"If Looks Could Kill"

New from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Printz Honor–winning and New York Times bestselling author Julie Berry, a true-crime-nail-biter-turned-mythic-odyssey pitting Jack the Ripper against Medusa. A defiant love song to sisterhood, a survivors’ battle cry, and a romantic literary tour de force laced with humor.

It’s autumn 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the run. As London police close in, he flees England for New York City seeking new victims. But a primal force of female vengeance has had enough. With serpents for hair and a fearsome gaze, an awakened Medusa is hunting for one thing: Jack.

And other dangers lurk in Manhattan’s Bowery. Salvation Army volunteers Tabitha and Pearl discover that a girl they once helped has been forced to work in a local brothel. Tabitha’s an upstate city girl with a wry humor and a thirst for adventure, while farmgirl Pearl takes everything with stone-cold seriousness. Their brittle partnership is tested as they team up with an aspiring girl reporter and a handsome Irish bartender to mount a rescue effort, only to find their fates entwine with Medusa’s and Jack’s.

Visit Julie Berry's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Memory of Violence"

New from the University of California Press: A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity by Christine Shepardson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Through the fifth and sixth centuries, major divisions rocked Christianity as different factions vied to make their teachings the doctrine of the Roman Empire’s imperial church. In the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, miaphysite Christians, often targeted as heretics by the imperial church, confronted periodic violence and persecution. In this book, Christine Shepardson reshapes our understanding of late antiquity by centering Syriac Christianity in these complex and politicized doctrinal conflicts. Drawing on critical studies of violence and memory, she traces narratives of resistance and other rhetorical strategies by which miaphysite leaders radicalized their followers to endure physical deprivation and harm rather than abandon their church community.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Austen Affair"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: The Austen Affair: A Novel by Madeline Bell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut

Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It's not just the role of a lifetime, but it’s also her last chance to prove herself as a serious actress (no easy feat after being fired from her last TV gig) and more importantly, it’s her opportunity to honor her mom, who was the biggest fan of Jane Austen ever. But one thing is standing in Tess’s way—well, one very tall, annoyingly handsome person, actually: Hugh Balfour.

A serious British method actor, Hugh wants nothing to do with Tess (whose Teen Choice Awards somehow don’t quite compare to his BAFTA nominations). Hugh is a type-A, no-nonsense, Royal Academy prodigy, whereas Tess is big-hearted, a little reckless, and admittedly, kind of a mess. But the film needs chemistry—and Tess’s career depends on it.

Sparks fly, but not in the way Tess hoped, when an electrical accident sends the two feuding co-stars back in time to Jane Austen’s era. 200 years in the past with only each other to rely on, Tess and Hugh need to ad-lib their way through the Regency period in order to make it back home, and hopefully not screw up history along the way. But if a certain someone looks particularly dashing in those 19th century breeches…well, Tess won’t be complaining.

A wickedly funny, delightfully charming story, The Austen Affair is a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.

Visit Madeline Bell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prioritizing Faith"

New from NYU Press: Prioritizing Faith: International Religious Freedom and U.S. Foreign Policy by Ashlyn W. Hand.

About the book, from the publisher:

Uncovers the political, ideological, and bureaucratic forces that shaped the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and its legacy across the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 formally established the promotion of religious freedom as a U.S. foreign policy and national security priority. Tracing its origins and passage, Prioritizing Faith shows how the legislation was made possible by the convergence of growing evangelical and Jewish advocacy, the expanding international human rights movement, and a broader search for post–Cold War purpose. Yet implementation across administrations has been uneven, shaped by shifting geopolitical dynamics and internal institutional constraints.

Relying on expert interviews and rich archival analysis, Ashlyn W. Hand traces how Clinton, Bush, and Obama each wove international religious freedom into their foreign policy visions while navigating competing priorities and evolving strategic interests. Through case studies in China, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia, Hand reveals the inner workings and persistent challenges of American religious freedom policy on the global stage.

Timely, insightful, and deeply researched, Prioritizing Faith offers an incisive assessment of the United States’ efforts to promote religious freedom abroad, highlighting the enduring tensions between normative aspirations and the complexities of foreign policy practice.

Visit Ashlyn W. Hand's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fiend"

Coming September 16 from G.P. Putnam's Sons: Fiend by Alma Katsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.

Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.

The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.

At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wildcat of the Streets"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing by Michael Stauch.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Black youth in Detroit made claims for political equality over and against the new order of community policing

The criminalization of Black youth was central to policing in urban America during the civil rights era and continued in Detroit even after the rise of Black political control in the 1970s. Wildcat of the Streets documents how the “community policing” approach of Mayor Coleman Young (1974–1993)―including neighborhood police stations, affirmative action hiring policies, and public participation in law enforcement initiatives―transformed Detroit, long considered the nation’s symbol of racial inequality and urban crisis, into a crucial site of experimentation in policing while continuing to subject many Black Detroiters to police brutality and repression.

In response, young people in the 1970s and 1980s drew on the city’s storied history of labor radicalism as well as contemporary shopfloor struggles to wage a “wildcat of the streets,” consisting of street disturbances, decentralized gang activity, and complex organizations of the informal economy. In this revelatory new history of the social life of cities, Michael Stauch mines a series of evocative interviews conducted with the participants to trace how Black youth made claims for political equality over and against the new order of community policing.

Centering the perspective of criminalized and crime-committing young people, Wildcat of the Streets is an original interpretation of police reform, the long struggle for Black liberation, and the politics of cities in the age of community policing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"North of the Sunlit River"

New from Lake Union: North of the Sunlit River: A Novel by Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of This Impossible Brightness comes a heartrending trek through grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness as a young woman seeks the truth that will heal her.

Eila Jacobsen is adrift, reeling from her father’s recent death and still suffering from the loss of her best friend. When invited to join a research trip to a remote part of Alaska, she takes the chance to refocus her life and perhaps unravel the mystery behind the dwindling caribou population.

But as Eila buries herself in data, she stumbles across something remarkable. Concealed in the pages of her father’s journal is a discovery with life-changing possibilities. So why was it abandoned?

Unable to ignore its potential, Eila ventures deeper into the Alaskan tundra in search of healing and answers. But she’s not the only one in need of a new beginning, and she’s not the only one looking.

Pursued across the landscape and haunted by secrets, Eila presses on, unearthing the regrets of those closest to her, and revealing the joy and forgiveness that bind them together.

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Women, Politics, and the Irish Public Sphere in the Age of Revolution"

New from Oxford University Press: Women, Politics, and the Irish Public Sphere in the Age of Revolution by Catriona Kennedy.

About the book, from the publisher:

The late-eighteenth-century 'age of revolutions' has long been identified as a key moment in the gendering of modern democratic politics, one which opened up new debates on the 'rights of women' while often re-affirming the masculinity of the political citizen. In Ireland, the revolutionary era saw the rise of the radical United Irish movement, mass popular mobilisation, and reached a violent dénouement in the 1798 rebellion. But what did Ireland's age of revolution mean for women? Was radical republicanism able to imagine women as political actors? How did Irish women experience and navigate the intense ideological conflicts of the 1790s? Addressing these and related questions, this is the first book-length study of women and Irish politics in the late eighteenth century.

Revising a stubborn tendency to present women's political engagements in this period as largely mediated through men, it stresses instead women's concerns, initiatives, and networks. It reconstructs the distinctively gendered political cultures of Ireland's principal communities–the dynastic politics of the Protestant elite; the dynamic oppositional culture of Belfast Presbyterianism; the urban and agrarian radicalism of unpropertied Catholics–and asks how these shaped the meanings of the 1790s for women. In looking beyond the homosocial spaces of the club, pub, lodge, and corps, it reveals a complexly gendered public sphere in which women were often active participants. As the subjects of United Irish addresses, religious sermons, state surveillance, and post-rebellion commemoration, women emerge as a clear, if overlooked, constituency in Ireland's age of revolution. And it suggests how our understanding of revolution might change when viewed from the perspective of women.

--Marshal Zeringue

"No Rest for the Wicked"

New from Minotaur Books: No Rest for the Wicked: A Novel by Rachel Louise Adams.

About the book, from the publisher:

With an expert hand, Rachel Louise Adams’s debut No Rest for the Wicked reads like an edge of your seat, heart-pounding scary movie.

In one Halloween obsessed Midwestern town, everyone’s on red alert after a local politician goes missing. Little do they know it’s only the beginning.

It’s been close to twenty years since forensic pathologist Dolores Hawthorne left her hometown of Little Horton, Wisconsin. The town is famous for its Halloween celebrations, but also its history of violent deaths linked to the holiday. To Dolores, it’s the place she fled, family, bad memories, and all. Until the FBI calls to tell her that her father--the former mayor turned US Senator--is missing under mysterious circumstances.

Some people count to ten to wake up from a nightmare. Dolores always counts the bones of her head instead: sphenoid, frontal, lacrimal. But no matter how many times she counts them, it doesn’t change the fact that her father is missing, that his final words of warning to her were to trust no one, and that now, the rest of her family is giving Dolores a chilling welcome. With Halloween fast approaching, Dolores must face the past she left behind before it’s too late.

Follow Rachel Louise Adams on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stadium City"

Coming September 23 from the University of Illinois Press: Stadium City: Sports and Media Infrastructure in the United States by Helen Morgan Parmett.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new sports stadium has an outsized impact on a city’s landscape and image of itself. Each stadium also plays a central role in media institutions, technologies, and culture as a catalyst for urban change and flashy neighborhood anchor, cornerstone of regional identity and purveyor of multimedia experiences. Helen Morgan Parmett analyzes sports stadiums in Atlanta, Seattle, and Minneapolis to demonstrate the role that media institutions, technologies, and culture play in sports and examine their impact on the urban landscape. These interconnected factors impact struggles over city space, identity, and urban governing. As Morgan Parmett shows, stadiums exist as more than just buildings and sporting places—they are central nodes in the city that connect, disconnect, and distribute resources, people, information, and, ultimately, power. Morgan Parmett demonstrates how the “sportification” of place is influenced by the specific histories, geography, and sporting cultures of a city while explaining their relationship to broader forces at work in media, sport, and urbanism. Original and incisive, Stadium City offers a beyond-the-playing-field analysis of sports stadiums and their impact on our cities and our lives.

--Marshal Zeringue