"The Final Solution to the Jewish Question"

New from Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living by Dara Horn.

About the book, from the publisher:

From three-time National Jewish Book Award winner Dara Horn, a masterful new work of nonfiction that boldly confronts and dismantles the myths and lies that have spread antisemitism from ancient times until today—and then offers an audacious but achievable vision for the future.

After publishing the “extremely engaging” (The Washington Post) and award-winning essay collection People Love Dead Jews about the insidious nature of contemporary antisemitism, Dara Horn heard from thousands of people, online and in person, demanding solutions. Then, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel and the subsequent attacks on Jewish communities worldwide, the calls started coming not just from average readers but from university presidents and the United States government. From her front-row seat to this nightmare—including serving on Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group, meeting with the White House and Congress, and speaking with communities of all backgrounds across North America—she was surprised to discover that there was far more ignorance than malice, and saw an opportunity for change.

Combining deep historical research, investigative reporting, and storytelling bravado, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question is both diagnosis and prescription. She explores and exposes the failures of Holocaust education, the long history of the antizionist movement, the compromises of the American Jewish “Golden Age,” and the organized plot to poison artificial intelligence with anti-Jewish propaganda, and weaves it all into an erudite, audacious, and convincing series of arguments that invites readers of every background and inclination to become curious about their blind spots and to absorb new and uncomfortable truths. From there, she proposes a dramatic solution rooted in a new understanding of freedom and responsibility, and clears a path toward a shared future.

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question is a worldview-shifting book by one of our most incisive thinkers and writers—a lamentation, a manifesto, a call to action, and, ultimately, a love story for the living.

Visit Dara Horn's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 99 Test: The World to Come.

The Page 99 Test: All Other Nights.

The Page 69 Test: A Guide for the Perplexed.

The Page 69 Test: Eternal Life.

Writers Read: Dara Horn (January 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond Honor"

New from Emily Bestler Books/Simon & Schuster: Beyond Honor: A Novel by K.B. Brodsky.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A paramilitary operative confronting his grief on a path of retribution. A CIA analyst hunting a conspiracy that leads to the Oval Office. A Russian agent hiding in plain sight. Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow meets Jack Carr’s The Terminal List in Beyond Honor, a debut political thriller that plunges readers into a world of international espionage, where loyalty and duty are tested.

A man forged by war, paramilitary operative Kevin Rhoads is recruited for a solo extraction mission deep inside Siberia. CIA analyst Whitney Skyler’s investigation into a Russian-backed bank on American soil leads to the President of the United States.

Director Cynthia King plays an audacious gambit, leveraging a thirty-year debt of honor to save a captured American agent. But in this world of shifting alliances, even the most careful plans can unravel. Skyler faces an impossible choice: expose her mentor’s dangerous game to protect national security or reveal the truth to Rhoads. Already shattered by loss, Rhoads discovers the devastating betrayal that will transform him into a force of vengeance, leaving death in his wake.

From the war-torn streets of Damascus to the merciless Siberian tundra, from the rugged Kenai Peninsula to the polished corridors of Langley, Virginia, Beyond Honor is a white-knuckled thriller about duty, betrayal, and the impossible choices made by those who serve in the shadows.

Visit K.B. Brodsky's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Our Lives"

New from the University of California Press: Our Lives: What Abortion Attitudes Reveal About Who We Are as Americans by Tricia Colleen Bruce.

About the book, from the publisher:

Amid a volatile abortion landscape in the United States, Our Lives goes beyond polling and politics to uncover the raw messiness of everyday Americans' abortion attitudes. Drawing on nearly three hundred in-depth interviews with a randomly selected, closely representative set of US residents in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, sociologist Tricia Colleen Bruce uncovers the ambivalence, loyalties, doubts, contradictions, personal ties, and quiet stories undergirding moral and legal views on abortion.

Listening to everyday Americans complicates straightforward pro-choice and pro-life talking points and reveals something more about contemporary judgments as to what makes a good life, a good person, a good government, and a good society. How Americans think about abortion, Bruce shows, turns out to say a lot about how Americans think about themselves, each other, and the society they imagine, create, and live in―together.

Visit Tricia Colleen Bruce's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Last Harbinger"

New from 47North: The Last Harbinger by Jeff Wheeler.

About the book, from the publisher:

A princess and her entrusted protector must save a world on the brink of revolution in a thrilling historical fantasy by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jeff Wheeler.

Hastings Creigh is a rake, gambler, and spendthrift. He’s also the best dragoon in the Muirwood military, and with mounting tensions between kingdoms, he’s appointed as bodyguard to a princess on an off-world journey.

Princess Maia Fitzempress’s duty has always been to her people and maintaining peace between the worlds. Now, she must venture to Kingfountain, where her aunt reigns as queen and her cursed cousins have fallen ill. If Maia can reestablish the royal line, she can secure its longevity.

Yet in the devastating aftermath of war between two empires and with rebellion forces on the rise, Kingfountain holds danger for a princess and a bodyguard on a mission. Hastings and Maia must forge ahead on a quest to save themselves and a kingdom at the brink of civil war before cunning magical entities determine their destinies―even as an ancient force threatens to destroy both worlds.

Visit Jeff Wheeler's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Queen's Poisoner.

My Book, The Movie: The Queen's Poisoner.

My Book, The Movie: Storm Glass.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Glass.

Writers Read: Jeff Wheeler (2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Land of Happiness"

New from The MIT Press: The Land of Happiness: How the Japanese Department Store Visualized Modern Life by Nozomi Naoi.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fascinating look at how Japanese department stores of the twentieth century influenced modern life, identity, and the concept of a dreamworld—and why they continue to loom so large in our imagination.

