"The Blaxploitation Horror Film"

Coming soon from the University of Wales Press: The Blaxploitation Horror Film: Adaptation, Appropriation and the Gothic by Jamil Mustafa.

About the book, from the publisher:

A comparative analysis of how mainstream and Blaxploitation horror films interpret and adapt classic Gothic tales.

This book is the first to put Blaxploitation horror films such as Blacula in conversation with both mainstream horror movies and classic Gothic stories. Jamil Mustafa argues that mainstream horror films adapt while Blaxploitation horror films appropriate the vampire, the Frankenstein monster, the evil spirit, the zombie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the werewolf for their unique audiences and purposes. Ultimately, he reveals how Blaxploitation horror films reinvent the archetypes of Gothic fiction and film, not to exploit but to satisfy Black audiences.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Still Burns"

Coming August 15 from Thomas & Mercer: What Still Burns by Elle Grawl.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of One of Those Faces comes the haunting story of a young woman’s return home to face her tragic past, the fire that killed her family, and what remains in the ashes.

Alexis “Lex” Blake swore she would never return to the town where she’d lost her home and her family in a devastating fire that only she survived and can barely remember. But when her aunt dies, leaving behind a mountain of debt, Lex has no choice but to head back to Northern California to settle her family’s estate.

The small town is much the same way Lex left it: tight knit, staunchly religious, and wary of the Blakes, as evidenced by her run-ins with the sheriff, the preacher, and the nosy locals. The one saving grace is her old flame, but even Kael McPheron isn’t enough to distract Lex from the bitterness of her past.

Preparing her family’s property for sale forces Lex to contend with strange occurrences and mysterious phone calls that begin to unlock buried childhood memories. And when a body turns up―and then another one―Lex realizes that the mystery of that night is deeper than she ever imagined, and the threat that already destroyed her life once still burns.

Visit Elle Grawl's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Elle Grawl & Olive and Truffle.

My Book, The Movie: One of Those Faces.

The Page 69 Test: One of Those Faces.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bishops and Bodies"

New from Rutgers University Press: Bishops and Bodies: Reproductive Care in American Catholic Hospitals by Lori Freedman.

About the book, from the publisher:

One out of every six patients in the United States is treated in a Catholic hospital that follows the policies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These policies prohibit abortion, sterilization, contraception, some treatments for miscarriage and gender confirmation, and other reproductive care, undermining hard-won patients’ rights to bodily autonomy and informed decision-making. Drawing on rich interviews with patients and providers, this book reveals both how the bishops’ directives operate and how people inside Catholic hospitals navigate the resulting restrictions on medical practice. In doing so, Bishops and Bodies fleshes out a vivid picture of how The Church’s stance on sex, reproduction, and “life” itself manifests in institutions that affect us all.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Traitors Gate"

Coming September 26 from HarperCollins: Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer.

About the book, from the publisher:

24 hours to stop the crime of the century

The race against time is about to begin…

THE TOWER OF LONDON…
Impenetrable. Well protected. Secure. Home to the most valuable jewels on earth. But once a year, when the Queen attends the State Opening of Parliament, the Metropolitan Police must execute the most secret operation in their armory as they transport the Crown Jewels across London.

SCOTLAND YARD…
For decades, the elite squad at Scotland Yard have been in charge of the operation. And for decades, it’s run like clockwork.

THE HEIST…
But this year, everything is about to change. Because a master criminal has set his sights on pulling off the most outrageous theft in history—and with a man on the inside, the odds are in his favor.

Unless the team can stop him before it’s too late…

Visit Jeffrey Archer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Righting the American Dream"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision by Diane Winston.

About the book, from the publisher:

A provocative new history of how the news media facilitated the Reagan Revolution and the rise of the religious Right.

After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project and cast his vision for limited government and market economics as the natural outworking of religious conviction. The news media broadcast this message with enthusiasm, and white evangelicals rallied to the president’s cause. With their support, Reagan won reelection and continued to dismantle the welfare state, unraveling a political consensus that stood for half a century.

In Righting the American Dream, Diane Winston reveals how support for Reagan emerged from a new religious vision of American identity circulating in the popular press. Through four key events—the “evil empire” speech, AIDS outbreak, invasion of Grenada, and rise in American poverty rates—Winston shows that many journalists uncritically adopted Reagan’s religious rhetoric and ultimately mainstreamed otherwise unpopular evangelical ideas about individual responsibility. The result is a provocative new account of how Reagan together with the press turned America to the right and initiated a social revolution that continues today.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Western Alliances"

New from St. Martin's Press: Western Alliances: A Novel by Wilton Barnhardt.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt’s Western Alliances is a vivid portrait of a wealthy family set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis. This laugh-out-loud, darkly funny novel follows the Costa family—whose members are every bit as richly absurd as the characters in HBO’s Succession.

Salvador, the patriarch, runs one of Wall Street’s biggest banks the summer before everything collapses; Roberto and Rachel, his two children, have never worked a day in their lives; and Lena, his ex-wife, is a scheming hypochondriac. Part travelogue, part epic family drama, the novel follows Roberto and Rachel across Europe as the two dilettantes come to terms with their father’s choices and the repercussions of his actions.

Oozing with his signature satire and biting wit, Barnhardt invites readers on a literary romp from an elegant Paris apartment to a hilariously-inept London hotel, ancient churches and crypts to gleaming Mediterranean coasts, hot dog stands in Providence, RI to the best places in Manhattan, and terrifying encounters in the Serbian countryside to dangerous liaisons in Moscow, as two grown-up rich kids are forced to come of age at last. In Western Alliances Barnhardt he delivers an un-put-down-able saga examining privilege, loyalty, ambition, and what family members owe to one another.

Learn more about the book and author at Wilton Barnhardt's website.

Writers Read: Wilton Barnhardt (August 2013).

The Page 69 Test: Lookaway, Lookaway.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Empires of the Steppes"

New from Hanover Square Press: Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization by Kenneth W. Harl.

About the book, from the publisher:

A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization.

The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples—the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths—all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world.

In this new, comprehensive history, Professor Kenneth W. Harl vividly re-creates the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age. Their brutal struggle to survive on the steppes bred a resilient, pragmatic people ever ready to learn from their more advanced neighbors. In warfare, they dominated the battlefield for over fifteen hundred years. Under charismatic rulers, they could topple empires and win their own.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Small Town Sins"

New from Henry Holt and Co.: Small Town Sins: A Novel by Ken Jaworowski.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ken Jaworowski’s Small Town Sins is a gripping Rust Belt thriller that captures the characters of a down-and-out Pennsylvania town, revealing their troubled pasts and the crimes that could cost them their lives.

In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived.

After years of just scraping by, three restless souls have their lives upended: Nathan, a volunteer fireman who uncovers a secret stash of money in a burning building and takes it; Callie, a nurse whose tender patient may not have long to live, despite the girl’s fundamentalist parents’ ardent beliefs; and Andy, a recovering heroin addict who undertakes a nightmare mission to hunt down and stop a serial predator.

Before long, Nathan’s stolen riches threaten to destroy everyone around him as he tries to cover his haphazard trail of lies. Callie risks her career to grant her young patient a final, and likely illegal, wish. And Andy’s hunger for vigilante justice becomes a fierce obsession that may end in violence.

As their stories barrel toward unexpected ends, Nathan, Callie, and Andy struggle to endure—or escape. They each face their pasts and gamble on their futures, and confront the underside of their rough Rust Belt town. Riveting, evocative, and unforgettable, Small Town Sins is a debut novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

Visit Ken Jaworowski's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mammography Wars"

New from Rutgers University Press: Mammography Wars: Analyzing Attention in Cultural and Medical Disputes by Asia Friedman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mammography is a routine health screening performed forty million times each year in the United States, yet it remains one of the most deeply contested topics in medicine, with national health care organizations supporting conflicting guidelines. In Mammography Wars, sociologist Asia Friedman examines cultural and medical disagreements over mammography. At issue is whether to screen women under age fifty, which is rooted in deeper questions about early detection and the assumed linear and progressive development of breast cancer. Based on interviews with doctors and scientists, interviews with women ages 40 to 50, and newspaper coverage of mammography, Friedman uses the sociology of attention to map the cognitive structure of the “mammography wars,” offering insights into the entrenched nature of debates over mammography that often get missed when applying a medical lens. Friedman’s analysis also suggests the sociology of attention’s unique potential for analyzing cultural conflicts beyond mammography, and even beyond medicine.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Her Father’s Daughter"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Her Father's Daughter: A Novel by T. M. Dunn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Skillfully weaving together domestic suspense, a desperate police investigation, a love affair, and a serial killer on the loose, acclaimed author T. M. Dunn’s Her Father’s Daughter makes for a raw, edgy, and hard-hitting hero’s journey into a family’s twisted secrets, perfect for fans of Oyinkan Braithwaite and Karen Dionne.

Twenty-five-year-old Linda Donovan has spent her life working for her father, Anthony, at Donovan and Daughter Exterminators in New York City. On the anniversary of her mother’s death, her father makes his annual visit to his late wife’s grave while Linda heads to a Park Avenue apartment building to work solo.

When she arrives, she finds the body of an elderly resident, partially eaten by rats. The gruesome death not only speaks poorly of the Donovans’ exterminating services—it also points to foul play. When the cops show up, they demand to speak to Linda’s father. But despite her efforts to contact him, Anthony has gone off the radar.

As he evades a possible murder charge, Linda’s father records in five notebooks—and five damning acts—the story of how he met and fell in love with her mother, a previously untold history of familial abuse, tormented souls, and true love gone terribly wrong.

Visit T.M. Dunn's website.

--Marshal Zeringue