. Ellison's website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

Writers Read: J.T. Ellison (September 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue