"Wake Up and Open Your Eyes"

New from Quirk Books: Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman.

About the book, from the publisher:

From master of horror Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media.

Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart—literally—as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn—but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from one of horror's modern masters holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.

Visit Clay McLeod Chapman's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Remaking.

The Page 69 Test: The Remaking.

My Book, The Movie: Whisper Down the Lane.

Q&A with Clay McLeod Chapman.

The Page 69 Test: Whisper Down the Lane.

Writers Read: Clay McLeod Chapman (September 2022).

The Page 69 Test: What Kind of Mother.

Writers Read: Clay McLeod Chapman (September 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cure for Women"

New from St. Martin's Press: The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood―and the brilliant doctor who defied them

After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin’s evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty.

Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.

Visit Lydia Reeder's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dust Bowl Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Something Rotten"

Coming January 21 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Something Rotten: A Novel by Andrew Lipstein.

About the book, from the publisher:

In his provocative, crackling new novel, Andrew Lipstein spins a wicked web through the heart of Copenhagen. You'll question everyone and everything—even the very nature of truth.

Cecilie is a fed-up New York Times reporter. Her husband, Reuben, is a disgraced former NPR host and grudging stay-at-home dad. Neither can wait to flee New York and spend the summer in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cecilie’s hometown. But their vacation begins to turn inside out as soon as they land: Cecilie’s first love, Jonas, has been diagnosed with a rare, fatal illness. All of Cecilie’s friends are desperate to get him help—that is, except for Mikkel, a high-powered journalist who happens to be the only one Jonas will listen to.

Mikkel’s influence quickly extends to Reuben, who’s not only intoxicated by Mikkel’s charm, but discovers in him a new model of masculinity—one he found hopelessly absent in America. As Mikkel indoctrinates Reuben with ever more depraved stunts, Reuben senses something is seriously amiss. Cecilie, too, begins to question who to trust—even herself. Drawn in by the gravity of the past, she can’t help but stray onto the road not taken.

A twisting, thrilling tale of loyalty and deceit, lovers and fools, Andrew Lipstein's Something Rotten proves that sometimes to be kind you have to be cruel beyond belief.

Visit Andrew Lipstein's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Forest Lost"

New from Duke University Press: Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon by Maron E. Greenleaf.

About the book, from the publisher:

Forest Lost is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Unlike other forest commodities, forest carbon offsets do not involve resource extraction; instead, they require keeping carbon in place through forest protection. Maron E. Greenleaf explores forest carbon offsets to understand green capitalism—the use of capitalist logics and practices to mitigate environmental damage. She traces cultural, environmental, governmental, material, and multispecies relations involved in making forest carbon valuable as well as how forest carbon’s commodification in the Amazon turned it into a source of redistributable public environmental wealth. At the same time, Greenleaf shows how making forest carbon monetarily valuable created an unexpected set of uneven, contingent, and contested social and political relations. While forest carbon in the Amazon demonstrates that green capitalism can be socially inclusive, it also shows that green capitalism can reinforce the marginalization it purportedly seeks to combat. By outlining these complex relations and tensions, Greenleaf elucidates broader efforts to create a capitalism suited to the Anthropocene and those efforts’ alluring promises and vexing failures.

Visit Maron E. Greenleaf's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All the Water in the World"

New from St. Martin’s Press: All the Water in the World: A Novel by Eiren Caffall.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.

Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story―with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most – love and work, community and knowledge – will survive.

Visit Eiren Caffall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"America Under the Hammer"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: America Under the Hammer: Auctions and the Emergence of Market Values by Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reveals how, through auctions, early Americans learned capitalism

As the first book-length study of auctions in early America, America Under the Hammer follows this ubiquitous but largely overlooked institution to reveal how, across the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, price became an accepted expression of value. From the earliest days of colonial conquest, auctions put Native land and human beings up for bidding alongside material goods, normalizing new economic practices that turned social relations into economic calculations and eventually became recognizable as nineteenth-century American capitalism.

Starting in the eighteenth century, neighbors collectively turned speculative value into economic “facts” in the form of concrete prices for specific items, thereby establishing ideas about fair exchange in their communities. This consensus soon fractured: during the Revolutionary War, state governments auctioned loyalist property, weaponizing local group participation in pricing and distribution to punish political enemies. By the early nineteenth century, suspicion that auction outcomes were determined by manipulative auctioneers prompted politicians and satirists to police the boundaries of what counted as economic exchange and for whose benefit the economy operated. Women at auctions—as commodities, bidders, or beneficiaries—became a focal point for gendering economic value itself. By the 1830s, as abolitionists attacked the public sale of enslaved men, women, and children, auctions had enshrined a set of economic ideas—that any entity could be coded as property and priced through competition—that have become commonsense understandings all too seldom challenged.

In contrast to histories focused on banks, currencies, or plantations, America Under the Hammer highlights an institution that integrated market, community, and household in ways that put gender, race, and social bonds at the center of ideas about economic worth. Women and men, enslaved and free, are active participants in this story rather than bystanders, and their labor, judgments, and bodies define the resulting contours of the American economy.

Visit Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Queen of Fives"

Coming January 21 from Graydon House: The Queen of Fives: A Novel by Alex Hay.

About the book, from the publisher:

Nothing is quite as it seems in Victorian high society in this clever novel set against the most magnificent wedding of the season, as a mysterious heiress sets her sights on London's most illustrious family

A confidence scheme, when properly executed, will follow five movements in close and inviolable order:

I. The Mark II. The Intrusion. III. The Ballyhoo. IV. The Knot. V. All In.

There may be many counter-strikes along the way, for such is the nature of the game; it contains so many sides, so many endless possibilities...

1898. Quinn le Blanc, London’s most talented con woman, has five days to pull off her most ambitious plot yet: trap a highly eligible duke into marriageand lift a fortune from the richest family in England.

Masquerading as the season’s most enviable debutante, Quinn puts on a brilliant act that earns her entrance into the grand drawing rooms and lavish balls of high society—and propels her straight into the inner circle of her target: the charismatic Kendals. Among those she must convince are the handsome bachelor heir, the rebellious younger sister, and the esteemed duchess eager to see her son married.

But the deeper she forges into their world, the more Quinn finds herself tangled in a complicated web of love, lies, and loyalty. The Kendals all have secrets of their own, and she may not be the only one playing a game of high deception...

Visit Alex Hay's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The War on Rescue"

New from Cornell University Press: The War on Rescue: The Obstruction of Humanitarian Assistance in the European Migration Crisis by William Plowright.

About the book, from the publisher:

The War on Rescue documents how governments block assistance to people in times of crisis. Focusing on the European Migration Crisis of 2015–2022 to address the reasons why governments do this, William Plowright discusses the strategies employed that prevent suffering people from receiving help.

The European Migration Crisis motivated people around the world to offer assistance to needy refugees and migrants across Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. Both large and small organizations rushed to bring food, medical care, and rescue to those stranded at sea. However, many European governments sought to prevent humanitarian assistance and deny safe haven to the desperate. Boats filled with those rescued were blocked from harbors, activists were arrested, and staff were threatened; some faced violence. The War on Rescue adds to social science understanding of and explanations for humanitarian assistance and the reasons why governments obstruct rescue efforts.

Visit William Plowright's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Miranda Conspiracy"

Coming February 4 from Baen: The Miranda Conspiracy (The Billion Worlds Book 3) by James L. Cambias.

About the book, from the publisher:

An ancient treasure in deep space holds the key to a deadly conspiracy which will shake the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium.

At the end of the Tenth Millennium, Zee and his AI buddy Daslakh arrive on the icy moon Miranda, hoping to make a good impression on his girlfriend Adya's upper-class parents. Instead they discover that Adya's father is the target of a political conspiracy. While Adya tries to discover who is trying to to ruin the family fortunes and expel them from Miranda's exclusive ruling class, Daslakh and Zee go on the trail of a lost treasure in deep space. As they both dig deeper they run afoul of rival political factions, romantic complications, space mercenaries, octopus gangsters, and ruthless secret agents—and all the while dealing with interference from Adya's parents and party-going sister. Love, power, wealth, and honor collide in the floating cities and palaces inside Miranda.

Visit James L. Cambias's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Darkling Sea.

Writers Read: James L. Cambias (January 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Arkad's World.

The Page 69 Test: Arkad's World.

My Book, The Movie: The Godel Operation.

Q&A with James L. Cambias.

The Page 69 Test: The Godel Operation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Normalization of the Radical Right"

New from Oxford University Press: The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand by Vicente Valentim.

About the book, from the publisher:

Radical-right behavior is increasing across Western democracies, often very quickly. Previous research has shown, however, that political attitudes and preferences do not change as quickly. Vicente Valentim argues that the role of social norms as drivers of political behavior is crucial for understanding these patterns. Building on a norms-based theory of political supply and demand, he argues that growing radical-right behavior is driven by individuals who already had radical-right views, but who did not act on those views because they thought that they were socially unacceptable. If these voters do not express their preferences, politicians can underestimate how much latent support there is for radical-right policy. This leaves the radical right with less skilled leaders, who are unable to mobilize even radical-right voters to support them. However, if politicians realize that there is more private support for radical-right policy than is typically observable, they have an incentive to run for politics with a radical-right platform and to mobilize silent radical-right views. Their electoral success, in turn, leads to radical-right individuals becoming more comfortable in displaying their views, and impels more politicians to join the radical right. The book's argument makes us rethink how political preferences translate into behavior, shows how social norms affect the interaction of political supply and demand, and highlights how a political culture that promotes inclusion can be eroded.

Visit Vicente Valentim's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Violent Heart"

Coming February 11 from Montlake: This Violent Heart by Heather Levy.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this haunting journey into the confusion and desires of growing up, a therapist reluctantly returns to her hometown, where she revisits the memories that could reveal what really killed her best friend all those years ago.

Devon Mayes thought she was done with the small conservative town she once called home. She fled when she was eighteen after her best friend Summer took her own life, leaving Summer’s twin brother, Keaton, lost in his grief. But when tragedy strikes again, Devon has nowhere to turn but back to the place that first broke her heart.

