What is J.T. Ellison reading?

Featured at Writers Read: J.T. Ellison, author of You Know Why.

Her entry begins:

In my many years as a thriller author, there has been nothing quite as fun as seeing other authors in my genre level up their craft and become deeper, stronger, more intense writers. One who I think is truly at the top of her game is Alice Feeney. I’ve read two of her books recently that absolutely bamboozled me. The first was My Husband’s Wife, and the second was Rock, Paper, Scissors .

We’re talking first-class sleight of hand, which is an incredibly difficult move to pull off. It’s so much fun to set aside my own knowledge of the craft and get taken in by the story and the characters.

Feeney’s casts lie. They lie to one another; they lie to the reader. They are the most...[read on]

About You Know Why, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most.

It’s the holidays, and photographer Brooklyn Locke is bound for Italy with her husband, Trey, and their two children. But when Trey vanishes from the airport, missing their connecting flight, their impromptu vacation—and life as she knows it—begins to unravel.

Desperate to find her husband, Brooklyn accepts help from a stranger on the same flight, Eden Barrow. But Eden soon makes a shocking claim. She is the sister of Trey’s first wife, and ten years ago he was the main suspect in her murder.

Struggling to comprehend these accusations, fate delivers one more blow: a violent accident that leaves Brooklyn fighting for her life. With nowhere else to turn, Brooklyn leans on Eden for support. But each kindness feels too rehearsed, feeding her doubts about Eden’s motives and Trey’s true past.

Brooklyn has her own dark history she’d rather forget and confronts an unsettling possibility. Her life is not what it seems, and the truth is a trap—laid by someone waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Visit J.T. Ellison's website.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020).

Q&A with J.T. Ellison.

The Page 69 Test: A Very Bad Thing.

The Page 69 Test: Last Seen.

Writers Read: J.T. Ellison.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven of the best horrormance novels

Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of novels What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, The Remaking, and miss corpus, story collections nothing untoward, commencement, and rest area, as well as The Tribe middlegrade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal, and Academic Assassins.

[My Book, The Movie: The Remaking; The Page 69 Test: The Remaking; My Book, The Movie: Whisper Down the Lane; Q&A with Clay McLeod Chapman; The Page 69 Test: Whisper Down the Lane; Writers Read: Clay McLeod Chapman (September 2022); The Page 69 Test: What Kind of Mother; Writers Read: Clay McLeod Chapman (September 2023); Writers Read: Clay McLeod Chapman (January 2025)]

Chapman's new novel is Devil Inside.

At People magazine the author tagged eleven top steamy, sultry, scary horror romance novels. One novel on the list:

The Haunting Of Lavender House by Natalie Kikic

Kikic’s dual timeline gothic taps into Croatian folklore to offer up a sumptuous story that spans centuries, yoking two souls together. Perfect for fans of Isabel Cañas. The romance is excellent and there are some haunting dream sequences that will surely linger.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elliott Logan's "Over and Over"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Over and Over: Performance, Time, and Resonance in Serial Television Drama by Elliott Logan.

About the book, from the publisher:

How does serial drama earn, keep, and reward our attention for so long―over episodes, seasons, months, and years? While we know that characters are the focus of story and viewer interest in television fiction, scholars have for decades overlooked the way those characters are performed on-screen and the lure of performance as a key formal and thematic aspect of long-form television storytelling. In Over and Over, Elliott Logan offers close readings of performance in some of the most celebrated television dramas of the century, casting new light on the attractions and significance of the medium’s seriality. The book shows how the patterning and expressive resonance of performers on-screen binds together otherwise unconnected episodes of shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men. In doing so, it highlights the provisionality of identity and meaning as crucial to their interest in the sustenance of human relationships over long periods of time. In accounting for the resonance of performance over time in serial drama, this book shows, we find the terms of our own attachment to its compelling depictions of human life.

Learn more about Over and Over at the Rutgers University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Over and Over.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on Tacitus and the dangers of history

D.W. Buffa was born in San Francisco and raised in the Bay Area. After graduation from Michigan State University, he studied under Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey and Hans J. Morgenthau at the University of Chicago where he earned both an M.A. and a Ph. D. in political science. He received his J.D. degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Buffa was a criminal defense attorney for 10 years and his seven Joseph Antonelli novels strive to reflect, from his own experience, what a courtroom lawyer does, the way he (or she) thinks, and the way he feels about what he does.

In Buffa's new novel, Immunity, the President of the United States has ordered the murder of his political opponents—and the Constitution seems powerless to stop him.

Buffa's latest take in his "Third Reading" series covers Tacitus and the dangers of history. It begins:

When Thucydides wrote his history of the Peloponnesian War, he insisted it was a “possession for all time.” This did not mean simply that it was a book that would always be available to anyone who might have an interest in what happened in the war between the Spartans and the Athenians. It meant that future generations would be able to learn what always happens in political life, that what happened in his time and place is the very essence of what happens in every time and place. Thucydides was what was once called a political historian. As one of his most perceptive readers explained, a political historian “must be more than a citizen or even a statesman: he must be a wise man.” Thucydides, a wise man, wrote about what happened when Athens became an empire. Cornelius Tacitus, another wise man, wrote about what happened when the Roman republic became the Roman empire; when the ambition for power lost all restraint, when the power to dominate everyone and everything became the only power worth having.

Born in the middle of the first century A.D., Tacitus witnessed the reign of terror during the last three years of the emperor Domitian, and the judicial murders of many of Rome’s best citizens. He learned early the virtues of discretion, and when he decided to write history chose his subjects with care, and was even more careful in the way he wrote. His two principal histories, The Annals and The Histories, were probably written together in A.D.115 or 116, when he was in his early sixties, The Annals provides a history of the Roman emperors of the Julian line from Tiberius to Nero, during the years A.D.14-68. The Histories continues the story, but only for the year, A.D.69, a year in which, incredible as it may sound, there were three civil wars and four murdered emperors. Tacitus writes nothing about Julius Caesar, and nothing about the half century in which Augustus completed the destruction of the republic and made Rome, for all intents and purposes, a monarchy. Tacitus is a great historian, and a great writer, a writer, who understood that the truth, to be written, has often to be disguised.

With a marvelous capacity for misdirection, Tacitus gives the reason, or hints at the reason, why...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius; The Closing of The American Mind; History of Rome; Before The Deluge; Herodotus's Histories; The Education of Henry Adams; Duff Cooper’s Talleyrand; The Golden Bowl; The Life of George Washington; Tacitus and the dangers of history.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles about the messy world of ancient Rome

Michelle Berenfeld is the John A. McCarthy Professor of Classics at Pitzer College, one of the Claremont Colleges. An archaeologist and fellow of the American Academy in Rome, she has done research in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic and numerous scholarly publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

Berenfeld's new book is Lessons from a Lost Republic: What Ancient Rome Can Teach Us About This American Moment.

At Lit Hub the author tagged eight books to read if you’re interested in the Roman Empire. One title on the list:

Robert Graves, I, Claudius

A saga of the first dynasty of Roman emperors in all of their back-biting and conniving glory, this 1930s novel inspired a soapy 1970s mini-series that set Derek Jacobi up for a lifetime of wearing togas on the silver screen (I once asked AI to generate a picture of a bust of a Roman senator and it made one with his face). Extrapolating from salacious and rumor-filled ancient sources, the novel offers an inside scoop into the machinations of the first Roman imperial family. It paints a picture of Livia, the wife of Augustus, as someone not to be trifled with, unless you like your figs with a dash of poison. A huge bestseller over the decades, it remains in print. Graves wrote another novel about a different famous family of the first century CE—it’s called King Jesus (good, but not as good as I, Claudius, imho).

Read about another entry on the list.

