"The Trinity"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory by Sharron Wilkins Conrad.

About the book, from the publisher:

A striking triptych once displayed in countless African American households, the Trinity typically features Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy. More than decoration, these portraits were deliberate acts of memory and quiet resistance, a medium through which African Americans asserted their own narratives of hope, leadership, and the fight for justice.

In this provocative history, Sharron Wilkins Conrad traces the Trinity across several decades, showing how African Americans didn’t merely remember the civil rights movement; they shaped its meaning. The Trinity reveals why Kennedy’s image hung beside King and Christ, while Lyndon B. Johnson, despite signing landmark legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, remained largely unheralded. Kennedy’s charisma, symbolic promise, and perceived martyrdom placed him among sacred icons, while Johnson—seen as transactional and confronted by the era’s growing impatience—never secured the same emotional legacy. In a gripping exploration of memory and meaning-making, Conrad reveals how communities create historical truths by elevating some leaders, sidelining others, and preserving their own visions in defiance of the official record.

Visit Sharron Wilkins Conrad's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Love Operation"

Coming November 1 from Mindy’s Book Studio: The Love Operation: A Novel by Melissa R. Collings.

About the book, from the publisher:

A brilliant spine surgeon gains the power to perfectly recall her past―only to discover that some memories are better left undisturbed. A witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Dr. Cordelia Wren has always been in control―of her surgical career, her emotions, and especially her memories. But when she joins a cutting-edge memory enhancement study at her hospital, she gains an unexpected ability: the power to vividly relive any moment from her past. It seems like the perfect opportunity to analyze her failed relationships and finally understand why every man she’s ever loved has walked away.

There’s just one problem. Actually, three:

• She may have…borrowed…access to the highly restricted memory study.
• She’s secretly dating the hospital’s new COO while competing for chief of surgery―a relationship that could destroy both their careers if discovered.
• Her first love has just reappeared in her life, stirring up feelings she thought she’d buried.

As Cordelia dives deeper into her past, the lines between memory and reality begin to blur. The truth she uncovers forces her to question everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and what it means to be “in control.”

With her career hanging in the balance and her heart pulled in two directions, Cordelia must decide: Should she trust the memories that have shaped her life, or finally let go of the past to embrace an uncertain future?

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, The Love Operation is a witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Visit Melissa R. Collings's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wards of the State"

New from the University of California Press: Wards of the State: Care and Custody in a Maximum-Security Prison by Nick Iacobelli.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1976, the Supreme Court affirmed incarcerated people's right to healthcare under the Eighth Amendment. Wards of the State examines the everyday instantiation of incarcerated people's right to healthcare within a men's maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, Nicholas Iacobelli observes how the prison's medical unit operates as a "ward of the state"―a space that reproduces the state's ideological commitment to punishment through its obligation to provide care. Incarcerated men are also cast as wards of the state, becoming its biological and financial property. These dynamics result in complex systems of dependence, refusal, and skepticism―and troubling ideas of what constitutes health and illness in prison. Despite this, the right to care also opens spaces for men to envision futures and make both personal and structural appeals to justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Happier Here With You"

New from Lake Union: Happier Here With You: A Novel by Amy Gail Hansen.

About the book, from the publisher:

A widowed mother finds the recipe for happiness when she visits a long-lost relative in a heart-lifting novel about family, food, and second chances.

Widowed and overworked, museum curator and food historian Maggie Brodbeck struggles to spend quality time with her five-year-old daughter, Hannah. Fueled by on-the-go meals, she doesn’t even have time to breathe, let alone pursue personal happiness. Then, out of the blue, Maggie receives an invitation from her estranged great-aunt Alice to visit her Wisconsin farm. The time has come, Magpie.

Desperate for a break, for herself and for Hannah, Maggie finds Rosehill Farm to be a revelation. In the enigmatic Alice, Maggie finds a kindred spirit. Whether baking together or just looking at the stars, they share a natural rhythm. The calming pace of country living is made even sweeter when Maggie meets the charismatic Brady, a local pastry chef.

Then Maggie opens her aunt’s treasured box of generations-old recipes and discovers the surprising threads of her heroic family history. The recipes not only shed light on the past, but reconnect Maggie to her love of cooking and to a life of contentment close to her heart―and back to herself.

Visit Amy Gail Hansen's website.

Writers Read: Amy Gail Hansen (August 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Butterfly Sister.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Recipes for the Melting Pot"

New from Columbia University Press: Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The Settlement Cook Book by Nora L. Rubel.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1901, Lizzie Black Kander put together a cookbook based on the classes she taught at the Milwaukee Jewish Mission. “I was trying to teach a group of young foreign girls in a crowded neighborhood how to cook simple and nutritious food, yet have it attractive and inexpensive as we prepare it in America,” she recalled. The Settlement Cook Book would go on to be the most successful charitable cookbook in American history, remaining a best-seller into the 1970s. Despite including nonkosher recipes, it became a mainstay in Jewish kitchens and an enduring touchstone of Jewish American culture.

Recipes for the Melting Pot tells the remarkable story of The Settlement Cook Book, demonstrating how it shaped Jewish American identity―and was in turn shaped by generations of Jewish women. Nora L. Rubel traces the cookbook’s evolution across forty editions over several decades, through waves of immigration, shifting gender roles, upward mobility, suburbanization, and rapid changes in Jewish life. She argues that the book celebrates pluralism, allowing it to serve at once as a tool for Americanization, a repository of tradition, and a platform for culinary innovation. Ultimately, The Settlement Cook Book is a record of American Jewish women’s history, told through the food they made and the lives they led. A cultural biography of an iconic cookbook, this lively and inviting book shares an inclusive vision of American cuisine.

Visit Nora L. Rubel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Refuge"

Coming September 8 from Crooked Lane Books: The Refuge: A Novel by Carly Hillman.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Ava loves the wildlife refuge where she grew up, but the long-buried secrets she discovers there threaten to destroy her family—and the paradise they call home.

But is it really paradise if you’re trapped inside?

When wildlife ranger Johnny Hayward discovers a terrified young girl hiding in the grasses, he joins the tight-knit staff in trying to solve the mystery of how the girl, Maeve, came to their land. But when the police arrive, she tells them that Johnny is her father. He goes along with the lie, a split-second decision that entangles them both in a lifelong cover-up.

