"When the World Was Happy"

Coming September 29 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: When the World Was Happy by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

About the book, from the publisher:

A “heartrending yet beautiful” (School Library Journal, starred review) tale of twins and their group of friends who are forced to navigate life, relationships, and grief after their world is turned upside down from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

CheChe knows that he and his twin sister Emma lead an unusual life. They enjoy spending time with their parents and grandparents, love to read, and don’t have a huge circle of friends—and they’re happy. Then, just a few months after they turn seventeen, three gunmen show up one morning at their El Paso, Texas, high school, and everything changes.

CheChe loses a leg, and both he and Emma have friends who die. Suddenly, the world feels like a very different place. But what they find hasn’t changed—or has only gotten deeper—is their love for their family, their close friends, and one another, and as they begin to heal, they create their own little community, one that wields the power of humor, kindness, and hope.

CheChe finds himself doing all kinds of things he never expected from his junior year: relearning to walk, falling in love with the boy he’s nursed a longtime crush on, making friends with a kid he always found intimidating. By the end of this life-changing school year, none of them will be the same, and many of them will have found their voices in ways they never imagined.

Visit Benjamin Alire Sáenz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Carousel: An Essay on Seeing"

New from Yale University Press: Carousel: An Essay on Seeing by Sarah Minor.

About the book, from the publisher:

From an award-winning writer, a critical reflection on the human desire to see and be seen

Carousel opens as a professor begins delivering a lecture to a hot room. Her students have the internet in their pockets, screens on their wrists, seeing in more directions than students ever could before. But what, in fact, are they looking at?

In the spirit of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Sarah Minor’s Carousel explores how the pursuit of panoramic vision frames power, distorts reality, and implicates both viewer and subject. Across short, loping sections that weave history with memoir, close looking with confession, Minor masterfully fuses the slide lecture with the lyric essay, tying medieval tapestries to surrealism and Instagram reels to predator drones. In language that captures the disorientation of that other carousel, the whirling carnival ride, Minor shows how the more we strive to see, the more we ultimately reveal ourselves.

Visit Sarah Minor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Great Game"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Great Game: A Thriller by Arvind Ethan David.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An outsider in London investigates a series of brutal murders targeting English aristocrats in a timely and provocative historical novel brimming with intrigue, wit, and rage.

London, 1905: Law student and military veteran Balvinder dev Singh has found an extralegal way to fund his studies. As friend and accomplice to the infamous gentleman thief AJ Raffles, he rubs shoulders with the upper crust―and steals their valuables. That is, until their next mark, an imperialist general, is grotesquely murdered in the library of his Mayfair mansion. Bal and Raffles find themselves implicated in a series of killings that soon attracts the attention of Scotland Yard―and the aging Sherlock Holmes himself.

As Bal works to clear his name, he must hide his checkered past from a new acquaintance, the beautiful Irish violinist Maud Adler. Her fiery views lead Bal to question his own place in the world. But when he comes face-to-face with a plot to strike at the very heart of the British government, he must decide how much he’s willing to risk for his adopted city.

Visit Arvind Ethan David's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Animate"

New from Pegasus Books: Animate: How Animals Shape the Human Mind by Michael Bond.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mind-expanding deep dive into how animals have shaped us, from the Paleolithic Period to the present day.

In Animate, acclaimed science writer Michael Bond explores how animals have profoundly influenced our minds and cultures. Drawing on cutting-edge insights from psychology, anthropology, literature and neuroscience, Bond traces the varied ways their lives have affected ours, from our hunter-gatherer ancestors whose brains were rewired by the prey they hunted and the predators they feared, to the medieval and Enlightenment thinkers who used animals to promote notions of human supremacy.

Scientists today are challenging the assumption that we are separate from and superior to animals, showing that they too possess intelligence, empathy, creativity and even the ability to use tools. If everything that supposedly makes us human is shared with other creatures, where does that leave us? And if we are not as exceptional as we thought, how should we be treating the animals we live alongside?

A fascinating exploration of what it means to be both human and animal, Animate shows that to better understand ourselves, we must pay more attention to the other beings with whom we share our world.

Visit Michael Bond's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Postmistress of Puddlington"

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

About the novel, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Becoming Allies"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ransom"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Ransom by Leslie Wolfe.

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit Leslie Wolfe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond Laudato Si'"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

Visit Christiana Zenner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Istanbul Dreaming"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

Visit Denise Derya Brandt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Disgustatory!"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wonder of One"

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

About the novel, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Redfearn and Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: No Ordinary Life.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2016).

My Book, The Movie: No Ordinary Life.

My Book, The Movie: In an Instant.

The Page 69 Test: In an Instant.

Q&A with Suzanne Redfearn.

My Book, The Movie: Hadley and Grace.

The Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (March 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Moment in Time.

My Book, The Movie: Moment in Time.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2024).

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

The Page 69 Test: Two Good Men.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (October 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Call of the Camino.

The Page 69 Test: Call of the Camino.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Competing for Soft Power"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

Visit Maria Repnikova's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Where There's Smoke..."

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.

My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.

The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.

Q&A with E. J. Copperman.

The Page 69 Test: Same Difference.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Family Game Night"

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Majestic Hills"

New from Scribner: Majestic Hills: A Novel by Dawn Turner.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Black couple leaves their downtown Chicago condo for a new suburban subdivision, only to find themselves at the center of a maelstrom in this gripping page-turner from the award-winning author of Three Girls from Bronzeville.

Tired of the daily drama in his emergency room, Dr. Langdon Blaque is in search of a place where he can leave the world behind. He loves his job and has no delusions about the suburbs being perfect, but he wants peace and quiet. His wife Josephine, a lawyer, grew up listening to her father’s stories about the Jim Crow South, and sundown towns. She prefers the city. Still, she agrees to move with the caveat that they stay for a year and reassess.

The tight-knit, predominantly white group of neighbors in Majestic Hills initially welcomes them with open arms. But beneath the veneer of privileged harmony, tensions simmer. When a horrifying crime rocks the community, the illusion of safety is shattered, and Josephine and Langdon find themselves at the heart of a brewing storm that pits neighbor against neighbor, exposes deeply ingrained prejudices, and threatens to implode into violence.

As their experiment in suburban living ticks toward the one-year mark, the Blaques are pushed to a breaking point. Can they find a way to make a home in Majestic Hills? Or has the move put their future, their marriage, and even their safety in jeopardy?

Follow Dawn Turner on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Barbarous Feast"

New from Princeton University Press: The Barbarous Feast: Eating and Writing in the Eighteenth-Century World by Sophie Gee.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold new argument about how eating rituals across the eighteenth-century globe reveal an untold story about the rise of the novel

In The Barbarous Feast, Sophie Gee argues that novels and eating rituals were interconnected, but conflicting, systems used to depict selfhood and represent personal inwardness in colonial Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Gee tells a vibrant story of how people living at the margins of colonial power drew upon eating and writing to manage their own interior lives. She coins the term “metabolic subjectivity” to describe the idea of energetic, embodied selfhood that is made by eating and drinking and which connects humans to other living species. This concept, while taken from colonial eating rituals, offers new ways to understand personal inwardness in written texts. Gee tells intersecting stories of eating and writing that range from the Protestant Lord’s Supper to West Indian Indigenous predation rituals.

Gee alternates chapters of literary analysis, offering new readings of Daniel Defoe, Richard Ligon, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, and others, with personal nonfiction essays exploring the afterlife of empire and imperial inwardness in Australia. With The Barbarous Feast, she offers an expansive account of inwardness in and out of novels, and across countries, historical periods, and cultures, putting literary studies in conversation with environmental studies, religious history, Indigenous studies, and food studies.

The Page 99 Test: Sophie Gee's The Scandal of the Season.

Writers Read: Sophie Gee (June 2009).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Don’t Cross Mo Ellery"

New from William Morrow Paperbacks: Don’t Cross Mo Ellery: A Novel – A Laugh-Out-Loud Cozy Mystery with a Reluctant Detective and Three Chaotic Poodles by Birdie Horne.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A laugh-out-loud mystery following the indomitable hot mess Mo Ellery, whose job as a school crossing guard pulls her into an unhinged murder investigation.

Mo Ellery’s 29th birthday is a disaster. After one small accident—the exposure of her boyfriend’s genitals (well, maybe not that small) on a work video call—she manages to get fired, dumped, and kicked out of their overpriced Chicago apartment. Luckily, a sign appears to guide Mo to her new life: “Looking for flexible part-time work? Become a school crossing guard!” It’s everything Mo has been looking for: health insurance. How hard can it be?

A few weeks later, Mo is adjusting to her new low-paying job, her bisexual reawakening, and her new neighborhood’s wacky characters. There’s Claudia, an old woman who refuses to let Mo help her cross the street, and Marlowe, a tween cell phone prodigy whose antics terrify her. But Mo’s greatest nemesis is Poodle Dude, a guy with an SUV full of poodles who speeds through her intersection each morning. . . until the day he speeds into a sinkhole. Mo tries and fails to shield innocent eyes from his bloody corpse, but succeeds in accidentally becoming the guardian to his three poodles.

And that’s not the worst of it: some of the locals are convinced that Poodle Dude was murdered. Their allegations are obviously ridiculous, but Mo, desperate for distractions—and for several hot neighbor-suspects—reluctantly agrees to help. But Mo the detective is just as chaotic as Mo the underemployed adult, and the three entitled poodles are not helping. When a second local dies under mysterious circumstances, it’s going to take all of Mo’s broadly applicable and transferrable skills to find the killer.

Murderers beware. . . DON'T CROSS MO ELLERY!

Visit Birdie Horne's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Precarious Past in Premodern Java"

New from the University of California Press: The Precarious Past in Premodern Java by Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The practice of history in premodern Java was profoundly influenced by precarious conditions of textual production and preservation: fragile manuscripts perished in the tropical environment, archival records were scattered far afield, and historical memories faded over many generations. In this book, Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan examines how Javanese societies between the fifth and fifteenth centuries CE responded with distinctive strategies to record and transmit knowledge of the past.

Drawing on sources in Javanese, Sanskrit, Malay, and related languages from the Indonesian archipelago, Sastrawan provides a detailed account of diverse forms of history making in premodern Java, reconstructing a dynamic culture in which written and nonwritten modes of transmission coexisted and intersected. By situating these practices within broader discussions of global historiography, this book challenges modern assumptions about what counts as “history” and illuminates how societies have developed different ways of preserving and remembering the past.

Visit Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Breathing Under Water"

New from Harper Muse: Breathing Under Water by Jacqueline Friedland.

About the book, from the publisher:

The current is threatening to pull them under.

Berry thought she had it figured out—juggling her vice principal role while raising her sixteen-year-old autistic son, Leo. But when a promotion opportunity collides with her family's deepest needs, she must confront whether she's been fighting the wrong battles all along.

McKenna is drowning. Between caring for her grandmother with dementia, losing her swimming scholarship, and facing homelessness, the college student's carefully constructed world is crumbling. Her only lifeline? Teaching swim lessons to children with autism—including Leo.

As these two women's paths converge in the most unexpected way, they discover that sometimes the people who need saving the most are the ones who end up saving you.

Visit Jacqueline Friedland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Rise and Fall of Original OxyContin"

New from Oxford University Press: The Rise and Fall of Original OxyContin: A Rhetorical Study of Blame, Scapegoating, and Our Unrelieved Pain by Michael J. Madson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The United States opioid crisis has wrought devastation on a massive scale. With closure elusive, much of the blame has fallen on a single pill, a long-acting oxycodone tablet called OxyContin. Perhaps one of the most notorious prescription painkillers on the market, OxyContin may be the best documented opioid in the country due to extensive litigation, regulation, and news coverage. Analyses of these documents can provide deeper insights into the drug's lifecycle as well as the shaping of public understandings of the crisis. Blame pervades our lived experiences, affecting how we norm and punish, explain and evade, reconcile and heal. This phenomenon has rarely been discussed by scholars, leaving gaps in our collective knowledge.

Drawing on extensive documentation--from media coverage and court records to internal company emails--Madson examines who was blamed, how, and why. To do this, he has adapted for a new critical contextualized methodology to identify key players, map time-space axes, and pinpoint tipping points. Rather than pointing to a single cause, The Rise and Fall of Original OxyContin traces how blame shifted among drug makers, regulators, doctors, patients, and others over time, leaving some as scapegoats. Using clear, accessible language, it offers insight into how blame can influence public health, policy, and trust.

The outcome is a preliminary model of blame discourse in pharmaceutical contexts, which aims to inform future research. Applications can be drawn to three critical areas of practice: pharmaceutical risk communication, organizational health literacy, and interprofessional education. The work provides valuable insights into the origins of miscommunication about risk, addiction, and corporate responsibility, and offers practical takeaways for future crisis communication and risk regulation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fields of Asphodel"

New from 47North: Fields of Asphodel (Underworld Myths) by Callie Rowland.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this lush reimagining of Greek mythology, the daughter of Hades and Persephone defies the gods of the underworld to forge her own life amid war, curses, and unexpected romance.

For Asphodel, the free-spirited daughter of Hades and Persephone, being cursed to never fall in love with a god is a blessing.

Determined not to be trapped in a union like her mother, Del spends her life blissfully on the Isle of Flowers, far from her family in the underworld. But when Del’s parents ordain her marriage to Thanatos, the god of death, the freedom she’s long since guarded is at risk of being stolen for eternity. So Del takes fate into her own hands: She kidnaps her groom-to-be and traps him on her Isle.