Being back in Arkana means struggling with the old guilt that shrouds her bisexuality and her feelings for Keaton. There’s so much she’s still hiding from him―and so much of their shared past that’s now resurfacing.

It’s not long before Devon has reason to believe Summer’s tragic death wasn’t suicide after all. Summer had secrets, too…and she wasn’t the only one who didn’t want them exposed.

As Devon and Keaton piece together the mystery of what happened that fateful summer, they must reckon with their own truths before they can move forward. But one person will do whatever it takes to stop them.

Visit Heather Levy's website.

My Book, The Movie: Walking Through Needles.

The Page 69 Test: Walking Through Needles.

The Page 69 Test: Hurt for Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Responsibility and Desert"

New from Oxford University Press: Responsibility and Desert by Michael McKenna.

About the book, from the publisher:

Responsibility & Desert advances a conversational theory of moral responsibility that relies upon desert as the normative basis for blame and punishment. A conversational theory understands the relationship between a blameworthy person and one who blames her to be similar to the relationship between competent speakers engaged in a conversational exchange. Blame can therefore be appraised for being meaningful as a reply to a culpable party's conduct. But meaningfulness alone is inadequate to justify blame and punishment. Might one appeal to fairness, reasonableness, or just utility?

Desert is widely regarded as the proper basis for blame and punishment. But is this a philosophically defensible position? Philosopher Michael McKenna explores just what desert is within the domain of moral responsibility, when conceptualized within the framework of the conversational theory. He does not offer an unqualified defence, but he does offer a best case for treating desert as the proper basis for the communicative character of blame and punishment. To do so, he takes up familiar challenges to desert and retribution. Does deserved blame and punishment commit us to the non-instrumental goodness of harms to the blameworthy and criminally culpable? Is this mere vengeance? Does it also commit us to extremely harsh treatment in response to extremely egregious wrongdoing? McKenna does not shy away from accepting hard truths about appeal to desert, but he does show that many of the most damning indictments of it are misguided.

Visit Michael McKenna's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hammajang Luck"

Coming January 14 from Harper Voyager: Hammajang Luck: A Novel by Makana Yamamoto.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ocean’s 8 meets Blade Runner in this trail-blazing debut science fiction novel and swashbuckling love letter to Hawai’i about being forced to find a new home and striving to build a better one—unmissable for fans of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person—costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most.

And it’s all Angel’s fault. She sold Edie out in what should have been the greatest moment of their lives. Instead, Edie was shipped off to the icy prison planet spinning far below the soaring skybridges and neon catacombs of Kepler space station—of home—to spend the best part of a decade alone.

But then a chance for early parole appears out of nowhere and Edie steps into the pallid sunlight to find none other than Angel waiting—and she has an offer.

One last job. One last deal. One last target. The trillionaire tech god they failed to bring down last time. There’s just one thing Edie needs to do—trust Angel again—which also happens to be the last thing Edie wants to do. What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?

Visit Makana Yamamoto's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Way to Live Now"

New from LSU Press: A Way to Live Now: How Journalism Shaped Ernest Hemingway by John Fenstermaker.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Way to Live Now juxtaposes the dual roles of fiction writer and journalist throughout the career of Ernest Hemingway. Focusing on the author’s appearances in Esquire over forty years, John Fenstermaker traces the evolving nature of Hemingway’s presence in its pages: first as the author of twenty-five essays (1933–1936) and six short stories (1936–1939), then as a popular subject for interactions among editors, subscribers, and critics (1933–1961), a process that continued posthumously with reprintings, miscellanea, and reader commentaries (1961–1973). Developing a friendship and correspondence with founding editor Arnold Gingrich, Hemingway contributed to twenty-eight of the magazine’s first thirty-three issues, including classic pieces such as “On the Blue Water” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Through Esquire, Fenstermaker finds a portal for tracing a documentary record of Hemingway as both writer and public figure.

Filled with incisive commentaries on his roles as reporter, essayist, and fiction writer, A Way to Live Now: How Journalism Shaped Ernest Hemingway offers new perspectives on the eventful life and work of one of the twentieth century’s most influential authors and complicated personalities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime"

Coming soon from Crooked Lane Books: The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime by Vicki Delany.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bookshop owner Gemma Doyle heads to London for a wedding, but when a body is found in connection with a rare book, Gemma sets out to sleuth the slaying in bestselling author Vicki Delany's tenth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery.

Gemma Doyle and her friends have packed their bags and headed to London for her sister Pippa’s wedding. Waiting for her in the hotel lobby is none other than Gemma’s ex-husband, Paul Erikson. Paul has a rare book he wants her to see—calling it “the real deal”—so Gemma agrees to meet him at their old shop, Trafalgar Fine Books, the following day. But when Gemma arrives, accompanied by Grant, a rare book dealer, they find Paul dead in his office.

Paul had been down on his luck, but Gemma never expected this. Had he borrowed money from people he shouldn’t have? And where is the valuable book he was so anxious for Gemma to see? It’s nowhere to be found in the shop. Because of their previous relationship, Gemma feels she owes something to Paul and vows to find his killer.

As Gemma and her best friend Jayne Wilson follow Paul’s trail of friends, enemies, clients, and ex-lovers through London to Yorkshire, she realizes the puzzle of Paul’s last days is more twisted than she originally thought.

This mystery is anything but elementary, and Gemma and Jayne have to use all their wit to get to the bottom of it before their time in London—or in life—is over.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Captive City"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Captive City: Meditations on Slavery in the Urban South by Jennie Lightweis-Goff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores the legacies of slavery in Southern cities along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts

Cities are fraught sites in the national imagination, turned into identity markers when “urban” and “rural” indicate tastes rather than places. Cities bring chaos, draining the lifeblood of the nation like a tick draws blood from its host, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson’s anti-urban polemics, which might have been written during any election year―centuries or months ago. Racism and anti-urbanism were born conjoined during the Revolution. Like their Atlantic coastal counterparts in the US North, Southern cities ―similarly polyglot and cosmopolitan―resist the dominant, mutually inclusive prejudices of the nation that fails to contain them on its eroding, flooding coasts.

Captive City explores the paths of slavery in coastal cities, arguing that captivity haunts the “hospitality” cultures of Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Baltimore. It is not a history of urban slavery, but a literary reflection that argues for coastal cities as a distinct region that scrambles time, resisting the “post” in postindustrial and the “neo” in neoliberalism. Jennie Lightweis-Goff offers a cultural exploration bound by American literature, especially life-writing by the enslaved, as well as compelling reassessments of works by canonical writers such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Hector St. John de Crevecoeur.

Lightweis-Goff reveals how the preserved yet fragile landscapes of these cities are haunted―not simply by the ghost tours that are signature stops for travelers in their historic districts―but by the echoes of slavery in their economies and built environments.

Follow Jennie Lightweis-Goff on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Favorites"

Coming January 14 from Random House: The Favorites: A Novel by Layne Fargo.

About the book, from the publisher:

To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story” through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.

Visit Layne Fargo's website.

My Book, The Movie: They Never Learn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Case for Work"

New from Oxford University Press: The Case for Work by Jean-Philippe Deranty.

About the book, from the publisher:

The modern work ethic is in crisis. The numerous harms and injustices harboured by current labour markets and work organisations, combined with the threat of mass unemployment entailed in rampant automation, have inspired a strong “post-work” movement in the theoretical humanities and social sciences, echoed by many intellectuals, journalists, artists and progressives. Against this widespread temptation to declare work obsolete, The Case for Work shows that our paltry situation is critical precisely because work matters. It is a mistake to advocate a society beyond work on the basis of its current organisation.

In the first part of the book, the arguments feeding into the “case against work” are located in the long history of social and political thought. This comprehensive, genealogical inquiry highlights many conceptual and methodological issues that continue to plague contemporary accounts. The second part of the book makes the “case for work” in a positive way through a dialectical argument. The very feature of work that its critics emphasise, namely that it is a realm of necessity, is precisely what makes it the conduit for freedom and flourishing, provided each member of society is in a position to face this necessity in conditions that are equal and just.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cross My Heart"

Coming January 14 from Atria: Cross My Heart: A Novel by Megan Collins.

About the book, from the publisher:

She has his wife’s heart; the one she wants is his. The author of The Family Plot brings her signature “taut, emotionally charged, and propulsive” (Jeneva Rose, New York Times bestselling author) prose to a twisty novel about a heart transplant patient who becomes romantically obsessed with her donor’s husband.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.

A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.

As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?

Visit Megan Collins's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Family Plot.

The Page 69 Test: Thicker Than Water.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pure Excess"

New from Columbia University Press: Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity by Todd McGowan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Todd McGowan forges a new theory of capitalism as a system based on the production of more than what we need: pure excess. He argues that the promise of more―more wealth, more enjoyment, more opportunity, without requiring any sacrifice―is the essence of capitalism. Previous socioeconomic systems set up some form of the social good as their focus. Capitalism, however, represents a revolutionary turn away from the good and the useful toward excessive growth, which now threatens the habitability of the planet.

Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, McGowan shows how the production of commodities explains the role of excess in the workings of capitalism. Capitalism and the commodity ensnare us with the image of the constant fulfillment of our desires―the seductive but unattainable promise of satisfying a longing that has no end. To challenge this system, McGowan turns to art, arguing that it can expose the psychological mechanisms that perpetuate capitalist society and reveal the need for limits. Featuring lively writing and engaging examples from film, literature, and popular culture, Pure Excess uncovers the hidden logic of capitalism―and helps us envision a noncapitalist life in a noncapitalist society.

The Page 99 Test: Capitalism and Desire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bitter Passage"

Coming January 1 from Lake Union: Bitter Passage: A Novel by Colin Mills.

About the book, from the publisher:

A nineteenth-century Arctic expedition descends into a chilling nightmare in a gripping and epic historical novel of discovery, rescue, deliverance, and survival by any means.

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin, commander of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departed England to seek a navigable route across the top of the Americas. He and his 128 men never returned.

Four years later, Royal Navy Lieutenant Frederick Robinson and Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams are determined to find the men missing in the Arctic. While they are united in purpose, they are divided in ambition. The pious and idealistic Adams strives to save his boyhood hero. Robinson hungers for promotion through the Admiralty ranks. Weathering a relationship as volatile as the icy, barren land upon which they trek, Robinson and Adams lead a team of seamen in search of the lost expedition. What awaits them is a struggle against not only the elements but each other as loneliness, starvation, and maddening isolation prove more chilling than the deadliest Arctic blast.

A harrowing novel set against the background of true events, Bitter Passage explores two men’s driving need for redemption and the lengths to which a desperate soul will go to survive.

Visit Colin Mills's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Evolutionary Aestheticism in Victorian Culture"

New from Cambridge University Press: Evolutionary Aestheticism in Victorian Culture by Lindsay Wilhelm.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Aesthetic Movement, a collection of artists, writers and thinkers who rejected traditional ideas of beauty as guided and judged by morals and utility and rallied under the banner of 'art for art's sake', are often associated with hedonism and purposelessness. However, as Lindsay Wilhelm shows, aestheticism may have been more closely related to nineteenth-century ideas of progress and scientific advancement than we think. This book illuminates an important intellectual alliance between aestheticism and evolutionism in late-nineteenth-century Britain, putting aesthetic writers such as Vernon Lee, Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater into dialogue with scientific thinkers such as Darwin and mathematician W. K. Clifford. Considering in particular how Aestheticism and scientific thinking converged on utopian ideas about beauty, Lindsay Wilhelm reveals how this evolutionary aestheticism crucially shaped Victorian debates about individual pleasure and social progress that continue to resonate today.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fair Play"

Coming April 8 from Harper: Fair Play: A Novel by Louise Hegarty.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley, a wonderfully original, genre-breaking literary debut from Ireland that’s an homage to the brilliant detective novels of the early twentieth century, a twisty modern murder mystery, and a searing exploration of grief and loss.

A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken.

In the morning, all of them wake up—except Benjamin.

As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems.

Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail, now alone, piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?

Gripping and playful, sharp and profoundly moving, Fair Play plumbs the depths of the human heart while subverting one of our most popular genres.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Indigenous Ecocinema"

New from West Virginia University Press: Indigenous Ecocinema: Decolonizing Media Environments by Salma Monani.

About the book, from the publisher:

Introducing the concepts of d-ecocinema and d-ecocinema criticism, Monani expands the purview of ecocinema studies and not only brings attention to a thriving Indigenous cinema archive but also argues for a methodological approach that ushers Indigenous intellectual voices front and center in how we theorize this archive. Its case-study focus on Canada, particularly the work emanating from the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto--a nationally and internationally recognized hub in Indigenous cinema networks--provides insights into pan-Indigenous and Nation-specific contexts of Indigenous ecocinema.

This absorbing text is the first book-length exploration foregrounding the environmental dimensions of cinema made by Indigenous peoples, including a particlarly fascinating discussion on how Indigenous cinema’s ecological entanglements are a crucial and complementary aspect of its agenda of decolonialism.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Between Now and Forever"

New from Montlake: Between Now and Forever by Adriana Locke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Neighbors to lovers can be a risky proposition in this funny, sexy, and swoony romantic comedy between a single mother and the grumpy man next door by USA Today bestselling author Adriana Locke.

When Gabrielle Solomon falls, she falls hard. Even if that means literally toppling over a porch railing in nothing but a flimsy towel―right in front of her sexy new neighbor.

Jay Stetson is 100 percent hero material with those arms, that chest, and his deliciously oh-so-sexy smirk. The chiseled hunk in flannel has an irresistible off-limits attitude while plucking Gabrielle out of the bushes and saving her from a snake. Unfortunately, he’s not indulging in what Gabrielle is offering―not with his emotional train wreck of a past.

Just neighbors. Just friends. Or so he says.

Secretly, he’s smitten with the single, fierce mama bear of two who plays Miss Fix-It at the house next door. He doesn’t even really mind the noise or the chaos her young sons cause. What he does mind is how his lonely heart races when looking into her emerald-colored eyes.

Can Jay let his painful memories go, or will he let the woman of his dreams slip between his fingers?

Visit Adriana Locke's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Other Big Bang"

New from Columbia University Press: The Other Big Bang: The Story of Sex and Its Human Legacy by Eric S. Haag.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sex shapes who we are as individuals and as a species. Where in the mists of time did something so important―and eye-catching―originate, and what does this history tell us about ourselves? Why do we have sex, and sexes, at all?

In The Other Big Bang, the evolutionary and developmental biologist Eric S. Haag explores the two-billion-year history of sex, from the first organisms on Earth to contemporary humans. He delves into the deep history of sexual reproduction, from its origins as a fix for a mutational crisis to an essential feature of all complex life. Haag traces sexual differentiation from its earliest forms in microbes to its elaboration in animals, showing why sex differences in cells and organisms help species adapt, persist, and evolve. Humanity’s clear sexual kinship with yeast and clams exists even as we evolved differences that distinguish us from other mammals, and even other apes.

Bringing the story up to the present, Haag argues that the evolutionary history of human sexuality helps us better understand contemporary society. Our ancient male-female sexual system remains an important fact of life, even as we see increasingly diverse sexual orientations, gender expressions, and parenthood choices. Witty and inviting, The Other Big Bang offers a clear view of the evolutionary roots of human sexuality and their significance today.

Visit Eric S. Haag's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Johnny Careless"

Coming January 28 from Celadon Books: Johnny Careless: A Novel by Kevin Wade.

About the book, from the publisher:

“A fast-moving classic crime novel” (John Sandford) crafted by the veteran screenwriter and showrunner for the acclaimed police procedural series Blue Bloods, Johnny Careless is Kevin Wade’s razor-sharp debut novel.

Police Chief Jeep Mullane has been bounced back home to Long Island’s North Shore by a heartbreaking case that both earned him his NYPD detective’s shield and burned him out of the Job. Now heading up a small local police department, he finds himself navigating the same geography he did growing up there as the son of an NYPD cop. Jeep is a “have-not” among the glittering “haves,” a sharp-witted, down-to-earth man in a territory defined and ruled by multigenerational wealth and power and the daunting tribal codes and customs that come with it.

When the corpse of Jeep’s childhood friend Johnny Chambliss―born into privilege and known as “Johnny Careless” for his reckless, golden-boy antics―surfaces in the Bayville waters, past collides with present, and Jeep is pulled into a treacherous web. He is challenged by Johnny’s wealthy and secretive family and his beautiful, enigmatic ex-wife as he untangles a knotted mystery fraught with theft, corrupt local moguls, and decades-old secrets, all while grappling with his own deep-seated grief for his lost pal.

A fast-paced story, Johnny Careless “combines grit and wit in a way that conjures Donald Westlake or Robert Parker in full stride” (Carl Hiassen).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Woman Who Knew Everyone"

Coming soon from Grand Central Publishing: The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington's Most Famous Hostess by Meryl Gordon.

About the book, from the publisher:

A deeply researched biography of the socialite, political hostess, activist and United States envoy to Luxembourg, Perle Mesta, from New York Times bestselling author Meryl Gordon.

Perle Mesta was a force to be reckoned with. In her heyday, this wealthy globe-trotting Washington widow was one of the most famous women in America, garnering as much media attention as Eleanor Roosevelt. Renowned for her world-class parties featuring politicians and celebrities, she was very close to three presidents–Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. Truman named her as the first female envoy to Luxembourg, which inspired the hit musical based on Perle’s life – “Call Me Madam” – which starred Ethel Merman, ran on Broadway for two years and later became a movie. A pioneering supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, she was a prodigious Democratic fundraiser and rescued Harry Truman’s financially flailing 1948 campaign.

In this intensely researched biography, author Meryl Gordon chronicles Perle’s lavish life and society adventures in Newport, Manhattan and Washington, while highlighting her important, but nearly forgotten contribution to American politics and the feminist movement.

Visit Meryl Gordon's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Phantom of Fifth Avenue.

Writers Read: Meryl Gordon (October 2017).

The Page 99 Test: Bunny Mellon.

My Book, The Movie: Bunny Mellon.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tartufo"

Coming January 28 from Grand Central Publishing: Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of Hollow Kingdom, a fantastically funny story featuring a cast of colorful characters in a dying Italian village and a giant truffle that changes their fate forever in this “deliciously absurd tale....I savored every page of this book.” (Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures)

After nearly losing the election to a geriatric donkey, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. A truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen.

Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Tartufo is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.

Visit Kira Jane Buxton's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Kira Jane Buxton & Ewok.

My Book, The Movie: Hollow Kingdom.

The Page 69 Test: Hollow Kingdom.

My Book, The Movie: Feral Creatures.

Q&A with Kira Jane Buxton.

The Page 69 Test: Feral Creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crimean Quagmire"

New from Oxford University Press: Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare by Gregory Carleton.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Crimean War was the greatest international crisis of the Victorian era, and a modern war of rifles, railroads and telegraphs. As it raged, two writers embedded in the conflict-the young Russian officer Lev Tolstoy, and William Howard Russell, an Irish correspondent for The Times-brought the horrors of trench warfare home to the public for the first time.

Crimea transformed how we understand war. Stripping away the romanticism of the Napoleonic era, Tolstoy and Russell exposed government lies and cover-ups as their nations descended into the first quagmire of the modern age. Their writing shocked readers, revealing that their loved ones were dying needlessly. Between this reporting and soldiers' own writings, the world was witnessing an unprecedented showdown between the voices of private individuals and their rulers. Tolstoy and Russell paid dearly for their honesty, but their legacy of confronting the powerful endures.

Crimean Quagmire is the first book to tell this story in full. With today's conflicts growing ever more complex, the Crimean War has never been more resonant.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I'll Come to You"

Coming soon from Catapult: I'll Come to You: A Novel by Rebecca Kauffman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A modern and classic story of family, I'll Come to You chronicles intersecting lives over the course of one year—1995—anchored by the anticipation and arrival of a child. With empathy, insight, and humor, Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them, a woman whose husband of forty years has left her for reasons he’s unwilling to share and the man who is now disastrously attempting to woo her, a couple in denial about a looming health crisis, and their son who is fumbling toward middle age and can’t stop lying. Ultimately, these storylines crescendo and converge into a dramatic and harrowing turn of events. With heart, wit, and courage, and through pain, these characters traverse territory that both challenges and defines the bonds of family.

Sweeping yet compact, I’ll Come to You investigates themes of intimacy, memory, loss, grief, and reconciliation, and the wonder, terror, frustration, fear, and magic of brushing up against the unknowable—both around us and within us.

Visit Rebecca Kauffman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Black Revolutionaries"

New from the University of Georgia Press: Black Revolutionaries: A History of the Black Panther Party by Joe Street.

About the book, from the publisher:

Black Revolutionaries is an accessible yet rigorously argued history of the Black Panther Party (BPP), one of the emblematic organizations of the 1960s. Joe Street highlights the complexity of the BPP’s history through three key themes: the BPP’s intellectual history, its political and social activism, and the persecution its members endured. Together, these themes confirm the BPP’s importance in understanding Black America’s response to white oppression in the 1960s and 1970s.

Based on a wealth of archival material, Black Revolutionaries reveals the enduring importance of leftist political philosophy to 1960s and 1970s radicalism, and how the BPP helps us to understand more deeply the role of public space and public protest in the 1960s. Street shows how the BPP were key to the transformation of political activism in the post-civil rights era. As the BPP faced the psychological and organizational impacts of FBI surveillance, police repression, and imprisonment, Street examines how these negative forces helped to shape and destroy the BPP.

Most significantly, Black Revolutionaries demonstrates that an understanding of African American grassroots politics and protest, racial injustice, and police brutality in the post-civil rights era is only comprehensible through engagement with the BPP’s history.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chain Reaction"

Coming January 28 from Minotaur Books: Chain Reaction (A Dez Limerick Thriller, 3) by James Byrne.

About the book, from the publisher:

Dez Limerick, a man of many skills and a murky past, faces the impossible-a skilled, deadly opponent who anticipates his every move in James Byrne's Chain Reaction.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick ("Dez" to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. He was trained as a "gatekeeper"―he can open any door, keep it open as long as necessary, and control who does―and does not―go through. Now retired from his previous life, Dez still tries to keep his skills up to date.

Knocking around the country, picking up the occasional gig as a guitarist, Dez is contacted by a friend in urgent need of his musical skills. At his behest, Dez flies to the East Coast to a gig at the brand new massive complex, the Liberty Center. But he's barely landed before he finds himself in the midst of a terrorist attack, a group has taken over the whole center and thousands of hostage lives are in danger. With the semi-willing help of a talented thief, Dez takes on the impossible task of outfighting and outwitting a literal army. But that's just the beginning, as Dez learns he was actually lured there under false pretenses, by someone who knows more about Dez, his past and his skills than any living person should.

Visit James Byrne's website.

Q&A with James Byrne.

The Page 69 Test: Deadlock.

My Book, The Movie: Deadlock.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Burying Mussolini"

New from Cornell University Press: Burying Mussolini: Ordinary Life in the Shadows of Fascism by Paolo Heywood.

About the book, from the publisher:

Burying Mussolini addresses the global resurgence in authoritarian and nationalist populism and its connection with valorizations of ordinary life. Predappio is the birthplace and burial site of Benito Mussolini and Italy's premier neo-fascist tourist site with hundreds of thousands of fascist sympathizers descending on the town annually. But, Paolo Heywood asks, what of the people who actually live there? What does 'ordinary life' look like in the shadow of Mussolini's grave?

As politicians, commentators, and social scientists seek to understand what lies behind new forms of political authoritarianism, and whether and how they resemble movements once thought consigned to the past, Burying Mussolini narrates how people in Predappio cope with the dark heritage of their home by carefully crafting a sense of 'ordinariness' that is itself inflected by ghosts of their fascist past.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Love"

Coming January 14 from Harper Perennial: This Love: A Novel by Lotte Jeffs.

About the book, from the publisher:

An utterly charming and modern debut novel spanning ten years of extraordinary friendship, about soulmates, unconventional families, and the limitless, ever-changing forms love can take.

When Mae and Ari meet outside a crowded gay bar during their final year of university, their connection is instant, sparking a lifetime friendship. Stubborn and no stranger to breaking hearts, Mae needs Ari's bright light to guide her out of her self-centered ways. Reeling from a scandal in New York, vibrant, charming Ari sees Mae as an anchor keeping him grounded.

Though they are young, ambitious, and queer, both Mae and Ari secretly daydream about settling down somewhere with a garden, children, and dogs, building a life that feels like home. They make a pact: somehow, some day, they will have a child together.

In the decades that follow, Ari and Mae realize that fulfilling their promise will not be as simple as they once hoped. Navigating toxic partners and hidden secrets, combatting the heavy weight of grief, and relishing the spoils of flashy media careers, the two struggle to reconcile their ever-diverging paths. Although nothing goes quite to plan, Ari and Mae—alongside their dearest friends and lovers—come to realize that the messy, devoted, tight-knit family they could build together might be better than anything they could have ever imagined.

Page-turning, emotionally evocative, and bursting with wit and charm, This Love is a testament to the power of friendship and a love letter to family—however it’s formed.

Visit Lotte Jeffs's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making the Human"

New from Rutgers University Press: Making the Human: Race, Allegory, and Asian Americans by Corinne Mitsuye Sugino.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the debate over affirmative action to the increasingly visible racism amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans have emerged as key figures in a number of contemporary social controversies. In Making the Human: Race, Allegory, and Asian Americans, Corinne Mitsuye Sugino offers the lens of racial allegory to consider how media, institutional, and cultural narratives mobilize difference to normalize a white, Western conception of the human. Rather than focusing on a singular arena of society, Sugino considers contemporary sources across media, law, and popular culture to understand how they interact as dynamic sites of meaning-making. Drawing on scholarship in Asian American studies, Black studies, cultural studies, communication, and gender and sexuality studies, Sugino argues that Asian American racialization and gendering plays a key role in shoring up abstract concepts such as “meritocracy,” “family,” “justice,” “diversity,” and “nation” in ways that naturalize hierarchy. In doing so, Making the Human grapples with anti-Asian racism’s entanglements with colonialism, antiblackness, capitalism, and gendered violence.

Visit Corinne Mitsuye Sugino's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"They All Fall the Same"

Coming January 7 from Crooked Lane Books: They All Fall the Same: A Novel by Wes Browne.

About the book, from the publisher:

An organized crime boss in Kentucky believes money and power are everything until his enterprise collides with a family tragedy in this gripping noir thriller perfect for fans of S.A. Cosby and Eli Cranor.

Cannabis kingpin Burl Spoon has reigned over the Jackson County area for three decades, building a powerful backwoods empire. But behind a well-run organization, his personal life is crumbling–his daughter can’t stay clean; his son has hated him since coming out; and after enduring years of infidelity, his wife is straying too. The only person not on his payroll who still adores him is his six-year-old granddaughter, Chelsea.

When his daughter overdoses on heroin laced with fentanyl and one of his employees is murdered, Burl’s retaliation against Clovis Begley, the patriarch of the heroin-dealing family involved in both deaths, is inevitable. As Burl’s plan spirals into a firestorm of vengeance that threatens the safety of his granddaughter, his drive for revenge conflicts with his longing for redemption.

On the brink of losing everything, Burl must find a path between retribution and protecting what’s left of his family.

Visit Wes Browne's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Pacific's New Navies"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Pacific's New Navies: An Ocean, its Wars, and the Making of US Sea Power by Thomas M. Jamison.

About the book, from the publisher:

The initial creation of the United States' ocean-going battlefleet – otherwise known as the 'New Navy' – was a result of the naval wars and arms races around the Pacific during the late-nineteenth century. Using a transnational methodology, Thomas Jamison spotlights how US Civil War-era innovations catalyzed naval development in the Pacific World, creating a sense that the US Navy was falling behind regional competitors. As the industrializing 'newly-made navies' of Chile, Peru, Japan, and China raced against each other, Pacific dynamism motivated investments in the US 'New Navy as a matter of security and civilizational prestige. In this provocative exploration into the making of modern US navalism, Jamison provides an analysis of competitive naval build-ups in the Pacific, of the interactions between peoples, ideas, and practices within it, and ultimately the emergence of the US as a major power.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Seven"

Coming January 1 from Thomas & Mercer: The Seven (Eve Wren) by Robyn Delvey.

About the book, from the publisher:

2 bombs. 43 dead. Dozens injured. The trial of the decade has begun…

New to the job and with everything to prove, Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Eve Wren is working on the biggest UK trial in decades.

Notorious cult leader Patrick Nye and his followers, known as The Seven, are pleading not guilty to detonating a bomb in a London theatre. Patrick might be charming on the stand, but Eve knows that the evidence never lies.

The trial has already started when Eve discovers a piece of evidence that calls the whole case into question.

With the world watching, every second counts as the clock ticks down on the jury’s verdict. And Eve’s hunt for the truth pulls her into the sinister criminal underbelly and straight into the line of fire…

Follow Robin Delvey on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Poor Things"

New from Duke University Press: Poor Things: How Those with Money Depict Those without It by Lennard J. Davis.

About the book, from the publisher:

For generations most of the canonical works that detail the lives of poor people have been created by rich or middle-class writers like Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, or James Agee. This has resulted in overwhelming depictions of poor people as living abject, violent lives in filthy and degrading conditions. In Poor Things, Lennard J. Davis labels this genre “poornography”: distorted narratives of poverty written by and for the middle and upper classes. Davis shows how poornography creates harmful and dangerous stereotypes that build barriers to social justice and change. To remedy this, Davis argues, poor people should write realistic depictions of themselves, but because of representational inequality they cannot. Given the obstacles to the poor accessing the means of publication, Davis suggests that the work should, at least for now, be done by “transclass” writers who were once poor and who can accurately represent poverty without relying on stereotypes and clichés. Only then can the lived experience of poverty be more fully realized.

Visit Lennard Davis' website.

Writers Read: Lennard Davis (November 2008).

--Marshal Zeringue