Decades later, Maeve’s daughter, Ava, grows up believing that same lie. Ava’s love for the Refuge, where she lives in the staff cabins with her mother and is training to be a tour ranger, prevents her from dwelling on the fact that her mother never leaves the grounds—and won’t explain why. But after starting to date a local boy, Ava begins to question her sheltered upbringing, shocked to discover that life outside their fences is not the nightmare her mother always taught her to fear. She is obsessed with answering one question: What is her mother so afraid of?

Angry that her mother and Johnny won’t give her answers, Ava follows a string of clues to investigate the disturbing events that led to Maeve’s arrival all those years ago, unearthing secrets that some will do anything to keep buried.

Visit Carly Hillman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Becoming George"

New from W.W. Norton: Becoming George: The Invention of George Sand by Fiona Sampson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A long-overdue reappraisal of the groundbreaking nineteenth-century writer who reshaped the literary and social norms of her age.

By the age of thirty, the young woman who was born Aurore Dupin in 1804 in a Paris garret had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English, her novels were outselling even Victor Hugo. Her enormous and radical corpus would grow to include seventy novels, travel writing, plays, autobiography, and political writing. But despite this prodigious talent, Sand was simultaneously a figure of scandal. Cigar-smoking, cross-dressing, and promiscuous, she seemed to break all the rules society set for women.

Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy? Or did her sexual and emotional relationships with the leading figures of her day―from Fryderyk Chopin to Gustave Flaubert, and Alfred de Musset to Eugène Delacroix―form part of her dialogue with the world around her: a dialogue that’s intrinsic to writing itself? To what extent do we invent ourselves? And what can we learn, from Sand’s life and art, about how writers in particular invent themselves, and are reinvented by the society around them?

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Sand’s death, and Becoming George is a fitting celebration of her literary genius―as well as the first new biography in nearly twenty-five years. Award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates an artistic and intellectual giant who still speaks to us today. Brilliantly prescient―about ecology, politics, society, gender―George Sand was truly a figure ahead of her time.

Visit Fiona Sampson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Date"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Date by T. H. Murdock.

About the book, from the publisher:

What would you do if your first date ended in murder?

A year ago, after a perfect date, Miles Deverill was charged with murder. The handsome young actor became front-page news when he was accused of killing Caira Kennedy, a social worker he had just met that night.

Now acquitted, Miles can’t escape the past. He tries to rebuild his life, but journalists won’t leave him alone. And then the threatening messages start―in Caira's own voice: this is not over. Is she still alive or is someone playing a twisted game?

Desperate to escape, Miles joins friends on a remote road trip. But deep in an isolated forest, one of their group is murdered. Someone close to Miles knows exactly what happened on his date―and this time he has to face the truth. Guilty or innocent, there is nowhere left to run…

Visit T. H. Murdock's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Propaganda Wars of the American Revolution"

New from Yale University Press: Propaganda Wars of the American Revolution: From the Boston Patriots to George Washington by George Goodwin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revelatory account of how words and actions combined to destroy Britain’s colonial rule and secure Washington’s American victory

The American Revolution was not only fought on bloody battlefields, it was waged with the ink of pen and print. George Goodwin shows how the leaders of the American Revolution brilliantly weaponized information and propaganda through correspondence and newspapers, shaping public perception, mobilizing support, and swaying the colonies toward open rebellion. Once the war began, George Washington’s tireless ability to deploy the pen and press as a weapon of war helped to unite and sustain very different colonies and colonists during the eight long years before victory.

Drawing on a wealth of contemporary accounts, letters, and publications, Goodwin demonstrates how liberty and authority were contested through ideas, images, and rhetoric at the time of America’s birth―and how, 250 years on, the Revolution can be seen as America’s first great media war.

Visit George Goodwin's website.

The Page 99 Test: Benjamin Franklin in London.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Witch Trial"

Coming September 29 from Harper Perennial: Witch Trial: A Novel by Harriet Tyce.

About the book, from the publishr:

Internationally bestselling author Harriet Tyce returns with a page-turning thriller involving three teenage girls, one murdered classmate, and a chilling modern-day witch trial that will leave readers breathless.

Let the Witch Trial begin...

When eighteen-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in a park, the city of Edinburgh is stunned—and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with the murder. As social media explodes in a tizzy of theories and headlines scream for justice, rumors of bullying are overshadowed by something more wicked and frightening: whispers of dark rituals, feverish obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong.

When the trial begins, everyone in Edinburgh clamors for a front-row ticket to the show: to look upon the murderous Eliza and Isobel with their own eyes. Everyone, that is, but Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon picked for the jury. But, as the trial unfolds—and the girls’ lawyers offer a surprising and unsettling defense—the reluctant Matthew finds himself questioning everything: the motives, the evidence, even his own judgement. Then he begins to have strange visions of terrifying things—hallucinations he tells himself. After all, witchcraft isn’t real . . . or is it?

Who is telling the truth? Who can be trusted?

And what really happened to Christian Shaw?

Visit Harriet Tyce's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rainforest Radicals"

New from the University of Nebraska Press: Rainforest Radicals: A History of Rainforest Action Network and Transnational Organizing by David Benac.

About the book, from the publisher:

Rainforest Radicals presents the first history of one of the most innovative and successful environmental organizations of the late twentieth century. Rainforest Action Network emerged in 1985, when it took over a fledgling effort to protect rainforests from transnational corporations funding the expansion of tropical cattle ranching. It excelled at using nonviolent, civil disobedience in dramatic campaigns that captured the attention of the public, media, and RAN’s corporate adversaries. As a result, two decades later rainforest conservation went from a niche academic topic to a fixture in American popular culture, the rights of Indigenous people had gone from ignored or romanticized to at least considered in discussions of the management of their ancestral homelands, and RAN had scored a series of victories over some of the planet’s largest corporations.

In Rainforest Radicals David Benac traces the evolution of RAN and radical, transnational grassroots environmentalism through the four campaigns identified at the group’s founding: rainforest beef, Hawai‘ian rainforests, tropical timber, and multinational development banks. Forty years after RAN’s inception, there is much to learn from how it organized people in small towns and large cities across the United States, created alliances that spanned oceans, and inspired a new movement that integrated human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental protection to challenge multinational corporations, national governments, and neocolonial corporate-led globalism.

Through more than thirty oral histories, including those of key players from different eras of RAN’s history as well as leaders from other environmental and Indigenous rights organizations, Rainforest Radicals provides unparalleled insight into the network.

-Marshal Zeringue

"Throw Away the Key"

Coming July 14 from Crooked Lane Books: Throw Away the Key: A Novel by Jason M. Hough.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A former CIA locksmith turned glorified janitor is haunted by a botched Cold War operation with ramifications that extend to the present day.

New York Times bestselling author Jason M. Hough pens a fast-paced thriller packed full of action, perfect for fans of Alma Katsu and David McCloskey.

Lars Bergman is no ordinary janitor. He’s the CIA’s locksmith.

Formerly part of the CIA’s infamous Surreptitious Entry Team, Lars is now responsible for every padlock, safe, and secure door across the CIA headquarters. He’s never met a lock he couldn’t pick…except one, which he tried and failed to open during a botched mission in Warsaw at the end of the Cold War.

Cruising toward retirement, Lars’s life is upended when a senior CIA official dies and he’s called upon to open the safe in her office. Inside the safe is a clue only Lars would notice, left by someone he’d worked with in his heyday. As he investigates, Lars soon realizes that his failed Warsaw operation has come back to haunt him and perhaps give him another chance at picking the one lock that’s ever eluded him.

What Lars doesn’t realize is that what the lock is protecting could have dire ramifications for the organization he has spent his whole adult life safekeeping.

Visit Jason M. Hough's website.

Writers Read: Jason M. Hough (May 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Break the System"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Break the System: Criminalized Black Mothers and the Reproductive Politics of Abolition by Susila Gurusami.

About the book, from the publisher:

Upends the “broken systems” myth and reveals how the law deliberately criminalizes and punishes Black women, inflicting lasting harm on Black communities in the process.

The United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, with Black Americans representing a disproportionate share of theimprisoned. Many view this statistic as evidence of a broken system. But sociologist Susila Gurusami argues that the carceral system that so disproportionately harms Black families is not broken at all. In fact, it works just as it was intended. Looking closely at the lives of formerly incarcerated Black mothers, Gurusami shows how state institutions―the criminal-legal, child welfare, and healthcare systems―keep Black mothers from their families, harming Black communities in the process. She also shows how Black women work towards conditions that seem impossible―and even utopian―as part of their everyday mothering labor, but find themselves criminalized for these same actions.

Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with formerly incarcerated Black women in South Los Angeles, Gurusami challenges dominant assumptions about mothering and criminal justice reform. Gurusami finds that criminalized Black women endure multigenerational political, social, and embodied assaults–what she calls “reproductive warfare”― and still, they build networks, practices, and theories of radical care that protect Black maternal life, legacies, and futures. With incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted Black mothers at the forefront of the growing movement to abolish prisons and jails, Gurusami demonstrates how their everyday mothering work―what she calls “abolitionist motherwork”―is essential to imagining the end of incarceration and ultimately achieving it.

Written with a tender and honest voice, Break the System shares moving vignettes that underscore why we must break the system, rather than reform it, and why we must imagine a future that is radically different than the one we’re told we must accept or salvage.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dead Girls"

Coming September 22 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Dead Girls by Beck Kubrick, illustrated by Beck Kubrick.

About the book, from the publisher:

The teen daughter of an infamous serial killer must prove she isn’t the one behind recent copycat murders in this witty and laugh-out-loud funny graphic novel that’s a campy, feminist send-up of slashers that both celebrates and subverts classic tropes.

In the cozy town of Clossdale, a serial killer rampages! Five girls missing in as many weeks! Bodies turning up on the forest floor! And all fingers point to one vile fiend: Ash Hargreeves.

Except Ash didn’t do it. She may be the daughter of the infamous Clossdale Killer, and these copycat killings aren’t exactly convincing proof of her innocence—and okay, she’s kind of a weirdo who has two friends total, but when the murders strike a little too close to home, Ash decides to take a stand.

With the help of her besties, Ash is going to hunt down the killer, clear her mother’s name, and stop there from being any more dead girls—now and forever. After all, WWJLD: what would Jamie Lee do?

Visit Beck Kubrick's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing the Lyric Essay"

Coming in October from Rose Metal Press: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing the Lyric Essay: Insights and Prompts from Contemporary Writers and Teachers, edited by Heidi Czerwiec and Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh.

About the book, from the publisher:

FEATURING ESSAYS FROM: Chelsea Biondolillo • KJ Cerankowski • Ching-In Chen • Oliver de la Paz • Danielle Cadena Deulen • Camille T. Dungy • Jeannine Hall Gailey • Rigoberto González • torrin a. greathouse • Kimiko Hahn • Lily Hoàng • Michael Kleber-Diggs • Rowan McCandless • Sarah Minor • Rajiv Mohabir • Vi Khi Nào • Aimee Nezhukumatathil • Natanya Ann Pulley • Diane Seuss • Sun Yung Shin • Brian Turner • Katrina Vandenberg • Julie Marie Wade • chaun webster • The Cyborg Jillian Weise • Marco Wilkinson

The fifth volume in the immensely popular Field Guide series, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing the Lyric Essay gives readers an extraordinary window into the methods of 26 expert practitioners at the leading edge of this ever-evolving genre.

With original craft essays, exercises, and examples, each contributor offers reflection and instruction on how lyric essays can be constructed and what makes them unique. As experts in the field, they offer their various approaches to creative nonfiction that uses an essay form, but is lyric in function, meaning that it pays special attention to patterning in language and the resonances of sound and imagery. The anthology’s expertise spans possible forms (braid, fragment, hermit crab, zuihitsu), lyric techniques (anaphora, fractal repetition, word associations, use of white space), and lyric processes (incorporating research or visual elements, engineering leaps, sustaining a longform lyric essay). Editors Heidi Czerwiec and Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh further illuminate the genre in their introduction, exploring the history of the lyric essay and its vital place in contemporary literature. This field guide is an indispensable addition to the bookshelf of any reader, writer, or instructor intrigued by this inventive and expressive genre.

Learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Our Common Thread"

Coming July 7 from Little A: Our Common Thread: A Novel by Kahli Scott.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this enchanting tale of modern love and timeless romance, a young woman’s extraordinary discovery whisks her away to alternate timelines―a multitude of possibilities, a singular love story.

Disconnected and listless, Mattie Bridges is fraying at the edges. Working as a wardrobe assistant on a charming Christmas movie in an even more charming small town should be a balm to her turmoil. But she still can’t find her footing.

And after getting lost in her own closet, her life―or more accurately, her lives―becomes a lot more unsteady.

Following a passageway hidden behind her clothes hangers, Mattie uncovers a portal to all the paths her life could have taken. Each reality sees her in a different career, different headspace, and sometimes, a different romance.

Meanwhile, in her current reality, she’s trying to untangle her feelings for her coworker, charming actor Austin Farrow. Between professional decorum and past trauma, Mattie doesn’t feel ready to explore that story further.

But if she’s been paying attention, she might see that her multiple realities aren’t that different after all. There’s a common thread running through them, and Mattie needs to decide whether to knot the thread, or let it unravel.

Visit Kahli Scott's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Price of Justice"

New from the University of California Press: The Price of Justice: Money and the Limits of Sexual Violence Lawsuits by Benjamin R. Weiss.

About the book, from the publisher:

Given an unpredictable criminal legal system and a fraying social safety net, sexual violence victims increasingly turn to civil lawsuits to find justice. They sue offenders and responsible organizations directly, seeking recognition, resources, and reform. But at what cost? Benjamin R. Weiss uses in-depth interviews and legal case analysis to reveal how the civil legal system's reliance on financial compensation to remedy sexual harm limits who can seek civil justice and on what terms. He shows that instead of delivering justice, the process often deepens inequalities and compounds suffering, especially for those most in need. In The Price of Justice, Weiss offers victims, advocates, and academics alike an astute assessment of the law's promise to rectify harm and redistribute power―and inspires readers to imagine what it would take to meet all victims' needs and drive lasting social change.

Visit Benjamin R. Weiss's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Clean Slate"

Coming August 4 from Thomas & Mercer: Clean Slate (Book 1 of 1: Olive Hunt) by Brianna Labuskes.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A crime scene cleaner is on the trail of a serial killer in a breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by USA Today bestselling author Brianna Labuskes.

Death pays well for Olive Hunt, a crime scene cleaner who channels her childhood traumas into erasing the suffering of others. After nearly ten years, she’s seen it all. Nothing rattles her anymore.

Until now.

Two back-to-back suicides. A seedy motel. An upscale Atlanta hotel. No connection―except that Olive discovers the same strange item at each scene. Then a third body drops. Olive knows what the police refuse to see: These aren’t suicides. They’re murders staged to perfection.

Then the roses arrive. A vase of bloodred blooms on her doorstep. An anonymous note: Thank you.

She’s found him. A serial killer who’s been leaving breadcrumbs only she can see. A killer who’s been cleaning up his work―knowing she’ll clean up after him. A killer who wants her to follow.

And follow she must. No matter how terrifying the trail becomes.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Television Is Where You Find It"

New from Rutgers University Press: Television Is Where You Find It: A History of Feature Filmmakers in TV by Craig S. Simpson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Television Is Where You Find It is a revelatory journey into the overlooked world of feature filmmakers who brought their cinematic vision to the small screen between 1955 and 1990―long before directing for television became trendy in the age of “Prestige TV.” With ten compelling case studies―from legends like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Orson Welles to trailblazers like Ida Lupino, Melvin Van Peebles, and Martin Scorsese―author Craig S. Simpson uncovers how these directors reshaped the language of television with style and imagination.

Far from simply dabbling in a “lesser” medium, these filmmakers pushed the boundaries of what TV could do, crafting bold, innovative work that challenges the old notion that television belongs solely to writers and producers. In this fresh, critical study, Television Is Where You Find It makes a case for rediscovering and reevaluating a rich chapter of television history―one in which cinematic artistry quietly flourished, often hidden in plain sight.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tell Two Friends"

Coming September 8 from Lake Union: Tell Two Friends by Ann Garvin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A wickedly funny and empowering thriller about women, the manipulators who underestimate them, and keeping your dignity while saving the day by the author of I Thought You Said This Would Work.

Jane Baye is a regular person, good at a lot of things, but identifying the serial killer right in front of her isn’t one of them.

In 1990, college senior Jane wrote to an incarcerated woman because it seemed like a nice thing to do. Thirty-six years later, that felon, actually a man, has moved in next door. He’s watching her every move, with a decades-long plan for Jane that a nice person like her would never see coming.

Especially because Jane is wrapped up in her own problems: a small-town golden boy with talk of forever and a diabolical history of cheating. When she exposes her ex, the entire town of Wonder Lake turns against her.

It’s no wonder she doesn’t see what’s coming on the night of the Norwegian heritage festival.

But woe to those who mistake Jane for a pushover. When celebration becomes a fight for survival, the very qualities that make her ordinary become the weapons she’ll bet everything on.

Visit Ann Garvin's website.

Writers Read: Ann Garvin (July 2014).

My Book, The Movie: The Dog Year.

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Year.

Coffee with a Canine: Ann Garvin & Peanut.

My Book, The Movie: There's No Coming Back from This.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lahore After Modernism"

New from Stanford University Press: Lahore After Modernism: Architecture and Its Histories in Pakistan by Chris Moffat.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the decades after independence in 1947, architects in Pakistan were enlisted to build a postcolonial future―a new world after empire. But the debris of the past could not be so easily swept aside. The recalcitrance of local and regional histories was fiercely evident in Lahore, the centuries-old capital of Punjab and a city scarred by the partition of British India. Studying its streets, neighborhoods and historic buildings, Pakistani architects came to challenge the global consensus around "development" and its close association with modernist architecture. Their designs and structures became opportunities for thinking anew about the power of history, the boundaries of the nation, and the constitution of community in a postcolonial polity.