But defying the gods comes with a price. Without Thanatos to send mortals off to peaceful rest in the underworld, death will devolve into brutality and violence. The realms will be consumed by chaos. With time running out and her freedom on the line, Del must restore the balance she upended―even as she finds herself irrevocably drawn to the ever-charming and bashful Thanatos, who offers another way of saving the worlds by breaking her curse. Only then can Del choose to marry him.

Visit Callie Rowland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Time on the Brink of Impasse"

New from Fordham University Press: Time on the Brink of Impasse: Historicity, Postmodernity, and the French Seventies by Brittany Murray.

About the book, from the publisher:

Time on the Brink of Impasse explores a pivotal decade in French cultural history through the lenses of literature, film, and critical theory. The 1970s in France are often dismissed as a period of blocked historical imagination. This book argues that the period’s literature and cinema reflect not disorientation or despair but a decade animated by artistic responses to new experiences of time.

Returning to influential theorists of postmodernity, including Fredric Jameson, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean Baudrillard, Time on the Brink of Impasse investigates how artists represented new experiences of time. Through close readings of writers and filmmakers including by Agnès Varda, Rachid Boudjedra, Chantal Akerman, Georges Perec, Sarah Maldoror, and Carole Roussopoulos, the book examines how aesthetic form registered new temporal imaginaries.

By situating culture within the broader context of work, housing, migration, and gender activism, Murray’s book offers a fresh perspective on how historicity was rethought after the end of the postwar period. Historically grounded and theoretically lucid, Time on the Brink of Impasse reveals a period alive with possibility.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killing in the Countryside"

Coming soon from Crooked Lane Books: Killing in the Countryside: A Wren & Wilson Mystery by Maria Malone.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Sergeant Ali Wren and her police dog, Wilson, are back in this charming sequel, perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves and Margaret Mizushima.

It’s just another day in the small town of Heft when Ali follows up on reports of an escaped pride of peacocks stirring up trouble in a once quiet cul-de-sac. A routine call, a case of fuss and feathers, Ali suspects. But what she discovers inside the house the birds have invaded is far from routine. The couple who live there have been receiving anonymous hate letters.

Letters that are at once threatening and suspiciously personal.

As Ali and Wilson investigate, they dig up long-buried secrets at the heart of the community. Every detail they uncover brings them closer to the truth, that someone in Heft will stop at nothing to keep their past hidden…

Visit Maria Malone's website.

Writers Read: Maria Malone (August 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Divination Engines"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Making of Algorithmic Culture by Xiaochang Li.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revealing and surprising origin story, showing how attempts to render human speech and language computable led from the era of big data to today’s AI.

Since the advent of computers, society has fantasized about conversing with machines. In this eye-opening book, technology expert Xiaochang Li shows readers how that dream both fueled the demand for data and set the stage for today’s generative AI. With original research and clear explanations, Li elucidates the origins of what’s known as natural language processing (NLP) and the heated twentieth-century debates between computer scientists, linguists, and communication engineers that shaped today’s technology. Starting with early devices that recorded, analyzed, and attempted to interpret human speech, she demonstrates how computer speech recognition, particularly efforts led by Bell Labs and IBM, advanced technology by deemphasizing linguistic meaning in favor of statistical prediction. In other words, researchers gradually abandoned systems that sought to understand human language, opting instead for work-arounds that simply predicted patterns in speech and text data. That solution became incredibly and surprisingly adaptable. As Li reveals, transforming linguistic questions into engineering ones ushered in the routine operation of search engines, spam filters, and the varied content sorting and recommendation mechanisms that regulate the access, circulation, and legitimacy of information across every platform. But this has all come at the cost of forever requiring copious and ever-growing amounts of new data.

At its core, Divination Engines illuminates how the artifacts of human communication―speech, text, and images―have become both the fodder for and products of computers. This connection between communication and computation, Li shows, has given rise to data-driven analytics, machine learning, and today’s algorithmic culture.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Séance Garden"

New from Berkley: The Séance Garden by Juliet Blackwell.

About the novel, from the publisher:

After a cheesy ghost tour in one of California’s oldest towns stumbles upon an actual haunting, a skeptical historian of the occult becomes entangled in solving a murder case.