I, Claudius also appears on Fiona Forsyth's list of five top historical novels about political shenanigans in ancient Rome, A. K. Blakemore's top ten list of matriarchs in fiction, Isaac Mizrahi's ten favorite books list, Tessa Arlen’s top five list of historical novels, Christopher Wilson's top ten list of books about tyrants, Sarah Dunant's six favorite books list, Daniel Godfrey's top five list of books about ancient Rome, Jeff Somers's lists of eight books that make great party themes and six historical fiction novels that are almost fantasy, Tracy-Ann Oberman's six best books list, the Telegraph's lists of the 21 greatest television adaptations of novels and the twenty best British and Irish novels of all time, Daisy Goodwin's list of six favorite historical fiction books, a list of the eleven best political books of all time, David Chase's six favorite books list, Andrew Miller's top ten list of historical novels, Mark Malloch-Brown's list of his six favorite novels of empire, Annabel Lyon's top ten list of books on the ancient world, Lindsey Davis' top ten list of Roman books, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best emperors in literature and ten of the best poisonings in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sunneva Gilmore's "Redressing Rape in War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Redressing Rape in War: A Medico-Legal Approach to Sexual Violence by Sunneva Gilmore.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sexual violence remains a pervasive reality of war. Redressing Rape in War presents an innovative medico-legal framework for redressing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), integrating insights from transitional justice, restorative justice, and medical scholarship. Drawing on empirical research across three diverse settings-including interviews with victims and professionals in transitional justice and healthcare-this book critically examines the evolution of existing reparative measures and advances an interdisciplinary approach to justice and redress.

Through a health-centred perspective, this book explores the forensic, psychological, physical, and social consequences of CRSV, emphasising the cascading effects of embodied trauma and its impact on victims' long-term well-being. Recognising that traditional forms of reparations struggle to address the breadth of harm inflicted, this book forwards a vulnerability-based framework that enhances their effectiveness by acknowledging the relational dimensions of harm, and the role of informal and self-repair mechanisms. By reimagining rehabilitation through a medico-legal lens, it demonstrates how forensic medicine can strengthen accountability, improve reparative outcomes, and offer tangible paths to recovery centred on quality of life.

Confronting the structural, cultural, and political conditions that sustain CRSV, Redressing Rape in War calls for reparations that not only address individual harm but also catalyse broader social and institutional transformation to ensure sustainable justice for victims and survivors of CRSV and beyond.

Learn more about Redressing Rape in War at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Redressing Rape in War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Gloria Chao's "The Mortal Enemy Murder Club"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Mortal Enemy Murder Club: A Novel (A Hu Done It Mystery, 2) by Gloria Chao.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is back with a twist in this smart, hilarious mystery by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao.

Kathryn Hu is not getting into the business of solving murders. Yes, she and her friends Olivia and Elle figured out who killed their cheating ex-boyfriend. But now Kat can get back to her usual, murder-free existence.

Then she gets an unexpected plea for help. Mandy Thorne has ruined countless lives through her revenge podcast. She also did her best to frame the girls. Now, she claims, someone is trying to kill her. And the girls are the only ones who can save her.

But can the trio and Mandy put aside their mutual contempt long enough to prevent a murder and solve this case? Can they become…the Mortal Enemy Murder Club?

Filled with humor and shenanigans, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a romp of an adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao, perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

Visit Gloria Chao's website.

The Page 69 Test: American Panda.

The Page 69 Test: When You Wish Upon a Lantern.

The Page 69 Test: The Mortal Enemy Murder Club.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top romance novels with teacher leads

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves
writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

At Book Riot she tagged five "favorite teacher romance novels featuring flirty banter over the school copy machine, longing glances over finger painting, happily ever afters for the people who deserve them most…and absolutely NO romances with students." One title on the list:

Vision in White by Nora Roberts

I couldn’t resist putting one of my favorite Nora Roberts novels on the list. Mackenzie is a photographer who works with her three best friends to make brides’ dream weddings become a reality. Ironically, Mac is also a commitment-phobe who doesn’t believe in a happily ever after for herself. Carter is a nerdy, earnest English teacher who had a desperate crush on Mac when they were both in high school. She agrees to a fling, nothing more. But Carter is determined to break down the walls she’s had up since her parents’ divorce in childhood and develop a real, head-over-heels in love, forever kind of relationship with her. Swoon!

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Margaret K. Nelson's "Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers: Jewish Life in Small-Town Vermont by Margaret K. Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Provides a rare study of Jews in small town America

For many years, histories of Jews in the United States focused on Jewish migrants who settled in large cities. Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers offers a rare study of Jews in small town America, illuminating the experiences of Jewish families in towns where they constituted one of, at most, a few Jewish families. In particular, the volume explores the occupational niches of Jews in rural Vermont, from peddling to the ownership of junk yards and dry goods stores that were disparagingly known as “the Jew Store.”

The book also looks specifically at the experiences of Jewish women and children in families headed by men in these occupations. These families lived in communities where they were often isolated from relatives and friends, and without a Jewish congregation. Margaret K. Nelson carefully investigates various aspects of this small-town experience, including how generations of immigrants were regarded by others, how they held onto the practice of their religion, and how they were able to socially integrate into their communities.

By narrating the trajectory of Jewish immigrant experiences through men’s occupations, the volume places the experiences of Jews in Vermont alongside those of other marginalized groups, particularly the families of Chinese restaurant owners and South Asian motel managers, as they established and sustained their own distinctive economic activities in small towns.

Showcasing the largely unexplored history of Jews in very small towns, Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers provides a novel account of Jewish community and belonging as minorities in rural communities.

Learn more about Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers at the NYU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Parenting Out of Control.

The Page 99 Test: Like Family.

The Page 99 Test: Keeping Family Secrets.

The Page 99 Test: Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Meg Elison

From my Q&A with Meg Elison, author of Foundling Fathers:

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

The phrase "founding fathers" is so ingrained in our culture that a play on it seemed inevitable. I love the word "foundling" meaning orphan, meaning a child found on a doorstep or in a basket of woven rushes. Combining the familiar, powerful idea of the founders with a term that indicates some kids on their own was irresistible. It shapes expectations of the book by telling you right off that these characters aren't the legendary men you're expecting; they're vulnerable. And it's a set of words you think you know, but it makes you do a double take.

What's in a name?

I love giving a character a name that carries specific meaning that's so obvious that it's right under your nose and you might still miss it. Not must leeway on the names of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin, so I thought hard about what to name their mother. First off: what do you name a virginal, utterly ideal mother besides...[read on]

Visit Meg Elison's website.

Q&A with Meg Elison.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve top historical mysteries that make the past feel dangerously alive

Oprah Daily tagged historical fiction titles that "use mystery not merely to decorate history, but to interrogate it, asking whose secrets were protected, whose stories were suppressed, and what the past can reveal when someone finally starts asking the right questions." One novel on the list:

Down a Dark River, by Karen Odden

One finely dressed dead girl found bound and surrounded by flowers, in a small boat on the Thames, strikes a curious tableau. A second and third could spark panic that our cross-pressured Scotland Yard detective Michael Corravan is determined to avoid. Unfolding in 1878, 10 years before Jack the Ripper terrorized the working women of London and written by an authority in Victorian literature, this story probes similar territory as Hallie Rubenfeld’s Ripper-inspired social history The Five. Period and place are exceptionally well-drawn, from the sights and smells of the city’s most famous natural landmark to the jewelry on the elegant necks of its Mayfair residents to the secrets and boundaries that rule their lives—and provide the key to the killings.
—Carole V. Bell

Read about another historical mystery on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.

The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrew B. Kennedy's "Rebellious Follower"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Rebellious Follower: China's Search for Science, Technology, and Innovation by Andrew B. Kennedy.

About the book, from the publisher:

How does China pursue science, technology, and innovation? China has emerged as a leading technology power in recent years, and its policies shape issues ranging from geopolitical rivalry to climate change to artificial intelligence. Yet if China's pursuit of science, technology, and innovation (STI) is important, its path is also puzzling. Since 1949, China's party-state has adopted a bewildering array of policymaking approaches in an effort to transform the country into a world science and technology leader. How can we understand the remarkably winding road China has travelled?

Rebellious Follower: China's Search for Science, Technology, and Innovation illuminates major shifts in Chinese STI policymaking since the communist revolution, leveraging concepts from political science and public policy. Focusing on the "policy paradigms" that have driven Chinese policymaking in the STI domain, the book highlights two globally influential paradigms from the past century. The book explores how Chinese policymakers have resisted these belief systems at times while adapting them at others. In that way, they have made their country a rebellious follower of foreign ideas.

This new theoretical framework offers fresh insights into critical episodes in Chinese history, ranging from the formation of China's scientific establishment in the 1950s to the rise of "innovation-driven development" in the 21st century. Combining cutting-edge theoretical analysis with broad historical scope, the book offers a unique perspective on China's rise as a world leader in science, technology, and innovation.

Learn more about Rebellious Follower at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Rebellious Follower.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laura Jensen Walker's "The Postmistress of Puddlington"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Postmistress of Puddlington by Laura Jensen Walker.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Courage, love and survival . . . it’s all in a letter.

1934, Dorset. Nothing gives postmistress Hester Smith greater joy than cycling through the idyllic village of Puddlington, delivering the mail to her neighbours. Bookish Hester has always felt privileged to witness the highs and lows a single letter can bring.

But when war comes to Puddlington’s shores five years later, Hester suddenly finds herself in the devastating position of delivering news that no one should hear. As the community is directly impacted by tragedy on the battlefield and a shocking death occurs in the village, Hester’s spirit and resolve are tested like never before.

Can she and her fellow Puddlington women, including the vicar’s wife and the bohemian lady of the manor, find the courage to face their darkest times and come through a storm that will change their lives for ever?

This moving, heartbreaking and life-affirming novel set in an English village during World World II is a must-read for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

My Book, The Movie: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

The Page 69 Test: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten chilling summer slasher novels

Alaina Urquhart is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Dr. Wren Muller series which has been published internationally in over twenty languages. When she isn’t writing, she is also the cohost of the chart-topping podcast Morbid, and an autopsy technician by trade.

The latest Dr. Wren Muller novel is The Butcher Legacy.

At People magazine Urquhart tagged ten "summer slashers [that] are meant to be read with the porch light on." One title on the list:

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

This one is such a classic for slasher summer. Grady Hendrix answers the question of what happens to the final girl after the credits roll. Who hasn’t wondered how they get through the aftershock of what they have survived? It’s a perfectly paced homage to the slasher genre, while also keeping it fresh and entertaining.

The women at the center of it all are so diverse and perfectly flawed enough to be relatable at their cores, while also being pulled straight out of Grady’s version of your favorite slasher flicks. It’s a page-turner that is intense, bloody and unrelenting. You will find yourself unable to put this one down.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Terra Ziporyn and Amy R. Wolfson's "Educating the Exhausted"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Educating the Exhausted: Adolescent Sleep and the Struggle for a Later School Start by Terra Ziporyn and Amy R. Wolfson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The battle to align the school day with the science of sleep.

For decades, sleep researchers have reached the same conclusion: adolescents need more sleep than current school schedules allow. Yet across the United States, most middle and high schools continue to start the day at hours that undermine student health, safety, and learning. In Educating the Exhausted, Terra Ziporyn and Amy R. Wolfson explain why evidence alone has not been enough to ensure school hours that allow for sufficient sleep.

The authors recount the development of adolescent sleep research since the 1980s and the long struggle to bring that knowledge into school policy. Scientists, educators, parents, and health professionals often worked in isolation, while school systems remained resistant to change. Early advocacy efforts stalled, local campaigns collapsed, and frustration mounted even as the research base grew stronger and more consistent. Yet, there has been some progress: broader coalitions formed, communication improved, and sustained advocacy led to meaningful policy shifts, including landmark legislation in California. These changes did not come easily; they required persistence, credibility, and a willingness to navigate political and institutional constraints.

