"Lords of Serendipity"

New from Mariner Books: Lords of Serendipity: A Novel – A Moving Campus Satire of Strivers, Gatekeepers, and University Dreams by Randy Boyagoda.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An epic campus novel about the hopes and hypocrisies of 21st-century higher education, from one of Canada’s most celebrated literary novelists.

Devi is a Sri Lankan village girl who dreams of going to Harvard. Katrina is a middle-class American girl whose life has been designed to get her into an elite liberal arts college. Devi’s father cleans toilets in a five-star hotel to pay for his daughter’s Indian tutor, who might not be the Oxford student he claims to be on WhatsApp. Katrina’s father teaches extra courses at a mediocre technical university to pay for his daughter’s academic lifestyle experiences. Meanwhile, his tech-bro TA expertly extorts money from international students worried about flunking and getting deported.

Set between contemporary Sri Lanka and the United States, Lords of Serendipity is a wry, moving, and sharply observed story about how rich and poor alike try to get ahead by going to university. It’s about dreams and ambition meeting corruption and hypocrisy. It’s about what parents are willing to do for their children, and about what strivers and hustlers are willing to do when they meet gatekeepers.

This is the 21st-century global campus novel, a story about two teenage girls from opposite sides of the world with the same dream: four years in a quadrangle-shaped paradise that offers lots of super amazing courses and super amazing protests. The novel couldn’t be more timely in this absurd and perilous-feeling moment for both American life and higher education.

Visit Randy Boyagoda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Governor of the Northern Province.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Agrippina the Younger"

New from Oxford University Press: Agrippina the Younger: A Dangerous Woman in Rome's Early Empire by Mary T. Boatwright.

About the book, from the publisher:

Firmly based on ancient literature and material evidence, this illustrated biography assesses the life of Agrippina the Younger (15–59 CE). Agrippina was declared "unique" by Tacitus, ancient Rome's most insightful political historian, both for her own political standing and as the daughter of a triumphing general and the sister, wife, and mother of emperors--respectively, Caligula (r. 37–41), Claudius (r. 41–54), and Nero (r. 54–68). Tacitus and other ancient historians depict her with horrified fascination as they vividly chart her growing presence through tumultuous vicissitudes, ending with her murder by her son Nero in 59.

Documentary evidence corroborates Agrippina as extraordinary. Among other "firsts," she is the first woman to be portrayed and identified on coins while alive; the first woman whose name is given to a veteran colony; and she appeared in more numerous statuary installations than known for earlier women. Agrippina's life sheds light on Rome's evolution into a monarchy dominated by her family; it also illuminates the endurance of Rome's ancestral patriarchy, showing the tight limits of power even for imperial women. Assessment of her reception up to the twentieth century highlights the importance of Tacitus for our understanding of this remarkable political creature. Neither damning nor glorifying Agrippina, this biography sensitively relies on ancient evidence to tell her story.

The Page 99 Test: Imperial Women of Rome.

--Marshal Zeringue

"No Higher Ground"

New from Blackstone: No Higher Ground by Nicole Brooks.

About the book, from the pubisher:

Perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Will Dean, No Higher Ground is a high-stakes, race-against-time thriller of one family trapped during a flood of epic proportions.

In the midst of a terrifying, once-in-a-lifetime flood, Raven, her two children, and their Chihuahua are trapped on the rooftop of her childhood home along with her stepmother, Joan. Surrounded by a raging torrent, Raven fights to stay calm as her thoughts turn to her sister, Ivy, who died tragically when they were children in the now-flooded basement below.

As the water rises at an alarming rate, rescue becomes dangerous and nearly impossible. With her daughter’s asthma worsening, her newly defiant teenager challenging everything, and her stepmother behaving strangely, Raven’s control slips, and tensions in the family reach a boiling point. When shocking memories from her childhood unexpectedly return, fracturing the past, it becomes evident that no one on the rooftop will be the same after the storm.

If they make it out alive …

Set over six relentlessly tense hours, No Higher Ground is a powerful exploration of grief, guilt, and trauma—and a chilling reminder of our helplessness in the face of nature’s mercilessness.

Visit Nicole Brooks's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Need/Emergency"

New from Stanford University Press: Need/Emergency: Political Theater in Exigent Times by Benjamin Lewis Robinson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Modern politics is preoccupied with states of emergency. Yet emergency politics obscures underlying socioeconomic, infrastructural, and ecological conditions of need. Prompted by Hannah Arendt's claim that theater is "the political art par excellence," Benjamin Lewis Robinson treats this political perplexity as a theatrical problem. In the company of political thinkers including Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, Karl Marx and the Frankfurt School, Rosa Luxemburg and Martin Heidegger, Robinson revisits the entwined histories of politics and theater, analyzing plays that stage the political scene as an always asymmetrical coupling of need and emergency.

In Arendt's view, the defining tendency in modern politics is for need to emerge where it has no right to appear, posing a threat to politics as such. In contrast, the works of theater addressed in Need/Emergency concern moments when, whether it ought to or not, need does appear―demanding justice. Writing in exigent times, Elfriede Jelinek, Heinrich von Kleist, Georg Büchner, Bertolt Brecht, and Friedrich Hölderlin produced formally innovative political theater. Not reducible to the drama of emergency, these plays bring into focus the very need for politics. Moving fluently between theory and theater, Robinson offers a critical study of biopolitics and emergency politics in times of poverty, plague, infrastructural predation, and forced displacement, from the French Revolution to the climate crisis.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Black Orchid"

Coming September 1 from Montlake: The Black Orchid: A Novel by Loreth Anne White.

About the book, from the publisher:

A propulsive true crime–inspired thriller of masks, murder, and long-awaited justice by Washington Post bestselling author Loreth Anne White.

By invitation only, nine elite guests board the luxurious Black Orchid for its maiden voyage through the mythic Aegean Sea. Not all of them will survive.

Poppy Buchanan, personal assistant to legendary war photographer Lillith McGregor, sees the cruise as her chance at a better life―if she can edge her way into Lillith’s will. But their exclusive company includes Lillith’s disinherited stepson and his ruthlessly ambitious fiancée, a silent Israeli businessman with a dangerous past, a charming Dutch antiquities dealer with an agenda of his own, and a retired FBI profiler hunting a serial killer he believes is aboard. Each passenger is a piece in a deadly puzzle decades in the making.

Within three days, their paths will collide during a catastrophic storm. Long-buried secrets surface. Masks fall away. And the ensuing revelations trigger a chain of events that leads to one of the most devastating maritime disasters in recent history. But the sinking of the Black Orchid is no accident―it’s a reckoning.

Visit Loreth Anne White's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Swimmer.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Profiling"

New from Stanford University Press: Profiling: How Predictive Algorithms Shape Identity and the Social Fabric by Philippe Huneman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this book, philosopher Philippe Huneman aims to offer an unprecedented and systematic understanding of a simultaneously banal and singular phenomenon of modern life: the digital profile. Diving deeply into the algorithms that produce these profiles, Huneman examines the way in which an individual becomes a predictable subject, both as unwilling producer of their digital profile and unwitting subject of digital marketing's attempts to influence beliefs and behaviors.

As the book demonstrates, today's society of profiling has profound implications for our understanding of self and politics. The book unfolds across three sections. In the first, Huneman explains profiles and profiling as they operate today and describes their contemporary pervasiveness, using examples from a variety of fields and considering the wide range of types of data that can be digitalized―be they traces, search histories, metadata or the like. In the second section, on profiles, Huneman reflects on who is the subject of profiling societies and what kind of consequences profiling has on individuals―from behavior to memory. And, finally, entering into metaphysical questioning, the book shines a spotlight on the feedback loop that develops between algorithmic profiling and reality.

Visit Philippe Huneman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ravenous"

New from Roseway: Ravenous: A Novel by Sara Cooper.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Breigh is a hot elder millennial who is obsessed with the brands she is ambassading for. Her policy is YES, and her livestreams are viral. But she’s pregnant now, and her body’s changing. It's not that she's hungry. She's definitely not depressed. She just sometimes eats boxes of makeup before passing out.