This book is a pioneering study of architecture and the politics of construction, destruction and conservation in urban Pakistan. Chris Moffat introduces Pakistan's first postcolonial generation of architects―figures born around the time of partition, who began practicing in the 1960s and whose early careers navigated popular rebellions, military coups and emergent, pan-Islamic alignments. Moving from housing schemes to monuments, shrines to shopping malls, Moffat forges a new conversation between histories of architecture and the history of ideas in South Asia, and locates Lahore at the center of debates around contemporary urbanization, postcolonial aesthetics, and the ethics of dwelling in the modern world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Intercepted"

New from Berkley: Intercepted (Playbook, The) by Alexa Martin.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the USA Today bestselling author of Better Than Fiction comes a football romance that's a winner.

Marlee thought she scored the man of her dreams only to be scorched by a bad breakup. But there's a new player on the horizon, and he's in a league of his own.

Marlee Harper is the perfect girlfriend. She's definitely had enough practice by dating her NFL-star boyfriend for the last ten years. But when she discovers he has been tackling other women on the sly, she vows to never date an athlete again. There's just one problem: Gavin Pope, the new hotshot quarterback and a fling from the past, has Marlee in his sights.

Gavin fights to show Marlee he's nothing like her ex. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready to let her escape her past. The team's wives, who never led the welcome wagon, are not happy with Marlee's return. They have only one thing on their minds: taking her down. But when the gossip makes Marlee public enemy number one, she worries about more than just her reputation.

Between their own fumbles and the wicked wives, it will take a Hail Mary for Marlee and Gavin's relationship to survive the season.

Visit Alexa Martin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cuban Tobacco in the Age of Second Slavery"

New from the University of Georgia Press: Cuban Tobacco in the Age of Second Slavery by William A. Morgan.

About the book, from the publisher:

By 1865, more than 750,000 enslaved Africans had arrived in Cuba, making it the leading Spanish American slave colony and the epicenter of slavery in the Atlantic. At the height of the global tobacco economy, tens of thousands of these slaves labored in Pinar del Río, Cuba―a region devoted exclusively to tobacco cultivation. These enslaved people were responsible for exporting a record fourteen million pounds of raw tobacco per year, leaving one contemporary writer to argue that no agricultural economy produced more value, in proportion to the capital and labor employed, than tobacco. While tobacco was second only to sugar in export significance and in the number of rural enslaved, tobacco was unequivocally as dependent on enslaved labor as the more infamous export. Despite Cuba being one of the first-introduced and last-abolished slave societies in the Atlantic world, this slave economy remains largely ignored, existing outside the considerable and recent scholarship on the region.

Cuban Tobacco in the Age of Second Slavery directly refutes the myth of tobacco as a small-scale, family, and free-labor crop promoted by both contemporary and current scholarship. It also rejects the prevailing use of sugar as the model for epitomizing Cuban slavery―a paradigm that obscures the full measure of diversity in this region and era. Arguing tobacco was more counterpart than counterpoint to sugar, Cuban Tobacco in the Age of Second Slavery focuses on the development of tobacco as a plantation economy―and the exponential increase in forced labor supporting it―to suggest an alternative narrative in understanding both Cuban and Atlantic slavery in this period.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Breathe Me In"

New from Montlake: Breathe Me In (Wired to Kill) by J.L. Drake.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this heart-pounding suspense, a private investigator is drawn back to her small town to investigate a series of strange deaths and confront the haunting past she can no longer outrun.

As teenagers, Bree Jaminson and Brad Stone shared everything: dreams, secrets…and one terrifying brush with death they’ll never forget. After witnessing a murderer disposing of two bodies, Bree fled from her hometown, the boy who knew her best, and the terror of a killer still at large, and never looked back.

Thirteen years later, a new string of mysterious deaths brings Bree back to town to assist with the investigation and face the man she never thought she’d see again. Now a local detective, Brad is wary of working alongside Bree, and her return cracks open everything he’s tried to bury: The memories. The spark. The pull that never really faded.

As new bodies begin to surface and the web of suspects grows, Bree and Brad must navigate the thin line between justice and obsession. But despite the looming danger, this could be the push they needed back to each other―if they live long enough to claim their second chance.

Visit J.L. Drake's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spectral Aesthetics"

New from the University of Texas Press: Spectral Aesthetics: Visualizing the Crisis of Migrant Disappearance by China Medel.

About the book, from the publisher:

Analyzing how artists reimagine migrant disappearance and visibility at the US–Mexico border.

In the mid-1990s, the US government implemented Prevention through Deterrence, a major buildup of troops, walls, and surveillance around El Paso and San Diego. Cut off from these crucial urban crossings, migrants flowed into the dangerous surrounding deserts, where some ten thousand have since died. This is all according to plan: Pentagon documents describe the strategy of funneling migrants toward “mortal danger.”

In this bracing critique, China Medel explores the aesthetics enabling and resisting the crisis of migrant death. The nation-state’s performance of sovereignty along the border, predicated on mass casualties, is tolerated and even celebrated, thanks to the images in our heads of racialized and therefore criminal bodies, made invisible as they disintegrate in the baking sand. Spectral Aesthetics shows how state officials and mainstream media, relying on postracial ideologies and white-supremacist agendas, collectively foster this picture of a brown body so abject that it is disposable. In close readings of artworks contesting this murderous visual regime, Medel discovers an alternative kind of sight, one emphasizing the ghostly traces of the dead. These are images not of the individual “alien” but of life itself, indisposable.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Looks Perfect"

Coming October 6 from Little A: Looks Perfect: A Novel by Jessica Siskin.

About the book, from the publisher:

What comes between a fashion icon’s perfect image and her genuine self? The perfect stranger―in a sharp and witty novel about identity, performance, and what it takes to make a true connection.

One million people follow Stella Lerner’s every move. And now the buzzy fashion designer is fulfilling her lifelong dream and taking her indie clothing brand global with the help of the industry’s biggest investor. Sounds perfect. Except offline, the optics aren’t so great.

Her relationship with her boyfriend, Alex, is crumbling just as the pressure to curate her image online only builds. Feeling trapped between the picture-perfect life she’s promised her followers and the messy reality she’s facing, Stella anonymously joins a new dating app. Blindr promises deep, private conversations, free from the burden of anyone’s expectations, especially her own. That’s when Stella connects with a stranger called Pineapple who’s intuitive, honest, and empathetic. Stella may be watched by millions, but this man, who’s never even laid eyes on her, makes her feel seen.