The Land of Happiness explores the far-reaching influence of the Japanese department store on modern life and our imaginations. In this gorgeously illustrated volume, Nozomi Naoi explains how Japanese department stores modeled “the new modern Japanese life and identity” through print media and design, physical and imagined space, and the new experiences that these spaces offered. The stores created the notion of a modern subject enjoying a “land of happiness”—and this, in turn, shaped the wider sociological context, including emerging roles for women and perceptions of coloniality.

The book focuses on three areas: the mediascape of proliferating department store posters, advertisements, commercial design, promotional magazines, and merchandise; the physical space, such as the Western-style architecture that characterized many of these early department stores, and the imagined “modern space” created within their walls; and, finally, the production of a novel “dreamworld,” which included dining spaces with children’s menus, elevators, escalators, and more.

While the research on department stores and their role in the quotidian experience is vast, there is nothing like this study, which is uniquely grounded in an art historical approach that draws upon the visual media environment of early twentieth-century Japan and its impact on the everyday.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Appraisals"

New from W.W. Norton: Appraisals: A Novel by Claire Boyles.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Financial and ecological realities tear at the heart of a multigenerational farm family in this debut novel from a “deft and daring” (Los Angeles Times) Whiting Award winner.

Maggie Brandt, a third-generation farmer, is cultivating a few acres of organic vegetables in rural Colorado―a place where industrial farming reigns supreme―when the Great Recession hits. After months of unemployment, her husband, Fish, takes a job with an oil and gas company, a decision that threatens their once happy marriage and alienates their teenage daughter, Ozzie, a budding environmental crusader. As the wider community organizes against a billionaire outsider who is buying farmland and, more worryingly, water rights in the moisture-starved county, Maggie’s grandmother Flora grapples with the painful echoes of her own past. Flora and Ozzie’s already close bond deepens as they join a local activist group, but Fish and Maggie’s conflicting approaches to surviving circumstances that are out of their control drive them further apart. Faced with intolerable layers of loss, each member of the family is forced to consider what they are willing to compromise and what they are, or are not, able to forgive.

At once tender and urgent, Appraisals is a moving portrayal of ecological and financial catastrophe, the powerful generational bonds between women, and the fierce impulse to protect the places we love.

Visit Claire Boyles's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Becoming Orthodox"

New from Fordham University Press: Becoming Orthodox: Women, Religion, and Ethnicity in the American South by Elena V. Kravchenko.

About the book, from the publisher:

An exploration of an embodied, practice-centered, and continuous process through which Orthodox Christian women in the American South cultivate a compelling religious womanhood

Becoming Orthodox is a multi-lingual, ethnographic study of two Orthodox Christian communities in the US. Utilizing interview material, participant observation, and participant participation, Kravchenko argues that Russian women who immigrate to the United States and American women who convert to Orthodox Christianity engage with the materiality and visuality of the Orthodox Church to embrace conservative gender roles of a patriarchal tradition in a way that propels them to actively advocate for the equality, freedom, and empowerment of women.

Becoming Orthodox adds a new angle to the literature on the conservative religious women because of its attention to the intersection of religion, gender, and ethnicity. By attending to how Russian immigrant and American convert women―in the midst of their simultaneously sympathetic and antagonistic relationships―made choices about what icons to venerate, what prayers to use, how to dress, what food to cook, and how to raise their children, the book demonstrates that the project of becoming a good Orthodox woman was entangled in the project of defining what it means to be authentically “Russian” and “American.” Through performative ethnographic writing, the book illuminates how, in the social context of immigration and conversion, Russian and American women commonly sought to create a place of belonging by constructing meaningful ethno-religious homes and producing their respective Russian Orthodox and (Un)Russo-American Orthodox identities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Strange Is the Light"

Coming September 8 from Tor Books: Strange Is the Light by Sarah Maria Griffin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Strange Is the Light follows a passionately entangled group of childhood friends, fractured by the betrayals and secrets kept as they grew into adulthood.

Now, after twenty years, Daphne, Ronan, Leonie and Finn will finally have to face the consequences of cutting their last adventure short--having accidentally opened a rift into a dangerous alternate dimension while playing a mysterious RPG version of their childhood game.

Daphne never took her final turn... And there is a debt that must be paid.

Visit Sarah Maria Griffin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"For the Love of Labor"

New from the University of Illinois Press: For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman by Cathryn J. Prince.

About the book, from the publisher:

From her start as one of the youngest activists in US history, Pauline Newman helped shape the International Ladies' Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) into a dominant force in industrial America. Cathryn J. Prince tells the story of a self-educated Jewish immigrant who dedicated herself to a legion of causes and lifelong battles against sexism and classism.

Prince follows Newman’s life from a youth split between Lithuania and New York City sweatshops to her work as an advisor to New Deal–era labor secretary Frances Perkins. Newman’s long hours at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory informed her entrée into labor activism. In the following years, she tirelessly advocated for workers, ran for New York Secretary of State as a socialist, and became the first woman to serve as the ILGWU general organizer. Her interest in the health of workers led to service on the Joint Board of Sanitary Control and a decades-long term as education director of the ILGWU health center. Membership in Eleanor Roosevelt’s circle opened doors to government positions and advisory roles that continued into the postwar era. Prince also weaves in the details of Newman’s fifty-year relationship with a woman, her struggles with her sexual identity, and her final years.

Engaging and panoramic, For the Love of Labor is the first major biography of an important figure in labor and women’s history.

Visit Cathryn J. Prince's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Cathryn J. Prince & Hershey and Juno.

The Page 99 Test: Death in the Baltic.

The Page 99 Test: American Daredevil.

The Page 99 Test: Queen of the Mountaineers.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Inventing Mr. Darcy"

New from Severn House: Inventing Mr. Darcy by Susanna Craig.

About the book, from the publisher:

Award-winning author Susanna Craig is bringing the charm and sass of her historical romances into the 21st century with her first contemporary romance, Inventing Mr. Darcy, an enemies-to-lovers, alternate timeline romance with a Jane Austen twist!

A truth universally acknowledged: enemies attract!

Grad student Elle Bradshaw is on the cusp of completing her literature PhD. And while life beyond college is terrifying, spending her evening fixing a database malfunction with gorgeous yet grumpy tech geek Fisher Davis is worse. He infuriates her while making her heart race―it’s a distraction she doesn't need!

When a fluke geomagnetic storm leaves them trapped together during a blackout, the fiery kiss that follows is unexpected―and explosive. But catastrophically, the storm also wiped Jane Austen from existence! Now, Elle’s the only person to remember Pride and Prejudice and, it seems, romance itself.

As Elle navigates a world so familiar, yet not her own, she realizes she might just need to put her pride to one side and ask Fisher for help. Could the guy who was once her enemy turn out to be her very own Mr. Darcy . . . ?

Visit Susanna Craig's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Theologies of Remembering"

New from the University of California Press: Theologies of Remembering: Modernity, Ambiguity, and Transcendence in Islamic Indonesia by Verena Hanna Meyer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Theologies of Remembering reveals how Indonesia's two largest Muslim groups, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah―self-identifying as respectively traditionalist and modernist―actively engage memory as a framework for theological thought and practice. By reimagining their pasts to respond to new contexts, they articulate what it means to be a traditionalist or a modernist in the present and imagine possibilities for the future. Verena Meyer draws on interviews with group members, Islamic intellectual and narrative traditions, and critical theory to show that processes of remembering facilitate manifestations of the divine that destabilize binaries between the historical and transhistorical as well as linear understandings of temporality. Observing how constructions of the past are called into the service of sometimes conflicting demands, she argues against the pervasive idea that Islamic modernities have lost their tolerance for ambiguity and paradox. Tensions among incommensurable memories are generative for articulating elusive theological insights and complex positionalities among both traditionalists and modernists, prompting us to rethink these familiar distinctions in modern identity politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"'Tis the Season to Be Scary"

Coming September 8 from Crooked Lane Books: 'Tis the Season to Be Scary: A Year-Round Christmas Mystery by Vicki Delany.

About the book, from the publisher:

It’s time for spirits to come out and play in the ninth Year-Round Christmas mystery by national bestselling author Vicki Delany.

It’s Halloween, and the townsfolk of Rudolph, New York, are donning masks and costumes for the Yuletide Inn’s grand fundraising gala to support the local hospital. Shop owner Merry Wilkinson has yet another treat to celebrate: Her best friend, Vicky Casey, has a new cookbook set to publish. Vicky’s publishers, a prominent critic of her book, and a former opera star rumored to have been involved with Merry’s mother are all set to attend the gala.

As the drinks flow, the guests dance, and the canapés are served, things begin spiraling out of control. The book critic makes a scene, and tensions begin to rise. Then Merry realizes that she is not the only one who never actually paid for a gala ticket. But when someone drops dead after eating a cake pop from the lavish dessert buffet, everything comes to a head, and all eyes turn to Vicky, who made the treats. As it turns out, Vicky’s book might be doomed before it hits the shelves.

With her friend’s name and livelihood at stake and the fundraiser in serious danger, Merry must keep her wits about her. Surely she’s only imagining the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge watching her from the shadows.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

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

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (July 2025).

The Page 69 Test: Tea with Jam & Dread.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (October 2025).

The Page 69 Test: O, Deadly Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pericles"

New from Reaktion Books: Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric by Paul Cartledge.

About the book, from the publisher:

A nuanced portrait of ancient Athens’s boldest statesman and his enduring cultural legacy.

Pericles, the Athenian statesman, was a towering figure of his era, renowned for promoting Athenian democracy, shaping the Athenian Empire, and championing the arts, notably through the Parthenon’s creation. Born to aristocracy, he was a fervent democrat, a masterful demagogue in the ancient sense, and an eccentric in his personal life. Paul Cartledge explores Pericles’ life, examines Athenian history, and provides an insightful account of Pericles’ political career, his role in Athens’s building program, his intellectual connections, and his love life. Cartledge further considers Pericles’ reputation in the theater and how he has been represented over the centuries from antiquity to the present day. This book is a nuanced, illuminating, and lively portrayal of a remarkable politician.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fallow"

Coming September 15 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Fallow: A Novel by Sarah Anderson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Slyly funny and disarmingly tender, Fallow is the story of a young woman who signs up to be the world’s first in-house corporate surrogate, then finds herself caught up in a social experiment of another kind.

Natalie knows one truth: there is no such thing as a good job. As the clock ticks away at the call center where she logs complaints of workplace harassment, she tries to ignore the increasing pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance. She has no skills or ambitions. She has student loans. And, minute by minute, she hears the many ways workers are not just not getting by, but actually getting hustled.

Then, at the blood bank where she sells her plasma, a mysterious flyer leads her to The Company. Natalie turns out to be the perfect candidate for their pilot program, pitched as an opportunity to help women access greater gender equity. She will be their in-house surrogate, delivering seven babies in ten years and enabling their executives to have motherhood without maternity leave. Finally, she will be adequately―generously―compensated.

For years, her every need is met: stacks of healthy meals in the refrigerator of a luxury condo, fitness coaches and nutritionists, around-the-clock health care. Between deliveries, she takes time off―a fallow period, with no obligations or expectations. For the first time in her life, she is good at her job; for the first time, she feels free.

But just as she’s about to fulfill the terms of her contract, a staffing decision upends everything. Natalie is pulled into an entirely different kind of social experiment, one that raises new questions about her future, her freedom, her purpose, what she can expect from the world, and what she can offer to it.

Woundingly funny and genuinely moving, Sarah Anderson’s Fallow is a tender, alarmingly real vision of a woman balancing on the knife-edge of capitalism as she comes to realize who she wants to be.

Visit Sarah W. Anderson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"He Has the People"

New from Oxford University Press: He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860 by Jonathan Earle.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gripping and granular look at how Abraham Lincoln got elected the 16th president of the United States.