Written by two leaders closely involved in these efforts, Educating the Exhausted offers an account of how research enters public decision-making―and what it takes for science to influence policy.

Visit Terra Ziporyn's website and Amy R. Wolfson's faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Educating the Exhausted.

--Marshal Zeringue

E.J. Copperman's "Where There’s Smoke…," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Where There's Smoke... (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery, 2) by E.J. Copperman.

The entry begins:

The fact is, I don’t know what my characters look like.

That’s been true in every novel I’ve written (and there have been a bunch). I don’t picture the character beyond a very general type unless their appearance will be important to the story, and it almost never is.

So trying to (mentally) cast a movie of Where There’s Smoke… the second Haunted Paint Store mystery, I have to go with attitude rather than resemblance. I believe the reader will form a mental picture of the character and no matter what they imagine, they’ll be right. So no physical descriptions for me.

Laura Meehan, is a woman knocking on the door of middle age, but not walking over the threshold yet. She make self-deprecating comments about the way she looks, but I don’t think those are to be taken seriously. Certainly her husband Roy doesn’t think she’s lacking in any department. She’s not a girl-next-door type, but probably a girl-two-doors down woman.

Her deceased father, Amos Meehan, is...[read on]

Visit E. J. Copperman's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (November 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.

My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.

The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.

Q&A with E. J. Copperman.

The Page 69 Test: Same Difference.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman (February 2025).

The Page 69 Test: Where There's Smoke....

My Book, The Movie: Where There's Smoke....

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Linda Kass reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Linda Kass, author of the forthcoming World News from Waverley High: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney was the latest selection for my personal book club. I happen to love my book club, and all book clubs, because they bring community and connection around books! I may not have picked this book up on my own, but it was one of our selections because one of our book club members read it and was a fan. And isn’t word of mouth the way most of us find the greatest reads?

Anyway, back to this book. With a darkly comedic yet piercing tone, the author (who happens to be he New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” columnist) tells a story of life and death and the search for meaning through the novel’s narrator, a depressed obituary writer at the world’s largest wire service. Bud Stanely is a middle-aged man who has lost the spirit of his job and wonders the point of life. After one terrible night—a very bad blind date on top of his ongoing two-year depressed state since his wife ended their marriage—he...[read on]

About World News from Waverley High, from the publisher:

A tale of identity, activism, and finding your voice in a world on fire, this coming-of-age novel set at an urban high school captures a singular moment in American history—through the eyes of one unforgettable girl.

1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests—while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.

As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena’s own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace—and to hope for a better world.

Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.

Visit Linda Kass's website.

Writers Read: Linda Kass (June 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass (July 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top historical novels set during revolutions

At Book Riot Julia Rittenberg tagged seven historical novels set during revolutions, including:

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

Mantel’s singular style of storytelling allows her to pull apart the thorny, violent politics of the French Revolution. She illuminates the intense bloodiness and instability of the Reign of Terror through the narration of three major figures: Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins. Each has their own motivations and guiding principles, which affect how they accomplish their revolutionary aims.

Read about another book on the list.

A Place of Greater Safety is among Laura Shepherd-Robinson's six historical novels that perfectly capture the 18th century and the Barnes & Noble Review's top books on uprisings in pursuit of freedom around the world.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tad Tuleja's "Skirmishes with Patriotism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Skirmishes with Patriotism: Looking for America in the Long Shadow of Vietnam by Tad Tuleja.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the late 1960s, as the Vietnam War divided the country, millions of young American men faced the choice of how to respond to the draft. Some accepted conscription and went to fight. Others attended protests or fled the country. But most draft-aged men, avoiding both combat and exile, stayed home, punched the clock, watched Walter Cronkite, and mowed the lawn while history swirled around them. Decades later, members of this forgotten majority still live with the war's aftermath, questioning their response to the most polarizing conflict of their time.

Skirmishes with Patriotism is Tad Tuleja's lyrical and deeply personal memoir about this overlooked segment of his generation. Tracing his own journey from a flag-waving Boy Scout to a disillusioned humanist wrestling with the consequences of saying "no" to military service, he explores the complex pressures of family, expectations about masculine duty, and the fevered nationalism that continues to grip the United States today. This is not a tale of heroism or protest but a candid reckoning with moral ambiguity and the cost of a life-altering decision. With clarity and wit, Tuleja fills a critical gap in Vietnam War–era literature and offers a powerful reflection on what it means to be an American grappling with the legacy of patriotism and conflict.

Visit Tad Tuleja's website.

The Page 99 Test: Skirmishes with Patriotism.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Barbara O'Neal reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Barbara O'Neal, author of A Thousand Painted Hours: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

My agent and I both like a certain sort of quiet English novel, and when I was searching for things to bring with me on a trip to Japan recently, she recommended the 1931 novel A Fortnight By The Sea, by RC Sherriff. It is the story of a family who go to the seaside in England, day by day. It is ordinary and calming and so filled with English sensibilities of the period that...[read on]

About A Thousand Painted Hours, from the publisher:

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows―and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Visit Barbara O'Neal's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Thousand Painted Hours.

The Page 69 Test: A Thousand Painted Hours.

Writers Read: Barbara O'Neal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books that puncture the myths of Silicon Valley

Claire Stapleton is a writer, communications consultant, and tech labor activist. She began her career at Google, where she spent 12 years in a variety of influential communications, marketing, and executive ghostwriting roles, before co-organizing the Google Walkout in 2018, in which 20,000 employees loudly protested the company’s mishandling of sexual harassment. Stapleton now advises executives and organizations on navigating the complicated communications landscape, speaks and writes frequently about tech worker issues, and publishes an existential advice column for tech workers on Substack.

Her new book is Don't Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech.

At Lit Hub Stapleton tagged the eight "books that most shaped my understanding of [Silicon Valley] that has become the air we all breathe—and, increasingly, choke on." One title on the list:

Private Government by Elizabeth Anderson

A professor friend of mine (hi, Pete!) recommended this book around the time of the Google Walkout, when I was beginning to realize that, as righteous as we felt demanding greater accountability from Google, the company felt no obligation to provide it. It’s a slim, riveting manifesto that permanently changed how I think about work.

Elizabeth Anderson asks a deceptively simple question: Why do we insist on democracy in public life while accepting authoritarian rule at work? Her answer is that corporations aren’t simply voluntary market arrangements. They are private governments, exercising extraordinary power over our speech, movements, relationships, and livelihoods with remarkably little democratic oversight.

I thought about Anderson often as Google began changing its internal rules to restrict speech, discipline organizing, and punish people who spoke out—moves that felt like abuses of power but offered little to no recourse, despite intense internal and public outrage. Once you begin seeing your employer as a private government rather than merely a workplace, it becomes very difficult to unsee. The perils of a society governed so extensively by corporations become impossible to ignore.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ankita Pandey's "Becoming Allies"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Becoming Allies: Civil Liberties Activism in India by Ankita Pandey.

About the book, from the publisher:

What motivates individuals to stand up against injustices that don't personally affect them? Becoming Allies explores a vital but often overlooked dimension of social movements: the role of those who support a cause without being directly affected by its injustices. While most scholarship centres the conflict between social movements and the State, this book shifts the focus to allies-individuals who stand in solidarity and amplify marginalised demands. Drawing on interviews conducted with civil liberties activists and on documents from their private records, this book traces the evolving politics of allyship in India. Anchored in the histories of groups like the People's Union for Civil Liberties and the People's Union for Democratic Rights that rose in the context of the Naxalite Movement and the Emergency, the book sheds light on the ethics, dilemmas, and strategies of standing alongside others in struggle.

Learn more about Becoming Allies at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Becoming Allies.

--Marshal Zeringue