What starts as a diversion becomes a journey of radical transformation. As Stella’s search for authenticity intensifies, every chat with Pineapple takes her further down a path she never could’ve imagined.

Visit Jessica Siskin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby"

Coming soon from PublicAffairs: The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Inside a Billionaire Family's Quest to Craft a Christian Nation by Michael Blanding.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revelatory account of how the family behind Hobby Lobby rose to political prominence and used their influence—and fortune—to push a radical religious agenda

Hobby Lobby is a multibillion-dollar craft store chain with more than a thousand US locations, founded and owned by the Greens—an evangelical Christian family committed to establishing the Bible as the ultimate authority behind our laws and society.

In The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby, Michael Blanding reveals how the Greens have quietly yet effectively used their vast wealth to spread their beliefs throughout the US and beyond. They have run expensive, wide-reaching ad campaigns to inculcate biblical values and have propped up evangelical education through donations of money and land. They successfully fought a Supreme Court case to deny their employees insurance coverage for contraception and funneled millions of dollars to organizations working to overturn Roe v. Wade and to undermine LGBTQ rights. And, for their multimillion-dollar Museum of the Bible just blocks from the US Capitol building, they’ve acquired looted, stolen, and forged biblical antiquities from the Middle East. In a riveting exposé, Blanding traces the Greens’ efforts to sell their evangelical mission.

Captivating and disturbing, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby exposes the pivotal role the Green family has played in funding and empowering America’s dangerous, ascendant Christian nationalist movement.

Visit Michael Blanding's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Map Thief.

The Page 99 Test: North by Shakespeare.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Her Sharp Embrace"

New from Wednesday Books: Her Sharp Embrace (The Nightshades, 1) by Kate Koenig.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first in a sweeping queer fantasy duology set in a shimmering, New Orleans-inspired world.

In the glittering city of New Soleil, beauty masks danger at every turn. The Nightshades, a crew of magical outlaws, are no different. Their glamorous facades conceal the terror they strike into the hearts of the rich and powerful as they steal from the corrupt and fight for the forgotten.

Noa Toussaint fled her cossetted life as a Saint to join the Nightshades. Infatuated with their ferocious leader, Lennon, Noa aims to capture her heart and keep it. Her talent for alchemy is valuable, but her connection to her family puts all of the Shades in danger.

Now enemies are closer than Lennon knows and Noa must uncover the threat and keep them both alive. Because in a city where lies are lethal and magic is fading, secrets aren’t just costly―they’re deadly.

Visit Kate Koenig's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Woman's Burden"

New from State University of New York Press: White Woman's Burden: Race, Empire, and Influence in Writing by US Women's Rights Activists, 1867–1936 by Kathryn Wichelns.

About the book, from the publisher:

Counters universalist narratives of mainstream feminism by examining the power exerted by four white women writer-activists to shape American society from the 1860s to 1930s.

White Woman's Burden focuses on four American writer-activists who were significant if secondary actors in the historical push for two rights that disproportionately served elite women: suffrage and equal higher education. Reflecting regional ideas about whiteness and womanhood from Massachusetts to New Mexico, Elizabeth Agassiz, Annie Fields, Annie Nathan Meyer, and Nina Otero-Warren embodied and helped nationalize the domestically defined versions of their era's mainstream feminism. Through their participation in advances in science, literary culture, higher education, state government, and language rights, these four women advocated for the interrelated objectives of (white) women's rights, US imperialism, and white nationalism. In challenging the assumption that white women's political involvement supported and supports universal goals that serve other marginalized groups, White Woman's Burden revisits mainstream feminist responses to the nineteenth-century "theory of influence," arguing that elite women's practices of social power developed during that period continue to shape our ideas about womanhood and activism into the present―from the contemporary belief in (white) women's innate civic-mindedness to white women's voting patterns in recent US presidential elections.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Three Hitmen and a Baby"

New from G.P. Putnam's Sons: Three Hitmen and a Baby (An Assassins Anonymous Novel) by Rob Hart.

About the book, from the publisher:

Welcome back to Assassins Anonymous, where family is everything and danger lurks around every corner.

Assassins Anonymous isn't just a weekly recovery meeting for reformed killers—it's also a family.

When Valencia receives troubling news that her brother has gone missing, she wants rush off to LA to find him. But she can’t bring her baby girl, Lucia. Enter the other members of Assassins Anonymous—Mark, Astrid, and Booker, who offer to watch the toddler while she's gone. After all, they're three of the deadliest, most highly skilled people on the planet; what could go wrong?

Turns out, a lot. Shortly after Valencia leaves, Mark is summoned to the lair of Zmeya, a Russian mob boss calling in a deadly favor—she wants him to kill Astrid, his protege and friend. Mark refuses, but Zmeya reveals that she knows the identity of Mark’s ex-girlfriend . . . and his son. Either Astrid goes, or they do.

Meanwhile, Lucia spikes a dangerously high fever, and when Booker and Astrid take her to urgent care, they realize too late, that their fabricated identities are a real liability. Also, they don't know Valencia’s last name, let alone Lucia's. They can hardly blame the staff for calling the NYPD.

Suddenly the splintered group is on the run from both the Russian mob and the police, dodging bad guys and do-gooders while trying to find refuge in a city full of surveillance cameras—all without killing anyone. That is, until Zmeya captures Sara and Bennett, and Mark is ready to throw his sobriety out the window.

Visit Rob Hart's website.

My Book, The Movie: Potter's Field.

The Page 69 Test: Potter's Field.

The Page 69 Test: The Warehouse.

Writers Read: Rob Hart (January 2021).

The Page 69 Test: The Paradox Hotel.

Q&A with Rob Hart.

The Page 69 Test: Assassins Anonymous.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tree-Becoming"

New from Cornell University Press: Tree-Becoming: Gender, Race, and Trauma on Shakespeare's Stage by Shannon Kelley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Trees abound in Shakespeare's plays, and in Tree-Becoming, Shannon Kelley explores how he uses his characters' identification with cypress, balsam, bay laurel, myrrh, and pine trees as metaphors to express emotional distress. Opening new avenues for investigating knowledge of the plant world in early modern literature, Kelley traces the Ovidian conceit of arboreal transformation in A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, Othello, and The Tempest.