James McPherson calls the election of 1860 "undeniably the most important--and pivotal--in all of American history." The nation was not merely divided over the issue of slavery; the opposing camps were at each other's throats. The moment John Brown and his men attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in the fall of 1859 the compromises that had stitched the country together for decades unraveled. The presidential election was therefore about more than who the next president would be. It was about how soon war would follow his inauguration.

Using the writings and story of Murat Halstead, the nation's first campaign journalist, as well as previously unused documents from Lincoln's campaign manager, Jonathan Earle captures the full drama of the 1860 election. He shows how Lincoln, a one-time Congressman from Illinois, and a dark horse against the more established Stephen Douglas, the Democratic frontrunner, and William Henry Seward, the presumptive Republican nominee, got the people and votes he needed to win in a protracted yet furiously disputed election cycle.

Earle focuses on the chaotic campaigns themselves, as political bosses, candidates, and their self-appointed partisans took politicking in directions that at times resembled paramilitary exercises more than campaign events. In the end, Lincoln and his associates ran a brilliant campaign, leveraging Northern anger, growing antislavery sentiment, and divisions within both the Democratic Party and the nation as a whole. His platform was built on his speeches, which projected a vision for how the nation would persevere in the coming crisis. Behind the commanding rhetoric, however, was sophisticated and very modern political machinery. He Has the People provides an engaging historical narrative and a fresh appraisal of the most consequential of all presidential elections.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Getaway"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Getaway by Kieran Scott.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In a taut locked-room mystery from New York Times bestselling author Kieran Scott, a group of longtime friends confronts their darkest secrets―and deadliest impulses―on the brink of a hurricane.

For years, three couples have gathered at The Villa―billionaire Lincoln Foster’s Hamptons estate―for lavish weekends among friends. But this year, mysterious blue cards appear in each bedroom, exposing secrets: their host’s betrayals and the guests’ own dark deeds.

Everyone has something to hide. Marley and Marshall Foster. Suzy and Sean McTeague. Juliet and Josh Jacoby. Lincoln and his new wife, Hazel. Even uninvited guests hoping to be accepted among the elite.

With a hurricane bearing down, no one is getting out. When the revelations turn deadly, the trapped friends must confront what their lies have cost them―possibly their lives.

Visit Kieran Scott's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Captive Consumers"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Captive Consumers: Hunger, Violence, and Inequality in American Prison Food by Chin Jou.

About the book, from the publisher:

Much of what happens inside America’s prisons remains hidden from public view, and the food doled out to incarcerated people is no exception. In Captive Consumers, Chin Jou exposes a system of mistreatment and scandal surrounding prison food: across the country, those behind bars live with chronic hunger, eat foods contrary to their religious beliefs and medical needs, and develop foodborne illnesses at alarming rates. At the same time, corrections systems and prison food services weaponize nutritional claims to protect themselves from charges that the incarcerated are starving.

Using a wealth of sources from untapped historical records to prison newspapers, Jou excavates the voices of the incarcerated and shows that prison food dehumanizes the imprisoned, compounds racial and class inequalities, and induces more violence—ultimately making carceral institutions more dangerous. But this compelling book also illuminates how people behind bars have reasserted their identities, resourcefulness, and humanity through self-prepared food even as prison food services profit from lucrative, taxpayer-funded contracts that reward cost-cutting over care. If US corrections systems continue to perpetuate physical and psychological violence through food, Jou argues, Americans will suffer not just wasted tax dollars but the cost of bringing traumatized, ailing, and hungry formerly incarcerated people back into society.

The Page 99 Test: Supersizing Urban America.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Promised Land"

New from Atlantic Crime: Promised Land by Henry Wise.

About the book, from the publisher:

Word is bond—until the past threatens to break it

From the Edgar Award-winning author comes a decisive sequel to Holy City in which a missing person case forces deputy sheriff Will Seems to confront the way history anchors, corrupts, and defines the present

Deep within southside Virginia lies the Snakefoot—a wild swampland that holds secrets, hides truths, and harbors the dead in murky waters that refuse to shine yet somehow glow.

One morning, a pickup truck is found jammed into the mud, the driver’s door open amidst scattered bullets and bloodstains on the seat. The driver, Rainbo Boon, is nowhere to be found, but his tracks lead Deputy Sheriff Will Seems and his partner, Tania Jameson, into the swamp.

During their investigation, Buck Tomlin, the grandson of the missing Rainbo, proves cooperative, at least at first. But when the boy’s whereabouts from the night of the accident don’t check out, Will and Tania must confront the troubling reality that the Snakefoot might hold more than just a runaway victim.

When haunting layers of history—both local and personal—rise to the surface of the Snakefoot, the people who have found refuge in its murky waters are exposed. Who really is Rainbo Boon? Where was Buck on the night of the accident? And how does this all connect to the recent efforts to redevelop the land?

As Will and Tania search for answers, so does Buck, and the sum of their investigations illuminates the hard fact that there is a price for progress, and a cost to living by a code. Sometimes all a person has is his word, and that word is his bond.

Powerful and complex, Promised Land is about the gravity of the past, the momentum of sin, and the impossibility of salvation.

Visit Henry Wise's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fatherhood, Race, and the American State"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Fatherhood, Race, and the American State: The Politics of Patriarchal Anxieties by H. Howell Williams.

About the book, from the publisher:

An argument that the major reason for White patriarchy’s endurance lies in the political regulation of fatherhood

White men continue to wield disproportionate political power in the United States, even as women enter politics in higher numbers and as the nation becomes increasingly racially diverse. White patriarchy remains an enduring model of political authority, one that its adherents defend fiercely in court cases and policy battles. H. Howell Williams argues that a major reason for White patriarchy’s endurance lies in the political regulation of fatherhood.