When Professor Harper Grae loses a bet with a friend, she finds herself on a local nighttime tour of “haunted” locations in Monterey. Harper’s a lifelong non-believer in the occult, though her academic career is devoted to the historical and societal significance of witchcraft, ghosts, and medicinal poisons of all sorts. But her skepticism immediately gets tested when the tour stumbles on the body of local artist Delilah Mason—who’s found murdered on the grounds of a nearly two-hundred-year-old mansion, once home to the infamous Perles family.

On the night Mason’s body is found, Harper catches sight of something in the house that she can’t shake, something that’s impossible to explain, at least not rationally. Soon the murder investigation reveals that this is the second time a woman has been found murdered beneath a sprawling cypress tree in the gardens of the Perles Mansion. And when Harper’s closest friend is questioned by the police, Harper fears the authorities will fail to uncover the real killer.

As Harper asks questions around town and digs deeper into the supernatural speculation and rumors surrounding the murders—two women killed in similar circumstances, separated by nearly two centuries —she sees evidence she can’t ignore that the notorious mansion truly is haunted by the ghost of Isabel Perles.

What will it cost Harper to rethink everything she’s always believed to admit that the veil between the living and the dead might actually be crossed?

Visit Juliet Blackwell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Embattled Belief"

New from Cambridge University Press: Embattled Belief: Religion and the British Army from Korea to Afghanistan by Michael Snape.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book examines the neglected role of religion in the British Army in an era of rapid and far-reaching change. Covering the Cold War, the end of empire, seismic shifts in Britain's cultural and religious landscape, and the dramatic shrinkage of the armed forces, Michael Snape reveals religion's abiding importance at an institutional, individual and operational level. He explores the religious contexts of the Army's warfighting, counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, including the Korean, Falklands and Gulf Wars; the 'Emergencies' in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus; the Northern Ireland conflict; UN and NATO operations in the Balkans; and Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. He also charts the religious responses of British soldiers to allies, adversaries and civilian populations. This is a unique and significant contribution to our understanding of the secularisation of British society, the social and cultural history of the British Army, and religion and war in the contemporary world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killing Sadie"

Coming August 4 from Simon Pulse: Killing Sadie by Rachel Peterson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Perfect for fans of How to Survive Your Murder and Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets, this young adult thriller unspools the truth behind a tragic murder through multiple unreliable narrators who all have secrets to keep.

Here’s what we do know: there was another infamous barn party at the McClain family farm last night, and things went horribly wrong. By the end of the night, there were two dead bodies in the old barn: seventeen-year-old Sadie Cooper and her killer, Mason Vreeland. The murder was heartbreakingly witnessed by Sadie’s twin sister, Jayne, and Sadie died in her arms. Mason was killed by Sadie’s boyfriend, Ben, in an attempt to save Sadie.

Aside from figuring out Mason’s motive, it should be an open and shut case.

But it’s not.

The story unfolds just after the murders, and Jayne, Ben, and Sadie’s best friend, Liz, are telling the cops what transpired at the party and the events leading up to it. But little details don’t match. And those little details start to add up to big discrepancies. But who’s lying, and why?

The shocking truth is revealed in the third act, when the POV shifts to victim Sadie herself, in the days leading up to the party. Witness exactly what happened—and see if you can piece it all together. Because poor Sadie totally missed what was right in front of her.

Visit Rachel Peterson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chasing Independence"

New from Princeton University Press: Chasing Independence: Growing Old in the Shadow of an American Ideal by Guillermina Altomonte.

About the book, from the publisher:

How independence works as an unquestioned ideal for aging in America—and why it is never quite realized

In twenty-first-century America, as people live longer than ever before, it’s taken for granted that older adults should be active and self-reliant. News stories describe nonagenarians who run marathons, reality shows feature attractive older women competing for the love of a widowed bachelor, and policymakers encourage aging "in place” rather than in a nursing home. In Chasing Independence, Guillermina Altomonte turns a critical eye on these expectations and asks what happens when independence becomes the yardstick by which we measure the quality of old age. Drawing on ethnographic observations in a skilled nursing facility in New York City, interviews with older adults and healthcare workers, and historical materials, she shows how independence operates as an unquestioned standard for medical assessments, allocation of services, and even as a way to determine an older person’s identity and self-worth.

Despite the elevation of independence as the dominant ideal of aging, Altomonte reports, it is always a moving target, redefined and pushed out of reach by individual, economic, and social constraints. She examines the immense effort that older people, their families, and healthcare workers invest as they chase independence—and what happens when those efforts fall short. Exploring the conundrums and dramas, the meanings and connections that older people experience in the relentless struggle to maintain independence, Altomonte shows that the American obsession with this cultural value often obscures real needs for support and care.

Visit Guillermina Altomonte's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Harbour of Hungry Ghosts"

New from Orbit: Harbour of Hungry Ghosts (Chronicles of the Yiugwai Hunters, 1) by Eliza Chan.

About the novel, from the publisher:

"My name is not Kim, it's Kiamling. It means Sword Spirit. I was forged to cut down the undead. Demons and monsters aren't just in your storybooks, they walk among us."

The Au family serve the people of Hong Kong: blessing shrines, honouring the dead and dealing with dangerous monster incursions. The expectations on eldest daughter Kiamling are high, which is not something her strict grandmother will let her forget.

When the British disrupt the Hungry Ghosts festival and her grandmother is seized by a strange new monster, Kiamling must step up and lead the search. She is aided by unexpected allies: Archie, an earnest civil servant, Hoi gor, childhood sweetheart turned merchant-pirate and Jingling, her younger sister keeping secrets of her own. Kiamling must figure out who is behind the incursion and more importantly, how to defeat them.

With British fables mingling with local Chinese monsters, can Kiamling prove herself, when the old rules no longer seem to apply?

Babel meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer—a family of demon hunters find their hands full when unfamiliar monsters start stalking the streets of Opium War-era Hong Kong, in this historical fantasy adventure from No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller Eliza Chan.

Visit Eliza Chan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lady Daredevils"

New from the University of Illinois Press: Lady Daredevils: American Women and Early Aviation by Barbara Ganson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though often restricted as aviators, women helped build a stable aircraft industry that became the envy of the world. Barbara Ganson delves into the lives of the women whose work as test pilots, flight school owner-operators, airport managers, and in other roles impacted and reflected larger trends in society.

Women aviators challenged social norms that considered them inept with machinery and incapable of handling early flight’s very real dangers. Ganson follows how the New Woman ethos of freedom of movement and career inspired engagement with aviation. Despite resistance, women pushed limits by setting records for speed, altitude, distance, and endurance. The fashions of airwomen, meanwhile, reflected changing attitudes of women toward traditional roles and the pursuit of their career aspirations.

Informed by interviews and rare archival information, Lady Daredevils tells the stories of the pioneering women of early aviation history and reveals their dynamic interactions with social and technological change.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Night of Madness"

Coming September 29 from Simon Pulse: Night of Madness by Ryan Douglass.

About the book, from the publisher:

Teen influencers compete in a horror movie–themed overnight competition, only to realize the real test is staying alive in this chilling, blood-soaked horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Taking of Jake Livingston and the production company behind Clown in a Cornfield.

Mara is a horror buff whose only fond memories of her dad are bonding over movies by Jack Stanley—the producer of the eighties. Stanley’s campy slasher movies may have kept Mara’s fraught parental relationship on life support and gained a cult following, but the man himself has faded from the public eye…until he announces a contest centered around Asylum, his most terrifying film. Five teen influencers will be invited to spend the night on the fully constructed set; whoever sticks it out until morning wins a hundred thousand dollars.

Stuck in a dead-end job, Mara seriously needs that cash. She may not be a famous influencer, but there has to be a way to manufacture an online presence that will capture Stanley’s attention. With the help of her brother and best friend, Mara finds some creative solutions to her dilemma and lands herself onto the roster of the lucky chosen few by way of her engaging authenticity.

When Mara and the other contestants arrive on set, it’s a horror fan’s dream being immersed in the asylum setting, but as the night wears on, they realize the danger is more than movie magic… They’re not there to win or lose but to live or die. As Mara fights to survive, she discovers an inner ruthlessness she didn’t know she had. Just how far will she go to see the sunrise—and will she still recognize herself by the end?

Visit Ryan Douglass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain"

New from Oxford University Press: Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Thomas Leonard-Roy.

About the book, from the publisher:

The eighteenth century was the great age of hate-writing and hate-reading. Hatred, contempt, resentment, and disdain were immensely generative feelings for authors in Britain, written into not only malicious satires and belligerent pamphlets but also novels, biographies, letters, journals, and the margins and flyleaves of books. Writerly Hate restores the animosities of major authors from across the century--Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Horace Walpole, and Frances Burney--and shows how hatred and its sister feelings were creative forces in a thriving print market and combative literary culture.

There was no shortage of invective and abuse in eighteenth-century writing. But authors also hated in a rich variety of other styles: half-joking prejudice, withering criticism, confessional self-hate, haughty 'indifference and contempt', resentful doublespeak. Hate could be harsh and jarring, but it could also be subtle, refined, and dazzling. One does not have to look far to find warnings about hate's harmfulness, but the feeling could also be good in the way it staked out moral principles, condemned cruelty and sin, gave pleasure, and entertained loved ones. Hate vitalized eighteenth-century literary culture, and later helped shape the field of eighteenth-century studies.

Visit Thomas Leonard-Roy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"My Best French Wedding"

Coming August 11 from St. Martin's Griffin: My Best French Wedding: A Novel by Amanda Sellet.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Will it be l’amour the merrier or too haute to handle when rival reporters with a tangled history compete to tell the story of the year at a ritzy destination wedding?

Once upon a time, Walter was Hildy’s favorite person―until he crushed her teenage dreams. A decade later, she has a new beloved: the magazine she built from the ground up. Unfortunately, getting rid of Walter isn’t as easy as shedding her romantic illusions. He’s always around, vying for the juiciest scoops on the elite wedding circuit and provoking her into public displays that don’t scream “mature and sophisticated media maven.”

When Hildy scores exclusive access to the wedding of the season―a week-long parade of luxury in southern France―it’s a chance for her magazine to finally make its mark. Except Walter isn’t sitting at home crying; he’s right there in France, trying to steal Hildy’s story. Again.

Now it’s a head-to-head battle to see whose coverage will make it to print. The problem? Between the champagne and the chateaux, it’s easy to lose sight of the prize. Hildy knows better than to believe in fairy tales, but Walter is doing his best to convince her they could have a part deux.

In this gender-flipped twist on His Girl Friday, Hildy has seven days to prove she is totally over it, living her best life, and definitely not hung up on the past . . . or Walter.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (December 2022).

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (August 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Odds of Getting Even.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Darn Hot"

New from Oxford University Press: Too Darn Hot: Kiss Me, Kate & the Making and Remaking of a Broadway Musical by Hannah Robbins.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Kiss Me, Kate premiered in its first try-out performance, its future was anything but certain. Conceived and staged in just nine months of intense, sometimes chaotic collaboration, the show was a bold experiment: a backstage musical built around a Shakespearean comedy. But once the reviews rolled in, all doubts vanished. The production was a triumph, becoming the most successful stage work of both Cole Porter and the writing duo Sam and Bella Spewack.

Yet Kiss Me, Kate has never been without controversy. At its heart, the show is a backstage comedy built around a play-within-a-play adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. That choice has long invited scrutiny. From its earliest performances to its most recent revivals, Kiss Me, Kate has sparked discussion about adaptation, gender politics, and the evolving tastes of audiences. From its 1948 debut to its 75th anniversary revival, the musical has been both celebrated and critiqued, reflecting shifting cultural attitudes and artistic sensibilities.

In Too Darn Hot, author Thuraisingam Robbins traces the remarkable journey of this enduring musical, charting its development from concept to curtain call, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the artistic decisions that shaped its legacy. Through several case studies--including the lavish MGM film adaptation, a Viennese operetta-style staging, and modern Broadway revivals--Robbins examines how Kiss Me, Kate has remained relevant, provocative, and beloved. Too Darn Hot offers a compelling portrait of a show that continues to ignite conversation and captivate audiences.

Visit Hannah Robbins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killer Art"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Killer Art: A Novel by Jon St. Denis.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A pair of newbie academics find themselves reluctant sleuths and even more reluctant targets when a fellow professor turns up dead.

When art professor Vika Chen discovers the strangled body of Professor McGuire in a campus art studio, she becomes the prime suspect in a murder connected to an exhibition exposing AI-generated art.

Since local law enforcement fails to find any optional leads, Vika and her partner, journalism professor Sam Worthing, take the investigation into their own hands. Vika, who until recently worked as a curator at MoMA, and Sam, a former crime reporter for the New York Times, find themselves uniquely suited for the job.

Much to the chagrin of the police chief, the pair’s investigation pinpoints multiple suspects who might have felt threatened by the exhibition. But the stakes become deadly when someone tries to run Vika off the road.

As more bodies pile up, Vika and Sam uncover a collage of secrets that someone would kill to keep buried.

Visit Jon St. Denis's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Piratical States"

New from Cambridge University Press: Piratical States: British Imperialism in the Indian Ocean World, c.1780–1850 by Simon Layton.

About the book, from the publisher:

This deeply researched, innovative study demystifies the way we think about the pirates of world history. Simon Layton encourages readers to look beyond eighteenth-century Atlantic paradigms of rogue individuals or revolutionary collectives, placing piracy as a concept at the heart of the British imperial project in Asia in the nineteenth century. Piratical States reveals an empire bent on wresting sovereignty over maritime space with its own forms of institutional and outsourced violence. A discourse developed in the official mind of colonial 'men-on-the-spot' castigated an array of indigenous seafaring communities and interrupted state-building across the corridors and chokepoints of global trade. In reports, diaries, correspondence, and memoranda, Britain's self-declared pirate-hunters retold history through a mythology of their own making, transforming piracy into an inherently political and racial category, legitimising the wholesale erasure of their enemies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When She Was Ours"

New from Lake Union: When She Was Ours: A Novel by Anna Nordberg.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Thea Erickson, a renowned surgeon, is filled with both joy and grief as her family gathers at their home on a summer night in 1995. Her elder daughter Phoebe is getting married, but even the happiness of the day feels bittersweet, as Thea grapples with a terminal cancer diagnosis. She worries she won’t be around to support her younger daughter Astra, who’s still in college, but even Thea cannot foresee what is to come―a terrible accident the night of the wedding that changes Astra’s life forever.

In a last-ditch effort to protect her family, Thea arranges a secret meeting with an old family friend and extracts a promise that will reverberate long after she’s gone.

Years after her mother’s death, Astra has moved forward with a career and relationship, but she still struggles with her grief. When a man reaches out to her and Phoebe, offering a window into their mother’s past, Astra must make a choice, and her decision forces her to face what it means to love someone after they’re gone, who we decide to forgive, and how families reckon with the past.

Visit Anna Nordberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The First Elections"

New from the University Press of Kansas: The First Elections: The Rise of Electoral Democracy in the Early American Republic by Jay K. Dow.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this groundbreaking and comprehensive look at Congressional elections in pre–Jacksonian America, Jay K. Dow examines the origins of our modern electoral politics.

When did the United States become a recognizably modern republic? The traditional understanding is that elections in the Age of Jackson introduced institutionalized political parties, campaigning, partisanship, position-taking, stump speeches, high elector turnout, and other familiar features of electoral democracy. Before that, so the story goes, elections were less organized along party lines, often uncompetitive, and frequently dominated by elites rather than average citizens. The First Elections offers a compelling alternative to this interpretation of the early American republic.

Through systematic analysis of an impressive new collection of early American election returns known as A New Nation Votes, Jay K. Dow has discovered what these results tell us about the development of Congressional elections between 1796 and 1825. The so-called first party era marks the transition from a “deferential” politics in which local elites exercised great influence over elections to a more recognizably democratic politics. But the extent of this transition has been largely opaque before these new data became available. Focusing on House of Representatives as the foundational institution in national republican government, Dow uses these election returns to provide a more fine-grained picture of United States electoral development than ever seen before. In doing so, he reveals more party-centric, competitive, and developed elections than scholars have generally recognized.

The First Elections begins with the election to the Fifth Congress in 1796, the year that elections first became truly contested following the Federalist and Anti-Federalist period. It concludes with the elections to the Nineteenth Congress, which marked the start of the Jacksonian Second American Party System. Because American politics is territorial politics—in general, but especially in this era—Dow’s work is organized geographically, giving due attention to how electoral democracy developed unevenly across each region of the early United States. Since the states used different methods to elect their representatives, The First Elections pays special attention to the variety of electoral systems that characterized the political mosaic of early America.

The First Elections is a groundbreaking look at what elections were like in the dawn of the new American nation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies"

Coming September 1 from Minotaur Books: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of post-WWII Oxford University, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies is the irresistible debut from Kate Westbury that seamlessly layers mystery, romance, and a dash of academia to introduce the Crown’s newest undercover operatives.

Oxford, England, 1951 - The Honorable Ginevra Bishop likes red lipstick, clever retorts, and earning top marks in her tutorials. She’s following her mother’s footsteps by studying at Oxford, eager to prove she’s more than a debutante.

Sidney Braithwaite likes brooding, Latin, and ignoring his nightmares. He’s determined to forge a new life for himself at Oxford, far from his childhood mining village and free from memories of the war.

Though Gin and Sidney have little in common, the British Security Service is keen to unite her charm with his espionage experience: there’s a Soviet spy at the university, and the agent tracking them down was poisoned. MI5 wants Gin and Sidney to pick up the trail and identify the informant before more sensitive information is compromised. As a team, the pair of undergraduates clash in personality, upbringing, and taste––but have a connection neither can deny. Gin and Sidney must unite their respective talents to follow the clues before they’re caught in the traitor’s crosshairs…if the sparks flying between them don’t blow up the operation first.

Visit Kate Westbury's website.

--Marshal Zeringue