Through the recurring motif of tree-becoming, in which characters who can no longer endure painful feelings align with or are imagined as trees, Kelley proposes a radical reading of Shakespeare's depiction of trauma's lingering impact on the body and psyche. These arboreal moments resist resolution and resist healing, offering instead a vision of survival and endurance. Bringing Shakespeare in conversation with insights from critical plant and trauma studies, Tree-Becoming honors survivors of trauma as they are, not as we would have them be: they become trees―different but not less than.

--Marshal Zeringue

"While We Were Silent"

New from Severn House: While We Were Silent by Alex Myers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Devastating secrets shroud the campus of Green Dell Academy, secrets that some think are worth killing for . . . From Lambda Literary Award finalist Alex Myers comes a provocative dark academia novel.

There are rules and then there’s reality . . .

Autumn, 2015. Green Dell Academy is a prestigious co-ed prep school tucked away in a quiet corner of Connecticut. And although it has its first female head of school, it’s still very much a boys’ club―a club with longstanding “traditions” that involve gross misconduct―and now murder.

A woman has been killed, right on campus, a woman who has been deeply involved in fighting sexual violence, a woman who had no shortage of enemies.

The murder case, coupled with an investigation into allegations of sexual assault, threatens to bring dark, deep-rooted secrets to the surface, the kind of secrets that go back decades―and some people seem to value the old ways more than human life...

For fans of Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You and Ashley Winstead’s In My Dreams I Hold a Knife. Written by the current teacher at an American school academy, Alex Myers brings to life a thought-provoking and deeply relevant story.

Visit Alex Myers's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Working Title"

New from the University of California Press: Working Title: Media Packaging and the Margins of Art by Kalani Michell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Working Title is about all the supposedly mundane things involved in creative work that you're not supposed to talk about: the prerequisites, formalities, long waits, copyright battles, packaging dilemmas, and project pitches (like the one you're reading now). This book delves into European and transatlantic audiovisual media from the 1960s and 1970s, including performances, visual art, installations, and films, which might seem well-known to us as avant-garde artworks from "the past"—but in this book, they don't remain there. Exploring the less visible media among these works—from video games, photography, television, and YouTube videos to legal texts, containers, rubbish, and paperwork—Kalani Michell unsettles the familiar motivating mythologies of art of this era and makes space for the heavy lifting these media do, carving out what and how they mean for us today and revisiting their forgotten futures.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Agnes Lives!"

New from Bloomsbury: Agnes Lives!: A Novel by Hallie Elizabeth Newton.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A day-in-the-life debut novel about a fading socialite on the hunt for someone to kill her before her next SoulCycle class.

New York City, 2014. Agnes Maurer seeks a willing murderer and wonders what she should wear. Candidates include: an icy magazine editor with a special cutlery set; an eccentric designer from her past; and Agnes's cruel novelist boyfriend. As she Ubers from Upper East Side shopping to Craigslist gun deals, Agnes' desperation becomes an exhibition, a swan song of millennial sexuality as internalized abuse and consummate style, with the knob righty-tightened all the way.

Newton's prose is disturbingly fun, relentless, shattering. A crafted study of existential despair that culminates in a worthy, intense denouement.

Follow Hallie Elizabeth Newton on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Between Novel and Network"

New from LSU Press: Between Novel and Network: Technology and Literary Form in Fiction and Fanfiction by Suzanne R. Black.

About the book, from the publisher:

The internet has enabled new forms of literature and challenged older forms to reinvent themselves. Between Novel and Network selects texts that exemplify these digital transformations, arguing that networked communication technologies have fundamentally altered the form and content of contemporary literature. The book begins by exploring digital fanfiction as a site of literary resistance and a form of literature that can only exist in the age of networked communications. Next it examines epistolary fiction, where networked digital literature offers a different mode of subjectivity than that associated with the traditional novel. Finally, the book addresses two novels that incorporate aspects of networked literatures (fanfiction and comic books) to stake a claim for their enduring primacy as a literary form.

Between Novel and Network adds to conversations about how networked communication technologies affect literary form, content, metaphors, and reception. Readers will trace how concepts such as authorship, originality, intertextuality, and literary value play out across the digital literary sphere. As well as building upon the place of fanfiction in the literary field, Suzanne R. Black also offers a reappraisal of the place and characteristics of the novel in the twenty-first century as part of a larger literary ecosystem.

Visit Suzanne R. Black's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All the Little Ways"

New from Gallery Books: All the Little Ways: A Novel by Laura Lekkos.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the vein of Pineapple Street and Such a Fun Age, a smart, heartfelt debut novel about two expecting mothers navigating motherhood, family life, and female friendship, whose bond is threatened by a shocking revelation.

Victoria and Liz barely breathe the same air, but they collide headfirst when they meet in a group for expectant mothers and find common ground against all odds.

Victoria, forty-three, is confident, poised, and powerful, on the fast track to major career success in finance. Having kids is not in the plan. She had avoided love for decades—and hadn’t been too keen on female friendship either—when she fell for Ace, a dashing man twenty years her senior.

Liz, thirty-two, lives a fairly unstable life, trying to make her situationship work and navigate a job on a vile reality dating show. She’s desperately wanted to experience motherhood for her entire life, but anxiety and insecurity have landed her with a laundry list of failed romances. It’s an accident—ish—when she gets pregnant with her emotionally elusive boyfriend Preston’s baby just shy of a year into dating.

When Liz and Victoria meet in a parenting class, they both feel out of place amongst these pregnant women who seem to have it all figured out. They roll their eyes at the classic sign-off peppering the new mommy group chat: TIA (thanks in advance!). Alienated from these other women and due within a week of each other, Victoria and Liz’s bond becomes a lifeline as they navigate their pregnancies and relationships. They grapple with impending motherhood together and lean on each other to navigate important decisions about family, career, and love. It’s the first successful female friendship in Victoria’s life and the first time Liz has felt so connected to an older, wiser confidante. Maybe, just maybe, it will all be okay.

But as they grow more secure in their futures with each other’s support, the friends confront a shocking turn of events that will change the course of both their lives. Victoria and Liz then must reckon with their relationships, their impending journeys of motherhood, and the strength of their own bond in this unforgettable work of women’s fiction.

Visit Laura Lekkos's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Suffering for the Crown"

New from the University of Virginia Press: Suffering for the Crown: The Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution by Kieran J. O'Keefe.

About the book, from the publisher:

A groundbreaking look at the chaos and carnage of the American Revolution at the local level

In many respects, the American Revolution was a civil war, pitting Americans loyal to the Crown against other Americans loyal to the vision of a new nation they sought to create. Neighbor fought against neighbor, brother against brother, father against son. One of the epicenters of this desperate struggle was New York’s Hudson Valley.

In Suffering for the Crown, Kieran O’Keefe offers an in-depth, long-term look at what many scholars consider the most fiercely contested region of the entire conflict, analyzing the effects of violence on Loyalist communities―which included white, Black, and Native peoples―in stunning detail. O’Keefe reveals the brutal reality of the war and examines its enduring psychological and social legacies, providing readers with a nuanced understanding of the Revolution’s human cost. Caught up in this crucible, he shows, suffering became central to how Loyalists came to define themselves and their ordeal, as the dark side of the nation’s birth fundamentally and permanently reshaped American civil society.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Headlights"

New from Tor Nightfire: Headlights by CJ Leede.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Every instinct tells him to run. Every memory tells him he can’t.

Special Agent Daniel Stansfield is ready for a change. Burnt out and defeated by the job, it’s his last day with the FBI. But before he can turn in his badge, he’s summoned back to Denver, the city he ran from four years ago, with a chilling message: it's happening again.

Seemingly innocent people are waking up on the side of the highway, with no memory of how they got there, wearing the skin of victims they've allegedly never met. And they each share one haunting detail: a strand of a stranger’s hair is tied around their tongue.

Now Daniel is pulled back into the gruesome cycle, and every clue leads him deeper into the shadows of his own past. He will have to confront the ghosts of his traumatic childhood and face what’s been hunting him all along― before he and the people he loves become the next victims.

Perfect for fans of The Shining and Longlegs, bestselling author CJ Leede’s Headlights is a pulse-pounding hunt across the frozen wilderness of Colorado.

Visit CJ Leede's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Word and Plan"

New from Columbia University Press: Word and Plan by John MacFarlane.

About the book, from the publisher:

We commonly believe that communication is successful when a hearer grasps what a speaker means. But Abe can assert “Sam is tall” without having any definite intention about how tall one must be to count as “tall,” and Bertha can understand his assertion without grasping such an intention. What exactly has been communicated in such a case? John MacFarlane argues that standard models of meaning and communication cannot answer this question. To answer it, he proposes, we need to see vague talk as not purely factual but in part expressive of linguistic plans. In this book, he gives a novel expressivist account of vagueness and explores its implications for semantics, pragmatics, thought, and disagreement.

Visit John MacFarlane's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Little Wonder"

New from Ballantine Books: Little Wonder: A Novel (Thousand Voices) by Sophie Chen Keller.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A musical prodigy and his mother spend years searching for each other in this beautiful novel of hope, perseverance, and love.

Song is a nobody—just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeastern China—but her son, River, is a little wonder.

At the age of four, he toddled to a piano and tapped out his favorite song. At eight, he mastered Liszt's three Liebestraume; at ten, he blazed through the complete set of Chopin's études. And at every step, through the valleys of loss, illness, and poverty, Song is there to light his way—until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing.

But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother's nightmare: She loses her grip on River’s little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search.

Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart. An evocative exploration of a mother’s love and a son’s yearning, Little Wonder takes us on an extraordinary journey through a modern Beijing that pulses with the music of humanity and its impossible—and impossibly brave—hopes.

As every musician knows: You start in one key. You wander to other keys, strange and distant places. But in the end, you always come back home.

Visit Sophie Chen Keller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dum-Dum Bullet"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Dum-Dum Bullet: A Lethal History, 1850–1950 by Maartje Abbenhuis.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this innovative and accessible history of small arms and gun violence, Maartje Abbenhuis reveals how the invention of ready-to-use rifle cartridges in the industrial era revolutionised gun violence on and off the battlefield and made death accessible to all. The most famous of these expanding bullets, which flooded the market from the 1850s onward, was the dum-dum bullet. This bullet fundamentally altered perceptions of who might use a gun and when. The book examines why, of all military inventions, this bullet was regulated by international law, and traces the changing landscape of public responses to its use and abuse through the many wars and instances of state violence during the first half of the twentieth century. It shows that the legal framing of this 'barbarous' ammunition helped to entrench public expectations around its unacceptability, yet also hid a world of actual violence that employed the same technology repeatedly.

Visit Maartje Abbenhuis's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord"

New from Berkley: A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord (The Heiress Hunters) by Shana Galen.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A down-on-her-luck shop girl and the son of an earl find they have more in common than they thought—including sexual chemistry they can’t resist—in this fresh Regency romance by Shana Galen.

Tamsin Archer might just be having the worst year of her life. And that’s saying something, considering her father is dead, her mother was maimed at work, and her family regularly sleeps under London’s bridges. But when her younger siblings go missing, Tamsin decides it’s time to step up and fight.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Tamsin’s more than willing to take a few risks to reunite with her siblings. But while disguising herself to sneak into homes and steal from the rich, Tamsin is caught by Garret Kildare, the second son of an earl. Much to Tamsin’s surprise, Garret doesn’t want to turn her in. He wants to help her. Though Tamsin’s wary—she’s learned to never trust supposed “good luck”—the unlikely pair form an alliance, one that quickly muddles their class differences.

Garret knows he must be careful. Falling for a woman of a lower class could be the nail in the coffin for his family’s tenuous social standing, and there are eyes everywhere. Ignoring their attraction proves impossible, though, and soon the lines they’ve drawn around their partnership begin to blur. As more focus lands on Tamsin and Garret, they wonder if their red-hot connection means giving up everything—and everyone—they’ve ever known.

Visit Shana Galen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue