Garrett Curbow's "Whispers of Ink and Starlight," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Whispers of Ink and Starlight: A Novel by Garrett Curbow.

The entry begins:

We have made it to the future and Whispers of Ink and Starlight is being adapted into a film! Yay! In this fictitious reality, I, the author, get total executive control over who will direct this adaptation and which actors will star in it.

Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a coming-of-age, literary romance with a heavy dash of magical realism. It follows Nelle, a young woman written into life, and her relationship with James, a young man from a small town in Georgia, as they juggle the independence of adulthood and Nelle’s magical drawbacks.

For the director, I would hire Greta Gerwig. Coming off the tails of Barbie (2023), Little Women (2019), and the upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, I want her directorial vision more than anyone else’s. Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a dangerous novel to adapt because it travels fluidly between genres. If someone tries to make a romantic drama out of it, or if they ignore the romance in favor of the magic system, they will lose the heart of...[read on]

Visit Garrett Curbow's website.

Q&A with Garrett Curbow.

Writers Read: Garrett Curbow.

The Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

My Book, The Movie: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark Stevens reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mark Stevens, author of Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller.

His entry begins:

The collaborative writing team of Linda Keir (Keir Graff and Linda Joffe Hull) have a new heart-pounding thriller out called I Did Not Kill My Husband. Think of the old television show The Fugitive (or the movie of the same name starring Harrison Ford) but with a female lead and all the modern-day trappings of social media. One big chase, start to finish.

More of a slow burn but with atmosphere in abundance, The Lost House by Melissa Larsen. Set in Iceland...[read on]

About Two Truths and a Lie, from the publisher:

In a taut, haunting follow-up to No Lie Lasts Forever, reporter Flynn Martin gets ensnared in a copycat killer’s game where winning means solving a crime―and losing could cost her everything.

Lambasted for a tragedy caught live on camera, then lauded for her help capturing the elusive PDQ, a serial killer, Flynn Martin’s career has reached new heights. But now, the TV journalist and mother has much further to fall. And someone wants to push her over the edge.

PDQ is behind bars, for life and then some, but someone on the outside has picked up the killer’s mantle. Flynn is neck-deep in an investigation when the copycat emerges, targeting her sources and delivering cryptic messages. It’s clear that Flynn’s stories are getting deadlier. This one proves no exception.

A family of four has gone missing, leaving behind ties to New Hope Church more tangled than they appear. The dangerous web rivals the threat in Flynn’s personal life. And it’s up to her to unravel each knot.

Scandal. Conspiracy. Murder. Flynn hardly knows where to begin―and if her stalker has their way, she might not live to see the end.

Visit Mark Stevens's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Fireballer.

Q&A with Mark Stevens.

My Book, The Movie: The Fireballer.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens (June 2025).

The Page 69 Test: No Lie Lasts Forever.

My Book, The Movie: No Lie Lasts Forever.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that blend hilarity & escapism

Victoria Dillon is a former research scientist, current pediatrician and writer with a passion for exploring the intersections of politics and science. She has a unique ability to blend speculative fiction with thought-provoking social commentary, creating prose that speaks both to the heart and the mind. She currently resides in Middle Tennessee.

Ava is her debut novel.

At CrimeReads Dillon tagged five favorite books that blend hilarity and escapism. One title on the list:

David Sedaris, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

This collection of modern animal fables is sharp, absurd, and quietly devastating in the best way. Sedaris uses talking animals to reveal the worst and most tender parts of human behavior, including jealousy, loneliness, cruelty, and the desperate need to be loved. You find yourself laughing and then realizing you have been gently exposed.

I rarely listen to audiobooks, but I always make an exception for Sedaris. His narration ratchets up the humor and adds another layer to the stories. It feels less like listening to a performance and more like being confided in by someone who is letting you in on a deeply awkward secret.

Read about another entry on the list.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is among Whitney Collins's five top books by comedians.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rivka Weinberg's "The Meaning of It All"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time by Rivka Weinberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question―many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when things are not going well, but you're also likely to still ask this question when you've finally received that promotion, achieved a goal, or raised your children―exactly when it seems like the question shouldn't arise.

In The Meaning of It All, Rivka Weinberg argues this is because there are different kinds of meaning, and some of them, sadly, are impossible to achieve. She explains what they are, illuminates which types of meaning are possible, which are impossible, and shows us how we might orient our lives in light of these bittersweet truths. Although we all die in the end, Weinberg explains why death doesn't make life more or less meaningful. Instead, it is time that is necessary for meaning, even as it also undermines it by wearing away the fruits of our efforts and commitments. Weinberg shows that most advice on how to reduce the agony of time's erosions cannot work. However, she also shows how we can tease out some insights from failed attempts to escape time's wounds and thereby make progress toward coping with things as they are. A meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time, accepting suffering, acknowledging our tragic losses and limitations, and making the most of Everyday Meaning.

Visit Rivka Weinberg's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Meaning of It All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Diana Awad's "As Far as She Knew"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: As Far as She Knew by Diana Awad.

About the book, from the publisher:

“A masterful exploration of marriage, secrets, and identity that will leave you questioning how well you really know those closest to you. Diana Awad crafts a thriller that is both heart-stopping and heartbreaking.” ―Mindy Kaling

A devoted wife and mother unravels her late husband’s secret life in an emotional and suspenseful novel about betrayal, lies, love, and loss.

For twenty-three years, Amira Abadi believed she had a strong, loving marriage. But when her husband, Ali, dies suddenly, that certainty shatters with the discovery of a house she never knew existed. As whispers of betrayal spread through their tight-knit Arab American community, Amira refuses to let others define her husband’s legacy―or her path forward.

Diving into an investigation of Ali’s final days, Amira uncovers decades-old secrets that challenge everything she thought she knew. With her children struggling to process their father’s death, Amira must balance protecting her family with pursuing the truth, even as each revelation brings her closer to danger.

As Amira peels back layers of lies, she discovers that the greatest mystery isn’t what her husband was hiding―it’s how far she’ll go to uncover the truth.

Visit Diana Awad's website.

My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew.

The Page 69 Test: As Far as She Knew.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top fiction titles set in Maine

Elise Juska’s latest novel, Reunion, was named one of People Magazine’s “Best Books to Read in May 2024.” Her previous novels include The Blessings, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and If We Had Known. Juska’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her short fiction has been cited by The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. 

[The Page 69 Test: Reunion; My Book, The Movie: Reunion]

At Tertulia Juska tagged her favorite fiction set in Maine. One title on the list:

Landslide by Susan Conley

When her husband is hospitalized after a fishing accident, Jill Archer is faced with parenting her two teenage sons—“the wolves”—alone on a small, rugged island in Penobscot Bay. The dynamics in the family—the strain of motherhood, marriage, financial instability—are beautifully rendered and, like life in a struggling fishing village, unsentimentally real.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Karen Robards reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Karen Robards, author of The Moonlight Runner: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Thanks to the movie that just came out, what I’m reading, or re-reading, right now is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, one of my very favorite books of all time. I first read it when I was around ten years old. I’d been sent to stay with my grandparents while my parents traveled. Theirs was a big old house in the country and it seems to me in retrospect that it rained the entire time I was there. Which meant I was trapped indoors with little to do except explore the house, so explore I did, all the way up to the cobweb-festooned attic. In the attic I discovered a trunk filled with old books. I was already an avid reader of Nancy Drew and that type of mostly age-appropriate fiction, but what I found in that trunk was a literary revelation. Gone With The Wind, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, The Hobbit – and, among many others, Wuthering Heights. I loved them all (well, maybe not The Grapes Of Wrath, though I grew to appreciate it later), but Wuthering Heights is the story that lodged in my heart and remains there to this day. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” said by Cathy about Heathcliff, was and is the most...[read on]

About The Moonlight Runner, from the publisher:

In the wake of the Great War, a young woman joins the Irish rebellion and risks everything for her country in this sweeping story of love, bravery and the relentless pursuit of freedom from New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards.

Ireland, 1918. In a world brutalized by the Great War and devastated by the Spanish flu, twenty-two-year-old Rynn Carmichael is suddenly pulled into the war of independence when Donal O’Reilly, the boy she has loved for most of her life, takes up gunrunning in support of the rebellion.

Raised in a small Irish village on the shores of Donegal Bay, Rynn is working as a nurse in a convalescent home for soldiers wounded in the Great War when she overhears a British officer gloating over the trap that has been set for Irish gunrunners bringing a boat full of smuggled arms ashore. Knowing that Donal must be involved, she rushes out at midnight to warn the incoming boat, only to find herself caught up in a terrifying and tragic series of events that take her from the glittering ballrooms of London to the narrow back alleys of Dublin as she and those she loves fight for their lives and their country.

Visit Karen Robards's website.

Writers Read: Karen Robards.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five sci-fi books like "Project Hail Mary"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged five sci-fi titles like Project Hail Mary, including:

Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson

For those who love the first contact theme of Project Hail Mary, this tense new sci-fi by Daniel H. Wilson makes for another great read. As with Hail Mary, you’ll find plenty of high-stakes suspense as well as intriguing astronomical mysteries. As the Voyager probe has just passed by Heliopause, a place on the outskirts of the solar system, we meet a father named Jim living in the Osage Territory of Oklahoma, his daughter Tawny, a NASA engineer, a genius analyzing a curious “Pattern,” and a CIA investigator of strange phenomena.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Liberty Hardy's five books for fans of Project Hail Mary.

The Page 69 Test: Hole in the Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jacques Berlinerblau's "Can We Laugh at That?"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Can We Laugh at That?: Comedy in a Conflicted Age by Jacques Berlinerblau.

About the book, from the publisher:

Did you hear the one about the comedian who was canceled?

Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits, or forced off the airwaves. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable.

With a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow in this darkly witty examination of American comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Shane Gillis, and Sarah Silverman as well as humorists in France, Denmark, Zimbabwe, and Egypt.

Visit Jacques Berlinerblau's website.

The Page 99 Test: Can We Laugh at That?.

--Marshal Zeringue

Diana Awad's "As Far as She Knew," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew by Diana Awad.

The entry begins:

I didn’t have any particular actors in mind when I wrote As Far as She Knew but would love to dreamcast my novel. Because representation absolutely matters, I’d want the majority of Arab American characters in the novel to be played by actors of Arab descent. Unfortunately, there are so few Arab Americans working in American TV and film that it would be difficult to come up with a comprehensive list, but I do have some thoughts.

A younger version of the Palestinian-American actor Waleed Zuaiter would be perfect in the role of Ali, husband of the lead character, Amira. Ali dies off page in the first scene but features prominently in flashbacks throughout the novel. Zuaiter, who I last saw in the miniseries The Girlfriend with Robin Wright, could effectively capture Ali’s quiet strength, kindness and empathy. 

For Ayla, Amira and Ali’s college-age daughter, I’d turn to...[read on]

Visit Diana Awad's website.

My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top mysteries featuring mother-daughter sleuth duos

Stacy Hackney lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and four sons. She graduated from Wake Forest University and University of Virginia School of Law—after her legal briefs started bordering on a little too dramatic, she started writing fiction and never stopped. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her out on the water, watching romantic comedies, online shopping for beautiful shoes, or making an enormous mess in the kitchen.

Hackney has published two children’s books, Forever Glimmer Creek and The Sisters of Luna Island. The Primrose Murder Society is her first book for adults.

At CrimeReads Hackney tagged six top mystery novels with mother-daughter sleuths. One title on the list:

Kimberly McCreight, Like Mother, Like Daughter

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is a well-paced and engaging mystery-thriller. It begins with daughter, Cleo, arriving late for a dinner with her estranged mother, Kat. Cleo finds food burning in the oven, a house in disarray, a bloody shoe, and no sign of her mother. The longer Kat is missing, the more desperate Cleo is to find her.

Told from Kat’s point of view in the past and Cleo’s point of view in the present, the characters must eliminate threats and uncover past secrets. The ultimate resolution to the mystery is satisfying, but it’s the understanding and respect that Cleo and Kat develop for each other over the course of the novel that makes this one stand out.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Garrett Curbow's "Whispers of Ink and Starlight"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight: A Novel by Garrett Curbow.

About Whispers of Ink and Starlight, from the publisher:

A spellbinding tale of forbidden love and the power of words, where a girl must choose between the life written for her and the future she dares to imagine.

In a small Georgia town, Nelle’s life has been carefully scripted by her creator and captor, the reclusive author Wallace Quill. Born from ink and imagination, every breath she takes is dictated by his pen. But on a star-studded Fourth of July night, she meets James—a young man with dreams as vivid as the fireworks above them—and suddenly, the unwritten becomes possible.

As Nelle and James fall deeply in love, they embark on a breathtaking journey across Europe, each new experience a defiant stroke against the words that bind her. But freedom has a price. With every mile they travel, the ink in Nelle’s veins threatens to rewrite their story. In a world where every moment could be her last, Nelle and James must fight to write their own happily ever after—before the final page turns.

Visit Garrett Curbow's website.

Q&A with Garrett Curbow.

Writers Read: Garrett Curbow.

The Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Megan Kate Nelson's "The Westerners"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:

From award-winning historian Megan Kate Nelson, an epic account of the creation of the American West in the 19th century, shattering the traditional frontier myth that has dominated popular American culture.

The Westerners tells two richly detailed and interwoven stories. The first reveals the captivating lives of women and men moving through the American West—Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants—in the 19th century. The second tracks the attempts of many Americans to erase these westerners from history, through a frontier myth that lionized individualism and conquest and celebrated white settlers traveling west in search of prosperity.

Nelson’s vivid, eye-opening account centers on seven extraordinary individuals whose lives capture the true history of the frontier: Sacajawea, not just Lewis and Clark’s guide but an explorer who forged her own path; Jim Beckwourth, a biracial fur trader whose sharp cultural insight made him indispensable; María Gertrudis Barceló, a Hispana gambling saloon owner who broke every stereotype to become the wealthiest woman in Santa Fe; Ovando Hollister, a gold miner, soldier, and newspaper man who championed Western expansion; Little Wolf, a Northern Cheyenne chief whose courageous leadership secured his people’s future; Canadian immigrant Ella Watson, who strove to become a ranch woman in a male-dominated world; and the defiant Polly Bemis, a Chinese immigrant who carved out a life in Idaho despite federal expulsion efforts.

Nelson roots this bold new history of the American West in the deep research and gripping storytelling that have garnered her critical acclaim. Highlighting the perseverance and ingenuity of the communities that have otherwise been forgotten or erased from history, The Westerners challenges us to reimagine who we are and where we came from.

Visit Megan Kate Nelson's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Three-Cornered War.

The Page 99 Test: The Westerners.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Paulette Kennedy reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Paulette Kennedy, author of The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

The Other Moctezuma Girls by Sofia Robleda

An epic coming-of-age story set in 16th-century Mexico, after the Spanish Conquest, centering Isabel, the daughter of the last Aztec empress. After her mother's death, Isabel embarks on a journey to discover her mother's story, and unveil the intriguing secrets hidden in her past. Robleda transports readers to a time when women used their wiles and intelligence to survive during an era when men colonized and claimed dominion over the countries they invaded, and viewed the women in their lives as political pawns. Isabel, and Tecuichpoch, the proud daughter of the famed Moctezuma--who relays her story through compelling diary entries Isabel finds on her quest--are both formidable, proud women, who inspire with their matriarchal strength and resilience. I especially enjoyed the elements of magical realism, which were so beautifully woven into the body of the story and...[read on]

About The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael, from the publisher:

A young woman, perceived dead, plots to reinvent herself in a gripping historical gothic about secrets, superstition, and murder by the bestselling author of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

South Carolina, 1853. Lillian Carmichael, privileged daughter of a disgraced Charleston family, is due to be hanged for the murder of her sister when fate gives her a second chance at life.

After a catatonic episode on the long walk to the gallows, Lillian is declared dead and entombed in the family mausoleum. She awakens days later, buried alive, and flees to the Lowcountry marshes to survive on her wits and reinvent herself. All the while, a series of exsanguination murders holds the terrorized city in thrall―as do the superstitions that the vanished Lillian is some craven creature, resurrected and out for blood.

Lillian finds sanctuary in a crumbling former plantation and a friend in Kate O’Malley, a charismatic actress adept at fashioning new identities. The two form an intimate and powerful alliance, but as the body count rises, the manhunt for Lillian reaches a fever pitch. It will take both women’s cunning for her to escape the gallows again, and to find her freedom, Lillian must first cross paths with the real killer and confront her own family’s deepest, darkest secret.

Visit Paulette Kennedy's website.

The Page 69 Test: Parting the Veil.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

My Book, The Movie: The Artist of Blackberry Grange.

The Page 69 Test: The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael.

Writers Read: Paulette Kennedy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top fairy tale retellings

Bar Fridman-Tell has a BA in art history and an MA in English literature. (She gleefully wrote her thesis about Victorian vampires.) She has worked as a bartender, a bookseller, a translator, and a library assistant. She is currently studying for a master's in library and information sciences, hoping to stay in a library for good. She lives in Toronto with her professor husband and two very fluffy cats. Honeysuckle is her debut novel.

At Lit Hub Fridman-Tell tagged six books that "take a fairy tale and pull one thread loose, to see what happens next, or tip the story on its side and see what new shape emerges." One title on the list:

T. Kingfisher, A Sorceress Comes to Call

T. Kingfisher is the master of fairy tale retellings, and though I seem to say it about each and every one of her books, A Sorceress Comes to Call really might be my favorite. Starting with the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Goose Girl,” T. Kingfisher unravels the idea of parental expectations in fairy tales—and the ever-present injunction to follow your parents’ commands—sketching an unsettling examination of abuse and power dynamics, with a side of (the best) heroic geese and a demonic, headless horse that really raises the bar for horse-related trauma.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Karen Rose Smith's "If Books Could Kill"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: If Books Could Kill (Tomes & Tea Mystery #3) by Karen Rose Smith.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Daisy Swanson’s daughter Jazzi has moved away to the lakeside town of Belltower Landing, but the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. Much like Daisy, she’s running a tea bar and bookshop––and has a knack for getting into hot water…

Town librarian Mathilda has a troublesome new emplROSEoyee, and after Jazzi spots the two of them arguing at the ice-sculpture festival, Mathilda asks Jazzi if she’d mind discussing her workplace woes over a cup of tea. During the visit, Jazzi also finds out about Mathilda’s top-secret stash of valuable first editions.

Soon afterward, those rare books have vanished—and Mathilda is dead. As the police check out suspects and a lawyer searches for the next of kin, Jazzi learns that the librarian’s life was as mysterious as any crime thriller. She’d left home and changed her name as a teenager, and always seemed a little lonely. Oddly, it’s her new employee who seems the most distraught.

It’s the off-season, so the upstate New York town is free of the usual swarm of tourists—but the quiet doesn’t last long. The press is descending as the murder makes national news, and rumors start circulating. With Belltower Landing steeped in suspicion, Jazzi must figure out whether the first editions were the real motive for sending Mathilda to her final resting place…

Visit Karen Rose Smith's website, Facebook page, and Instagram page.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Rose Smith & Hope and Riley.

The Page 69 Test: Staged to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Murder with Lemon Tea Cakes.

The Page 69 Test: Murder Marks the Page.

The Page 69 Test: Booked for Revenge.

The Page 69 Test: If Books Could Kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top crime novels featuring female duos

Elle Cosimano is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, an International Thriller Writers Award winner, and an Edgar Award nominee. Cosimano’s debut novel for adults, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, kicked off a witty, fast-paced contemporary mystery series, which was a People magazine pick and was named one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021. The third book in the series, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, was an instant New York Times bestseller. A TV show based on the series is now in development by Tina Fey and Lang Fisher for Peacock. In addition to writing novels for teens and adults, her essays have appeared in HuffPost and Time. Cosimano lives with her husband and two sons in Virginia.

[Q&A with Elle Cosimano; My Book, The Movie: Seasons of the Storm]

Her new novel is Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line.

At CrimeReads Cosimano tagged ten favorite crime novels featuring captivating partners in crime. One title on the list:

Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart

A down-on-her-luck country singer sets off with the half-sister she didn’t know she had to uncover their family history and solve a murder while searching for their missing mom.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Charlotte Brooks's "The Moys of New York and Shanghai"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family's Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution by Charlotte Brooks.

About the book, from the publisher:

The most extraordinary family you’ve never heard of.

Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Sophisticated and self-consciously modern, they challenged limitations and stereotypes in the United States and sought new opportunities in China’s tumultuous republic. Sometimes the risks they took paid off, but their occasional recklessness also led to infidelity, divorce, bankruptcy, and worse. Those in China faced pressure to collaborate with Japanese occupiers, making choices that had serious consequences for their siblings in the United States.

Charlotte Brooks’s gripping tale follows the family back and forth across the Pacific and through two world wars, China’s Nationalist and Communist revolutions, and the Cold War—events that the siblings and their spouses helped shape. The Moys’ incredible story offers a kaleidoscopic view of an entire generation’s struggle for acceptance and belonging.

Follow Charlotte Brooks on Instagram.

The Page 99 Test: Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends.

The Page 99 Test: The Moys of New York and Shanghai.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Pamela Steele

From my Q&A with Pamela Steele, author of In The Fields of Fatherless Children: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I didn’t commit to a title until my gut told me I was in the last few days of writing a complete draft for submission. In thinking about a title, I remembered that an early reader had remarked on how biblical the story is, which brought my mind to biblical references I’d used in the story: Bethel and Thomas, for example. When I got to the point where I knew I needed a title, I ruminated on Solomon, the novel’s primary antagonist and a character I’d actually named for a long-dead ancestor. I picked up a Bible and scanned Song of Solomon for an idea and then found myself backtracking to Proverbs. When I happened upon Chapter 23, verse 10 and read it aloud: Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless . . . I knew I’d found a title that fit one of the novel’s larger themes of family relationships and abandonment: In the Fields of Fatherless Children.

Initially, the editors at Counterpoint thought the title fitting but...[read on]

Follow Pamela Steele on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

My Book, The Movie: In The Fields of Fatherless Children.

Q&A with Pamela Steele.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Albertine Clarke reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Albertine Clarke, author of The Body Builders: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Right now, I’m reading Septology by Jon Fosse. It’s great, very long and very meditative, and tells the story of an ageing Norwegian painter living in a tiny fishing village. I like books that I can tarry with when I’m supposed to be doing other things, and Septology provides that. I also lost it for a couple of days and found it in my bed, so I feel that I’ve absorbed part of it through my skin.

Before that, I read The Hitch by Sara Levine. It was very funny, and I read the whole thing in a couple of days. There’s a...[read on]

About The Body Builders, from the publisher:

For readers of Megan Nolan and Sheila Heti, a mesmerizing Borgesian literary debut about the frayed borders between our bodies and minds.

Ada lives a solitary life. She spends her days in her London apartment building's swimming pool, occasionally visiting with her cousin Francesca and meeting her friends, each of them chatting, drinking, posing invitations Ada ignores. Ada's parents are recently divorced after her father became a bodybuilder: he spends his days at the gym, which is crowded and bright, warm with human proximity, infrequently calling to express minor concerns around his daughter's well-being.

When she meets a man named Atticus by the pool, Ada immediately feels an intimate connection between them: they share a life, in a way she can't explain. Little by little, Ada's estrangement from her familiar surroundings and from reality widens, as though seeing her reflection through a mirror, pieces of it falling away. After her mother entreats Ada to join her on a remote Greek holiday, Ada is jolted out of the physical world and into a new, artificial environment, one that a mysterious and potentially otherworldly force has created and designed for her. As this brilliant first novel pivots with masterful effect into the surreal and speculative, we move through Ada's experiences of life like spokes on a wheel, profoundly surprised by the enduring mystery of our existence, and of our relationships with ourselves and others. When a person's life, in the odd space between mind and body, is inherently one of isolation, are our connections with those around us merely projections of ourselves? And if not, where do they come from?

Albertine Clarke transforms the speculative into an entirely singular experience of deep interiority. The precision, subtlety, and confidence of her writing is nothing short of astonishing. THE BODY BUILDERS is new classic of the speculative fiction genre, landing like a blow, widening a crack that allows us to perceive the world wholly differently than we ever imagined.

Follow Albertine Clarke on Instagram.

Q&A with Albertine Clarke.

My Book, The Movie: The Body Builders.

Writers Read: Albertine Clarke.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top novels about women in the wild

Laura Hulthen Thomas’s deeply human, emotional storytelling explores blue and white collars, lovers and spouses, mothers and children, and the unique Michigan places that shape these relationships. Her novels, stories, and essays reveal the complexities of home, work, and the Midwestern landscape. Thomas is a Teaching Professor in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her first book, States of Motion, was a finalist for a Foreword Reviews Indie Award.

Thomas's new novel is The Meaning of Fear.

At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] tell the stories of women who find themselves battling their own wilds." One title on the list:

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods opens with the epigraph, “How quickly . . . peril could be followed by beauty in the wilderness . . . ” It’s 1975 and teen Barbara Van Laar has disappeared from a summer camp her family owns in the Adirondack woods, exactly 14 years after the mysterious disappearance of her brother, Bear. From there, the narrative dips back in time to show Barbara’s mother, Alice, trapped in an oppressive marriage, drugged during childbirth, forbidden to nurse, and isolated from everything natural about raising her kids. In the present, the search for Barbara in wild places slowly reveals Van Laar family’s secrets that never quite disappeared. Upon arriving to Camp Emerson, girls are taught to “sit down and yell” should they find themselves lost in the forest. The mystery of what happened to Barbara may prove that staying in one place and crying for help is exactly what women determined to survive should never do.

Read about another novel on the list.

The God of the Woods is among Benjamin Bradley's four mystery novels that explore legacy, Sandra Chwialkowska's five titles where bad things happen in beautiful places, Midge Raymond's eight books about women keeping secrets and Molly Odintz's eight thrillers & horror novels set at terrible summer camps.

--Marshal Zeringue