Daddy’s bought a brand-new home for Breigh and Baby, complete with a Greenguard Gold-certified, twice-imported velvet infant chaise — but is he cheating on her with a hotter, younger coworker? Breigh has to get Baby out before it ruins her. She has to create more and better content than the other Momfluencers. She has to unbox something new. She has to unbox … Baby! Baby approves of her seven-step marketing plan. Welcome to #LiveBirth.

Breigh’s increasingly unhinged life reflects her generation’s anxieties around psychological manipulation through social media platforms. Multi-award-winning author Sara Cooper presents a wild debut novel in this incisive satire of consumerism, performative femininity, and social media.

Visit Sara Cooper's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Is There Always Value to Adversity?"

New from Oxford University Press: Is There Always Value to Adversity?: Looking Beyond "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" by Eranda Jayawickreme.

About the book, from the publisher:

Clear and compelling, Is There Always Value to Adversity? presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the age-old idea that adversity can lead to personal growth.

Can adversity have an upside? Is there a purpose to suffering? Can difficult experiences involving trauma and hardship make us stronger? These age-old questions, both intuitively compelling yet scientifically problematic, have fascinated philosophers and researchers for centuries.

In Is There Always Value to Adversity?, Eranda Jayawickreme examines whether post-traumatic growth--the positive changes people report after adversity--reflects real transformation or is simply a coping mechanism. As Jayawickreme explains, the idea that struggle, trauma, and adversity can be a catalyst for positive outcomes has a long intellectual history. He outlines the history of this thinking, tracking its development in different cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions. He then discusses its recent emergence as a popular topic and evaluates the current research, highlighting guidelines for how we should think about this phenomenon.

Throughout the course of the book, Jayawickreme interrogates the quality of the research on post-traumatic growth. In the current age of worries about replication and the credibility revolution in science, can we trust this research at all? Is it possible to do good science on a topic with such intuitive appeal? Ultimately, Jayawickreme asks: is growth through suffering real, or just a comforting story we tell ourselves?

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Killing Yards"

Coming September 22 from Crooked Lane Books: The Killing Yards: A Novel by Jason Allison.

About the book, from the publisher:

This gritty crime novel set in 1990s New York City will appeal to fans of Dennis Lehane.

New York, 1993. Jimmy Lettner, a convicted drug-trafficker who once lost a daughter in a narco-fueled car wreck, runs Manhattan’s hottest nightspot, Abattoir. Reformed by his time in prison, all he wants is to run a clean club. But that’s not possible in a city rife with corruption.

Jimmy doesn’t know it, but his right-hand man, Serge Thanakis, is operating an ecstasy ring that’s drawing the wrong kind of attention. Jealous industry rivals will do anything to shut Abattoir down, and the new mayor presses the NYPD to clean up the city’s darkest corners. As Jimmy’s troubles mount, temptations from his past call to him.

Meanwhile, Ben Hopkins, a straight-edge rookie cop on the hunt for a fast-track ticket to detective, turns his attention to Abattoir. He has something to prove—to his father and to himself. But he’s not prepared for undercover work. The club scene devours Ben, along with his ability to tell right from wrong.

As the war for Abattoir escalates, bodies drop, drawing more heat from city officials. The competition threatens Jimmy’s only surviving daughter, a revelation about his past threatens his future, and he questions how long his reign as NYC’s nightclub king can last. But through it all, the dance floor stays packed—and Jimmy will do anything to keep his crown.

Visit Jason Allison's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When America Roared"

Coming soon from Viking: When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--and Led Us to Today by Jonathan Kaufman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The panoramic story of the 1980s, exploring the triumphs and failures of the decade that shaped the 21st century more than any other, from a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who witnessed the transformations firsthand

In January 1980, America seemed broken. Inflation raged. Interest rates topped 20 percent. Americans were held hostage in Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with impunity. Japan was eating American manufacturing alive. Three networks controlled what Americans watched. China had been closed for 30 years.

Ten years later, everything had changed. The economy was booming. The Soviet Empire was collapsing. American businesses were competitive again.

In this immersive, character-driven narrative, Jonathan Kaufman lays bare the contending ideologies—and people—who battled for control of business, media and politics in the 1980s, shaping the way we live today. As Ronald Reagan and conservatives pummeled the Democratic party, as Jack Welch redefined leadership at Fortune 500 companies, and as deregulation spearheaded by Mark Fowler allowed television to become the hundreds of specialized and partisan channels we watch now, the groundwork was laid for our current economic and political conflicts. The decade also launched transformative social and political movements. Karen Nussbaum and Jane Fonda galvanized a struggling women’s movement, Evan Wolfson spearheaded the gay community’s legal fight against a hostile government, and Barack Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer in Chicago—all building long-lasting movements whose success progressives can learn from today.

From pivotal moments in board rooms and court rooms, to cultural touchstones like the birth of hip hop and of conservative talk radio, as well as the author’s eyewitness experiences in Tiananmen Square and Prague, When America Roared is the riveting story of how the 1980s built the world we live in, for better and for worse. It is the decade that made us—and the key to understanding where we go from here.

Visit Jonathan Kaufman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Roommate Subtext"

New from Severn House: The Roommate Subtext by Elia Winters.

About the novel, from the publisher:

RITA Award-winning author Elia Winters is back: The Roommate Subtextis a seriously spicy roommates-to-lovers romance with a unique, kinky twist!

Scarlet Pimpernel: Are you propositioning me?
Curious Rose: What if I am?

Freelance journalist Maggie St. Claire likes her hot, nerdy roommate Blake and his absurd collection of houseplants. But when she's hired to write an exposé about an enigmatic online kinkster known as The Scarlet Pimpernel, she can't exactly sit next to wholesome Blake while researching her current topic!

Botanist Blake Peabody isn’t the type of guy people expect to be kinky. His double life writing erotica online allows him to satisfy his Dom impulses while protecting his public image. Until the mysterious 'Rose' texts him to explore some new desires. As their chats grow more intimate, his feelings develop for the Sub, even as he grows closer to Maggie.

By day, they navigate their evolving friendship; by night, their alter-egos come out to play. Will the surprise of who they truly are be a welcome one―or more shocking than their darkest fantasy?

Visit Elia Winters's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Revolutionary Ink"

New from Cambridge University Press: Revolutionary Ink: New York Printers and the Promise of Democracy, 1693–1804 by Mark J. Noonan.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Revolutionary Ink, Mark J. Noonan explores the careers of New York printers whose presses disseminated Enlightenment ideals that fueled the American Revolution and framed the political debates of the early republic. Long overshadowed by the celebrated authors whose works they produced, printers William Bradford, John Peter Zenger, James Parker, Thomas Greenleaf and others helmed presses that provoked civic engagement, cultivated an appreciation for the arts and sciences, and defended press liberty. The book also examines the equally revolutionary work of their wives, who assisted with and sometimes ran their husband's presses. Throughout the narrative, Noonan addresses the discrepancy between revolutionary rhetoric and practice, and argues that to grasp New York's early print history is to confront the paradox of the Anglo-American Enlightenment: its profound advancements alongside the denial of universal human rights.

Visit Mark J. Noonan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Girl in Green"

Coming September 15 from Harper Collins: The Girl in Green by Laura Creedle.

About the book, from the publisher:

A school’s storied legacy cannot stop student's whispers of mysterious disappearances and a legendary monster, in this terrifying new novel that will entrance fans of Madeline Roux and Claire Legrand.

Jess has always been a runner—always looking for an escape, no matter how many detention centers or “special schools” she’s been sent to. So when she receives a scholarship to the illustrious Danvers-Cutteridge in the mountains of West Virginia, her first plan of action is to find the fastest exit.

But Jess soon learns that this new school has secrets hidden beyond the grand staircases and storied past. A student has gone missing, and Jess’s new friends suspect that they haven’t been told the truth about the disappearance.

As Jess helps search for answers (and a way out), she discovers more of Danvers-Cutteridge’s unsettling history. The abuses and mutilations inflicted on past residents. The strange authority in the headmaster’s celebrated family tree. And the fearsome legend that has haunted the valley for decades—a mysterious girl, dressed in green.

Soon, Jess’s search will take her down into the heart of the school, through the closed-off parts of its history left forgotten in the dark. But wa

Visit Laura Creedle's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily.

Writers Read: Laura Creedle (January 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"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