At key moments in American political history, and in response to efforts to expand the political community to include women and people of color, political actors fretted over how the government treated fathers, worrying that some non-White fathers were not performing their patriarchal duties sufficiently while the government was unfairly harsh on other fathers, usually White fathers of reasonable means. Their concerns, or “patriarchal anxieties,” inspired these actors and sympathetic constituencies to advocate for state intervention via one of three policy solutions: to uplift and help struggling fathers, to punish deficient fathers, or to leave fathers alone to govern their families. Through an exploration of these policy approaches, Williams demonstrates how patriarchal anxieties shaped the state’s response to perceived crises in fatherhood. While these policy approaches were ostensibly race- and gender-neutral, Williams reveals that political advocates’ efforts to regulate fatherhood were really attempts to bolster White American patriarchy and protect its dominance.

By examining men’s policy goals, White women’s support for White patriarchal policies, and political actors’ strategic investment in White patriarchy, Fatherhood, Race, and the American State argues for a new understanding of the family as a political institution, one that centers the significant role the state plays in defending, shaping, and entrenching a narrow vision of the American family.

Visit H. Howell Williams's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Exorcism of Faeries"

Coming soon from S&S/Saga Press: The Exorcism of Faeries (Morbid Realities) by J. L. Vampa.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The first in a haunting dark academia romance series about a graduate student studying botany in Dublin who falls for her professor of morbid anatomy, as they are drawn into a deadly plague threatening their world—perfect for fans of Ninth House and An Academy for Liars.

A strange affliction is haunting the good people of Dublin. It roots beneath the skin—blooming, entangling—before claiming its victims. No one knows how it started. No one can find a cure.

Atta Morrow has spent years pursuing the truth behind the plague. A graduate student at Trinity College, her covert research has grown into a quiet obsession that could cost her more than her academic future. When Atta’s latest risk catches the attention of Sonder Murdoch, Trinity’s infamous but brilliant morbid anatomy professor, she gains an unexpected ally—and a dangerous temptation.

Together, they dig deeper into the mysteries plaguing Dublin. But as their research blurs with folklore, Atta and Sonder must confront secrets older than science before the city, and they, are consumed.

Visit J. L. Vampa's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Believable Impossibilities"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Believable Impossibilities: Race, Testimony, and the Horror Film by Christopher Bracken.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gripping exploration of belief in the impossible through horror film, informed by philosophy, history, and anthropology.

What if aliens crash-landed at an old mine? What if you discovered your spouse is protecting you from witchcraft? What if you received messages from the dead? You wouldn’t believe it, of course―but you might investigate. As Christopher Bracken shows through this gripping exploration of the horror film, this is the first step toward believing the impossible.

In Believable Impossibilities, Bracken examines the genre in which we are most frequently called on to believe something seemingly impossible has unsettled our ordinary lives―the horror story. Whether on the page or on screen, horror draws us into narratives in which a community of nonbelievers are suddenly confronted with the challenge of believing in events and experiences that radically break with expectation. As Bracken argues, questions of belief often intersect with issues of race and Indigeneity because, historically, belief in the impossible has been racially coded as a trait of “primitive” thought. Drawing on philosophy, anthropology, and psychoanalysis, Bracken explores the fictional spaces in which the paranormal and supernatural challenge and defy our social bonds.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fall into Place"

Coming soon from St. Martin's Griffin: Fall into Place: A Novel by Kristyn J. Miller.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Leaving was easy. Coming back changes everything.

Lenore’s life is falling apart. Propelled home from Manhattan to rural Vermont to spend one final autumn at her family’s historic apple orchard before it’s sold, Lenore struggles to say goodbye. Not only to French Hill Farm, but to everything that once inspired her art. Soon enough, entries in her late grandmother’s journal reignite memories of Lenore’s childhood―and the crush on the groundskeeper's son she's since tried to forget.

Callan’s path has been laid out for him for as long as he can remember: live, work, and die in Whitbury, Vermont. He’s taken over for his father as the groundskeeper at French Hill Farm, but now that it’s soon to be sold, his future has turned abruptly uncertain. The last thing he needs is a distraction―like Lenore French showing up out of the blue, looking even better than he remembered. As his best friend’s little sister, she’s always been off limits, and the last time they saw each other, he blew his chance anyway.

Lenore has long believed that her dreams are too big for the small town she grew up in―the same town Callan believes he can never outrun. But one last autumn together could paint their hometown―and each other―in a brand new light.

Visit Kristyn J. Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"On Statesmanship"

New from Yale University Press: On Statesmanship by Steven B. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

What true statecraft consists of, and how to know a statesman when we see one

In the modern world we yearn for great leaders but resist them when they come along. In this much-needed essay, Steven B. Smith tells us that a statesman is something far different from a demagogue or a technocrat; he or she incorporates many qualities of leadership―persuasiveness, courage, foresight, judgment―to take people where they need to go while hardly seeming to lead them at all. A true statesman is focused not on amassing power but on finding the best way to use power toward responsible ends. Above all else, Smith argues, the statesman is an educator who, through language and argument, helps shape a people’s civic understanding. This book is a timely reminder of a set of qualities we desperately need in our political leaders but have forgotten how to talk about.

The Page 99 Test: Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes.

--Marshal Zeringue

"City of Widows"

New from William Morrow: City of Widows: A Novel – A Gripping Epic Saga of Afghan Women at a Crossroads of History Under the Taliban by Nadia Hashimi.

About the book, from the publisher:

From bestselling novelist Nadia Hashimi—a gripping, occasionally terrifying, yet ultimately hopeful novel focusing on the women of Afghanistan in the years since the Taliban regained power.

In February 2020 the US began to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation. A whole generation of Afghan women had been born during that time—women who had grown up in relative peace, gone to school, entered the professions, even served in the army and Parliament. The women of Afghanistan watched as the Taliban filled the streets again. They knew everything was about to change.

In the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Kabul, women are TV newscasters, shop owners, doctors, teachers, lawyers, even soldiers. They include Marjan, who fought with the Afghan army, and will risk everything to keep her daughter Hawa safe. In her earlier days Marjan was called Rahima and had lived the life of a bacha posh—a girl raised as a boy until she came of age. Forced into an early marriage, Rahima took the name Marjan when she fled her warlord husband. She’s created a whole new life for herself, one she will not give up easily.

So has Soraya, who defiantly wore red lipstick as she led the army’s all-female combat force over the objections of her upper-class family. Soraya’s now a wanted woman whose brother may choose not to shelter her from the Taliban. What will become of her? Or Mina, a journalist and broadcaster whose beautiful face is known to everyone in Kabul—including the new regime?

Fight or flight? Or find a third way? One thing is for certain: none of these women will meekly accept her fate.

An epic saga of fear, resistance, change, and reinvention, City of Widows gives voices to the unforgettable Afghan women at a crossroads of history.

Visit Nadia Hashimi's website.

The Page 69 Test: When the Moon Is Low.

Writers Read: Nadia Hashimi (August 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Reckoning with Race in New Worlds"

New from the University of Virginia Press: Reckoning with Race in New Worlds by Ruth Hill.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Spanish and Portuguese colonialism shaped our conception of whiteness

A landmark treatment of a pivotal historical question, Reckoning with Race in New Worlds reveals how the empires of Spain and Portugal debated and came to determine who was white and who was not during their colonial era. How did free people with partial Native American, Asian, or African lineage either become or cease to be blancos or brancos―white people? Ruth Hill explains how, in unexpected ways, science and religion joined forces in the early modern era to shape the concepts of purity, mixture, and degeneration that would decide these questions. Fixing the thresholds of whiteness―degrees of blood, generations spent in a foreign environment―instigated centuries-long controversies with enormous consequences. By putting into dialogue archival sources as well as extensive engagement with secondary literature, paintings, and maps, Reckoning with Race in New Worlds crafts a history of human diversity in the colonial era, with profound implications for our understandings of the natural and social sciences and of our racial present.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Among the Ruins"

Coming December 8 from Harper Perennial: Among the Ruins: A Novel by Claire Coughlan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The acclaimed author of Where They Lie delivers a beautifully written, atmospheric mystery about one woman’s relentless drive to uncover the truth, whatever the cost.

It is the summer of 1970, and Nicoletta Sarto carefully juggles the challenges of being the women’s editor at Dublin’s Irish Sentinel with the demands of motherhood, raising twin baby girls at home. But that uneasy balance is upended when she’s approached by a barrister named Louise Leonard, whose aunt has just died. Intrigued, Nicoletta finds herself drawn into a story that could have unexpected—and very perilous—consequences for her career, her family, and her life.

Was Helen Leonard murdered, as her niece believes? Why did Helen leave everything to her nurse, a mysterious woman who has now vanished? As the persistent Nicoletta dives deeper into the investigation, she finds herself fighting the traditional attitudes of Irish society and own her family, both which disapprove of her choice to be a working mother, pursuing a career that takes her away from her daughters.

Focused on unwinding the mystery of Helen Leonard’s death, Nicoletta is unaware that danger lurks around every corner...

Follow Claire Coughlan on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: Where They Lie.

Q&A with Claire Coughlan.

My Book, The Movie: Where They Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Psychology of Hunger and Starvation"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Psychology of Hunger and Starvation by Richard J. Stevenson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Hunger and starvation have significantly shaped the human condition. The imprints of past famines continue to cast lasting shadows on our evolutionary relationship with food, highlighting starvation as a powerful cognitive force. This book explores the nature of human hunger primarily from a psychological perspective, covering its basis in the brain, its critical dependence on learning and memory, and the dramatic effect of starvation on morality and behaviour. It connects the biology and psychology of hunger with historical and social examples including hunger strikers, hunger artists, disordered eating, and hunger as a weapon. Human experimental studies of deep starvation are also analysed, alongside case studies of the 'super hungers' in Prader-Willi syndrome, binge eating, and dementia. Delivering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary picture of human hunger and starvation, this book is an ideal resource for students and researchers interested in ingestive behaviour from a multidisciplinary perspective.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mystic and the Missing Girl"

Coming September 8 from Minotaur Books: The Mystic and the Missing Girl: A Mystery by Vikki VanSickle.

About the book, from the publisher:

Small town secrets, a reluctant psychic, and a cold case that could expose them all.

Drew Benson can read tarot cards and get impressions from objects―she just never expected to use her gifts to investigate an infamous cold case.

Drew Benson has a secret. She gets visions, something she hasn’t tapped into since she was a teenager, when her late aunt, a TV psychic known as Hannah Mystic, became the scapegoat in the unsolved disappearance of a local teenager. Twenty years later, Drew is happy to ignore her gift, focusing instead on keeping the metaphysical shop she inherited from Hannah afloat, wrangling her sole, astrology-obsessed employee, and dodging local rake Foster Banks in her picturesque lakeside hometown.

But when Drew's arch-nemesis from high school, now a big city reporter, decides to investigate the cold case from all those years ago, it’s Drew’s ability that could finally make a break in the decades old mystery. With bills piling up, a disapproving mother laying on the guilt, and a local vandal who wants Drew and her witchy store gone, Drew has a lot to lose. But what she stands to gain―finding out what happened to the missing teen, clearing her aunt’s name, and a second chance at belonging―could change everything.

In The Mystic and the Missing Girl, Vikki VanSickle seamlessly draws readers into an utterly charming world in this unputdownable, small town mystery.

Visit Vikki VanSickle's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

Coming September 29 from UNC Press: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood: Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, and the Birth of Black Power by W. Jason Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story behind the Priestess and the Poet

On March 24, 1965, Nina Simone performed at a rally for twenty-five thousand people on the last night of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march. Though luminaries like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahalia Jackson, and Dick Gregory were in attendance, it was Langston Hughes, celebrated poet and leader of the Harlem Renaissance, who was the singer’s closest confidant and supporter. They had one of the most important—yet unheralded—friendships of the Black Power era.

Simone’s performance on that Montgomery night catapulted her into a lead role in the civil rights movement, with Hughes as her guide. In Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, W. Jason Miller offers a riveting history of how their relationship helped spark the birth of Black Power—indeed, the phrase itself, made famous by Stokely Carmichael, was a quote from collaborative lyrics by the two. Hughes gave Simone the fuel to be one of the most politically charged artists of the era, while Simone offered Hughes a way to carry his influence into pop music and shape a national movement. Drawing on new firsthand accounts, Miller takes readers inside one of the most powerful friendships in music and civil rights history.

Visit W. Jason Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Ninth Circle"

Coming soon from Soho Crime: The Ninth Circle (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery) by James R. Benn.

About the book, from the publisher:

To solve a double murder in Cuba, US Army Captain Billy Boyle will need to build unlikely alliances with Havana’s underworld and British intelligence, including Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, whose naval wartime service would later inspire the James Bond novels.

This installment of James R. Benn’s fan-favorite, critically-acclaimed WWII mystery series marks 20 years of Billy Boyle, an Irish American cop from Boston thrust onto the staff of his “uncle” Ike Eisenhower for sensitive overseas military investigations.

January, 1945: If US Army Captain Billy Boyle thinks a summons to Havana will give him a chance to sip a cold Hatuey under the Caribbean sun, the fantasy is dead on arrival. Within hours of landing, Billy and his partner-in-crime-solving, Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate the murder of a Navy intelligence officer. But as the men wait for an informant at a beachside bar, a bomb goes off, and they narrowly escape with their lives. Then the informant—a Cuban taxi driver named Hector Díaz—is found dead outside his apartment. What did Hector know? And who was so desperate to silence him?

Thrust into a double-murder investigation, Billy and Kaz team up with the brass at the British Legation in Havana, including none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, to gather intel from sources inside Havana’s criminal underworld. Their search takes them from Havana’s Chinatown to the Gran Casino Nacional, where notorious gangster Meyer Lansky offers his services if it means defeating the suspected common enemy—the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing of the Nazi military—and finding out what sort of intelligence they are so hell-bent on keeping top-secret at this late stage in the war.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Painting Paranoia"

New from the University of Illinois Press: Painting Paranoia: Cold War Art and Anti-Communism by Julia Tatiana Bailey.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the interwar years, as the USSR was emerging as a formidable new power and the United States was asserting its final independence from Europe, Russian art began to appear in the United States, supported by the influx of émigrés escaping revolutionary turmoil. While revolutionary Russia was viewed with trepidation from across the Atlantic, the country’s creative output was initially entertained as an exotic oddity. Yet this sense of cultural alienation, based on the classical orientalizing narratives of the period, gave way to the fear of the Soviet Union as a cultural Other, which defined US-Soviet artistic relations throughout the twentieth century.

Based on extensive archival research conducted in the United States and Russia, this manuscript contributes to the political history of twentieth-century American art and the revisionist history of cultural diplomacy in the Cold War by charting the politicization of myths of Soviet art. It reveals how those with control over the reception of art in the United States built and sustained a strategy of othering towards Socialist Realism, presents the rhetoric of Soviet artistic otherness in the context of debates surrounding the concept of American art, and reclaims the post-war history of American Social Realism.

Follow Julia Bailey on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mortal Enemy Murder Club"

New from Park Row: The Mortal Enemy Murder Club: A Novel (A Hu Done It Mystery, 2) by Gloria Chao.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is back with a twist in this smart, hilarious mystery by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao.

Kathryn Hu is not getting into the business of solving murders. Yes, she and her friends Olivia and Elle figured out who killed their cheating ex-boyfriend. But now Kat can get back to her usual, murder-free existence.

Then she gets an unexpected plea for help. Mandy Thorne has ruined countless lives through her revenge podcast. She also did her best to frame the girls. Now, she claims, someone is trying to kill her. And the girls are the only ones who can save her.

But can the trio and Mandy put aside their mutual contempt long enough to prevent a murder and solve this case? Can they become…the Mortal Enemy Murder Club?

Filled with humor and shenanigans, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a romp of an adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao, perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

Visit Gloria Chao's website.

The Page 69 Test: American Panda.

The Page 69 Test: When You Wish Upon a Lantern.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Real Domestic Product"

New from The MIT Press: The Real Domestic Product: How Birth Control Built Equality (and Why the Future of the Economy and the Planet Depends on It) by Elizabeth Gregory.

About the book, from the publisher:

An urgent and clear-eyed look at the battle over reproductive control in our tipping-point moment—and how to forge a path forward.

Birth control, which includes contraception, abortion access and more, has not only enabled women to enter civic life in significant numbers for the first time, but it has also expanded our democracy and grown our economy. While many embrace these changes, which aim to share the nation’s economic bounty among all Americans, those who see themselves as benefiting from the old hierarchies do not. They resist this progress with divisive rhetoric condemning “woke”-ness in anything they find threatening.

In The Real Domestic Product, fertility researcher Elizabeth Gregory argues that our battles over abortion and LGBTQ bans and pronatalism are economic at base—that conservatives seek to push women out of civic life through forced childbearing. Their goal? To maintain their discount on domestic labor and a steady supply of low-wage workers. But, she contends, this shortsighted approach overlooks the huge benefits that a caring democracy can engender for our economy and for our fragile planet.

By connecting the dots among fertility patterns, economics, climate change, equitable work, expanding longevity, and the rising status of formerly excluded groups, the author counters reactionary narratives, adding depth and perspective to the incomplete national conversations we’ve had to date. Never more urgently needed, The Real Domestic Product envisions the way forward to an economy of care for our planet and our people.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Shadow Friends"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Shadow Friends: A Thriller (The Martini Club) by Tess Gerritsen.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a harrowing and emotional thriller where ghosts of the Cold War return with a vengeance―and cannot be outrun.

When a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine, the tight-knit band of former spies in the Martini Club once again sees their quiet coastal retirement interrupted by international intrigue. And when a waitress at the conference hotel is found murdered, Ingrid Slocum sees chilling links to a disastrous mission that nearly killed her three decades ago.

Desperate to uncover the truth, Ingrid’s drawn back into the game by a magnetic ex-CIA colleague―and former lover―who was with her on the long-ago doomed mission. He convinces her to join him, and together they head to Amsterdam to track down her would-be killer.

Ingrid’s frantic husband Lloyd and Maggie Bird are close behind, but a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. Forced to question every allegiance, the Martini Club must rely on the skills they tried to leave behind. Because in this game of revenge and deception, the past never dies―it just hides in the shadows.

Visit Tess Gerritsen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The New Believers"

New from Cambridge University Press: The New Believers: Religion and the Contemporary Novel by Jack Dudley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The New Believers identifies a group of today's most important novelists, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Junot Díaz, and George Saunders, who have challenged the trend of depressing and defeatist novelistic endings by turning to spiritual beliefs, powers, and presences. Through spiritual belief, these writers use the novel to imagine more hopeful and caring ways of being in the world, ones that can challenge Christian Nationalism and neoliberal capitalism and empower leftist and liberal causes, such as women's rights, migrant rights, animal rights, and care for the environment. Through a survey of the current state of novel studies, close readings of key works by each writer, and new archival research on Margaret Atwood and J. M. Coetzee, The New Believers shows how these writers transform novelistic realism through spiritual realism and reshape the current debate about religion, secularization, and literature.

Visit Jack Dudley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Something of a Calling"

Coming soon from Blackstone Publishing: Something of a Calling by Zoje Stage.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the brilliant Zoje Stage, Bram Stoker Award finalist and author of Baby Teeth, Something of a Calling is an unsettling look at a woman—and a world—on the brink of change.

Detective Andy Cooper is about to retire. She isn’t sure what’s next … perhaps traveling in the RV she has yet to buy, with a dog she doesn’t currently own. Perhaps gardening near the ever-shrinking patch of woods behind her house—once the cable company’s backhoe is removed.

She’ll need to do something, if only to distract herself from how empty her life has become. After the murder of her young daughter by a drunk driver. After the divorce. After the realization that all she has is her job and that she’s about to lose that, too.

Everything changes when bodies begin to turn up. Murdered, but how? Not by knife, gun, or any obvious weapon. Instead: teethmarks. Chunks missing. Like they’d been chewed on. And not by humans.

As she’s struggling to solve her final case, an unexpected new friendship seems like just what Andy needs. Where she is detached from life, Fiona embraces it. Where she is a homebody, Fiona roams. Yet the women are drawn together by a shared love of nature and wildlife. Until Andy learns the dark truth behind Fiona’s smile. A secret that threatens to unravel the world as she knows it.

Visit Zoje Stage's website.

Writers Read: Zoje Stage (July 2018).

Q&A with Zoje Stage.

Writers Read: Zoje Stage (August 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chinese Media Improvisations"

New from Stanford University Press: Chinese Media Improvisations: Thriving on Deficits by Xuenan Cao.

About the book, from the publisher:

Xuenan Cao offers an unexpected angle on China's technological rise, spotlighting the role of deficit-driven improvisation. As Cao demonstrates, where printing paper, computers, and microchips have been in shortage, media improvisations and AI gadgetry have filled the gap and become the unlikeliest accelerants of tech imaginaries. Equal parts media-historical and literary analysis, the book connects several moments in Chinese history: Mao's Great Leap Forward that demanded the country produce mountains of books, notwithstanding the shortage of papers and printers; the compressed development that pushed key industries—such as China Railway—to informatize amidst hazards; the information-theoretical explosion in which scientists impersonated computing devices when there were none for them to access; and the ironic present, when municipals have scrambled to update their smart-cities with low-budget AI gadget theatrics, such as facial recognition toilet paper dispensers. These are scenarios in which media practitioners—from print to information technologies and to AI—have had to improvise in response to political pressure and thrive on a deficiency of funding and materials. Drawing on Chinese communist party archival records, China Railway local archives, newspapers, ersatz college reference books, science journals, and AI-related technical documents, each book section combines archival research and literary readings, narrated through personal history with media-theoretical extrapolation. Ultimately, Cao persuades that the critique and deconstruction of the canonicity of Western media theory requires an understanding of media improvisations in China.

Visit Xuenan Cao's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Country House Murders"

Coming soon from Thomas & Mercer: The Country House Murders (Polly Hope Mysteries) by Friday Turner.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Meet Polly Hope: art expert, reluctant dog lover and… amateur detective?

London, 1941. Polly Hope is bravely working as an air raid warden during the Blitz when she saves the life of the charming Freddie Fairbank. Over a thank-you breakfast at the Ritz, he asks Polly to help requisition a sprawling English country house for the war effort.

Petherbridge Hall has grand rooms, lovely views and will be a perfect nursing home for injured troops, if they can only persuade the family to give up their house. But then they find the lord of the manor dead behind the gardener’s shed. With the local police too busy to investigate, Polly and Freddie realise they need to find the culprit, and fast. At least Toby the terrier seems happy to help.

With more suspects than you can shake a ration book at, our intrepid duo are on the hunt for the killer. But when Polly follows a clue down to the cellars, a secret door opens with a bang and her torch goes out… Really, in wartime Britain, couldn’t murderers at least wait until after tea?

Perfect for fans of cosy mysteries and anyone who likes their sleuths witty, their houses stately, and their wartimes adventures served with a dash of danger!

Visit Friday Turner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue