"Final Strike"

New from 47North: Final Strike (The Dresden Codex, book 3) by Jeff Wheeler.

About the book, from the publisher:

Time is running out as an apocalyptic prophecy comes to bear in a breathtaking thriller by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jeff Wheeler.

As a plague of the gods spreads throughout the world, two men face the end times on opposing sides of good and evil.

It began as a death-defying ritual in the Yucatán. Jonathon Roth and his family were pawns in an inconceivable endgame. Jacob Calakmul was its depraved and mystifying mastermind destined to fulfill an ancient prophecy, destroy the government, and bring about his personal Armageddon. Exposing the unbelievable truth to the authorities has made Roth’s life a nightmare.

Roth is under FBI protection in DC. His sons may be safe, but his wife has disappeared, and his daughter, Suki―a girl gifted with a special magic―is now Calakmul’s captive. She and her father are the keys to making Calakmul’s plot a horrifying reality. It’s already in motion. A deadly plague released in Cozumel and rooted in ancient mythology will wipe out cities across the globe so fast it’s impossible to imagine the near future. But Calakmul can. His prophesized end of days is here. And only Roth and Suki can stop it.

To save their family, and all of humanity, what will Roth and his daughter risk? And what must they sacrifice in a final match with the ascending ruler of a terrifying new world order?

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 (June 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sailing Alone"

New from Viking: Sailing Alone: A Surprising History of Isolation and Survival at Sea by Richard J. King.

About the book, from the publisher:

A story as vast and exhilarating as the open ocean itself, SAILING ALONE chronicles the daring, disastrous, and often absurd history of those who chose to sail across the ocean, in very small boats, alone.

Sailing by yourself, out of sight of land, can be invigorating and terrifying, compelling and tedious - and sometimes all of the above in one morning. But it is also a wide expanse of time in which to think. Sailing Alone tells the story of some of the remarkable people who, over the last four centuries, have spent weeks and months, moving slowly over the world's largest laboratory: a capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars, and countless sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening.

Richard J. King profiles characters famous, diverse, international, and obscure, from Joshua Slocum of 1898 to modern teenagers daring to take the challenge. They see strange hallucinations, lie to us (and themselves) on their travel logs, encounter sharks, befriend birds, and experience ESP, all part of the unnerving reality of extended isolation. And some disappear altogether. Sailing Alone also recounts the author's own nearly catastrophic solo crossing of the Atlantic, and the mystery of his inexplicable survival one sunny afternoon.

An enormously engaging new book for skippers and armchair voyagers alike.

Visit Richard J. King's website.

The Page 99 Test: Ahab's Rolling Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Swiped"

New from Gallery/Scout Press: Swiped: A Novel by L.M. Chilton.

About the book, from the publisher:

A clever and darkly hilarious thriller/romantic comedy about a young woman who must unmask a serial killer that everything thinks is her, all before her best friend’s wedding

Gwen Turner has made a bloody mess of her life. She recently broke up with the best man she’s ever known for reasons even she can’t admit to herself and quit a lucrative job to open her own coffee shop. To top it all off, her best friend is getting married and leaving her behind in singlehood.

Along with too much cheap wine and bad reality TV, Gwen turns to a dating app to help fill the void in her life. Swiping through the few eligible bachelors left in town, she spends her evenings out on one disastrous date after another. But when a string of murders suddenly occurs in her small coastal English city, she’s shocked by the connection between each of the victims—they’ve all been on a date with her.

Before she knows what’s happening, Gwen finds herself the main suspect in a serial killer’s murderous spree, and the only way she can clear her name is to track down her former dates (even those that have ghosted her) and unmask a killer before it’s too late.

Visit L.M. Chilton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Damascus Events"

New from Basic Books: The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Eugene Rogan.

About the book, from the publisher:

An award-winning scholar’s account of an ancient city’s descent into unprecedented communal violence—an event that would mark the end of the old Ottoman order and the beginning of the modern Middle East

On July 9, 1860, a violent mob swept through the Christian quarters of Damascus. For eight days, violence raged, leaving five thousand Christians dead, thousands of shops looted, and churches, houses, and monasteries razed. The sudden and ferocious outbreak shocked the world, leaving Syrian Christians vulnerable and fearing renewed violence.

Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, eminent Middle East historian Eugene Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community. These efforts to rebuild Damascus proved successful, preserving peace for the next 150 years until 2011.

The Damascus Events offers a vivid history, one that masterfully uncovers the outbreak of violence that unmade a great city and examines the possibility, even after searing conflict and unimaginable tragedy, of repair.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I Wish You Would"

New from Henry Holt and Co. (BYR): I Wish You Would by Eva Des Lauriers.

About the book, from the publisher:

To All the Boys I've Loved Before meets You’ve Reached Sam―with all the feels of a Taylor Swift song―in this love story in which explosive secrets threaten to tear everyone apart, including best friends (or maybe more?), Natalia and Ethan.

It’s Senior Sunrise, the epic overnight at the beach that kicks off senior year. But for Natalia and Ethan, it’s the first time seeing each other after what happened at junior prom―when they almost crossed the line from best friends to something more and ruined everything. After ghosting each other all summer, Natalia is desperate to pretend she doesn’t care and Ethan is desperate to fix his mistake.

When the senior class carries out their tradition of writing private letters to themselves―what they wish they would do this year if they were braver―Natalia pours her heart out. So does Ethan. So does everyone in their entire class. But in Natalia’s panicked attempt to retrieve her heartfelt confession, the wind scatters seven of the notes across the beach. Now, Ethan and Natalia are forced to work together to find the lost letters before any secrets are revealed―especially their own.

Seven private confessions. Seven time bombs loose for anyone to find. And one last chance before the sun rises for these two to fall in love.

Visit Eva Des Lauriers's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Odd Affinities"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Odd Affinities: Virginia Woolf’s Shadow Genealogies by Elizabeth Abel.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new reading of Virginia Woolf in the context of “long modernism.”

In recent decades, Virginia Woolf’s contribution to literary history has been located primarily within a female tradition. Elizabeth Abel dislodges Woolf from her iconic place within this tradition to uncover her shadowy presence in other literary genealogies. Abel elicits unexpected echoes of Woolf in four major writers from diverse cultural contexts: Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, and W. G. Sebald. By mapping the wayward paths of what Woolf called “odd affinities” that traverse the boundaries of gender, race, and nationality, Abel offers a new account of the arc of Woolf’s career and the transnational modernist genealogy constituted by her elusive and shifting presence. Odd Affinities will appeal to students and scholars working in New Modernist studies, comparative literature, gender and sexuality studies, and African American studies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lost Ark Dreaming"

New from Tordotcom: Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa.

About the book, from the publisher:

The brutally engineered class divisions of Snowpiercer meets Rivers Solomon’s The Deep in this high-octane post-climate disaster novella written by Nommo Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region’s survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers’ most affluent rule from their lofty perch at the top while the rest are crammed into the dark, fetid floors below sea level.

There are also those who were left for dead in the Atlantic, only to be reawakened by an ancient power, and who seek vengeance on those who offered them up to the waves.

Three lives within the towers are pulled to the fore of this conflict: Yekini, an earnest, mid-level rookie analyst; Tuoyo, an undersea mechanic mourning a tremendous loss; and Ngozi, an egotistical bureaucrat from the highest levels of governance. They will need to work together if there is to be any hope of a future that is worth living—for everyone.

Visit Suyi Davies Okungbowa's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Paradise of the Damned"

New from Little, Brown and Company: Paradise of the Damned: The True Story of an Obsessive Quest for El Dorado, the Legendary City of Gold by Keith Thomson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A “rollicking,” “vividly re-created,” and “enticing romp” that tells the true story of an obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue and a competition with Spanish conquistadors for the legendary city’s treasure, all in a “breezy narration that makes the historical subject matter sizzle” (Publishers Weekly)

As early as 1530, reports of El Dorado, a city of gold in the South American interior, beckoned to European explorers. Whether there was any truth to the stories remained to be seen, but the allure of unimaginable riches was enough to ensnare dozens of would-be heroes and glory hounds in the desperate hunt. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh: ambitious courtier, confidant to Queen Elizabeth, and, before long, El Dorado fanatic.

Entering the Elizabethan court as an upstart from a family whose days of nobility were far behind them, Raleigh used his military acumen, good looks, and sheer audacity to scramble into the limelight. Yet that same swagger proved to be his undoing, as his secret marriage to a lady-in-waiting enraged Queen Elizabeth and landed him in the Tower of London. Between his ensuing grim prospects at court and his underlying lust for adventure, the legend of El Dorado became an unwavering siren song that hypnotized Raleigh.

On securing his release, he journeyed across an ocean to find the fabled city, gambling his painstakingly acquired wealth, hard-won domestic bliss, and his very life. What awaited him in the so-called New World were endless miles of hot, dense jungle packed with deadly flora and fauna, warring Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous civilizations, and other unforeseen dangers. Meanwhile, back at home, his multitude of rivals plotted his demise.

Paradise of the Damned, like Keith Thomson’s critically acclaimed Born to Be Hanged, brings this story to life in lush and captivating detail. The book charts Raleigh’s obsessive search for El Dorado—as well as the many doomed expeditions that preceded and accompanied his—providing not only an invaluable history but also a gripping narrative of traveling to the ends of the earth only to realize, too late, that what lies at home is the greatest treasure of all.

Learn more about the book and author at Keith Thomson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Once A Spy.

The Page 69 Test: 7 Grams of Lead.

The Page 99 Test: Born to Be Hanged.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Truth Truth Lie"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Truth Truth Lie by Claire McGowan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone here has killed someone.

There is no way off this island.

You will all either kill or be killed here.

One of these statements is a lie. But which one?

Amira’s less than thrilled to be spending the weekend with her husband’s university friends. Two of them are hosting a joint fortieth on a private Scottish island, with vintage champagne, expensive gifts, and soaks in the wood-fired hot tub. Despite the luxury, Amira knows she’s going to feel left out, not to mention freezing cold and cut off.

When they decide to play ‘two truths and a lie’, anonymously posting three statements about themselves into a box, years of resentment start bubbling to the surface. And then an extra slip of paper emerges, scrawled with three chilling threats. Who wrote it? And are two of the statements really true―have they all been responsible for someone’s death?

With no phone reception and no way off the island, the group are trapped here until the end of the weekend. And as tension rises and secrets are spilled, they can’t shake the feeling that they’re not the only ones here. Is someone watching them? Someone who wants them dead? Or is it one of them who has murder in mind?

Visit Claire McGowan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"May Contain Lies"

New from the University of California Press: May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about It by Alex Edmans.

About the book, from the publisher:

How our biases cause us to fall for misinformation—and how to combat it.

Our lives are minefields of misinformation. It ripples through our social media feeds, our daily headlines, and the pronouncements of politicians, executives, and authors. Stories, statistics, and studies are everywhere, allowing people to find evidence to support whatever position they want. Many of these sources are flawed, yet by playing on our emotions and preying on our biases, they can gain widespread acceptance, warp our views, and distort our decisions.

In this eye-opening book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples—from a wellness guru’s tragic but fabricated backstory to the blunders that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the diet that ensnared millions yet hastened its founder’s death—Edmans highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.

Armed with the knowledge of what to guard against, he then provides a practical guide to combat this tide of misinformation. Going beyond simply checking the facts and explaining individual statistics, Edmans explores the relationships between statistics—the science of cause and effect—ultimately training us to think smarter, sharper, and more critically. May Contain Lies is an essential read for anyone who wants to make better sense of the world and better decisions.

Visit Alex Edmans's website.

--Marshal Zeringue