Eight thrillers about jealousy and obsession between friends

Jennifer van der Kleut is an award-winning former journalist of both print and digital publications, including the DC affiliate of ABC7 News. A graduate of San Jose State University, she spent most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, where she currently lives with her husband and two sons. For nearly a decade, she was the lead singer of the Bay Area-based band SweetDuration, and performed with artists like Jason Mraz, Big Country, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Stabbing Westward. When she’s not writing, she loves going to the beach with her family, going to concerts with her girlfriends, and getting lost in the pages of a book.

Her debut novel is The Better Mother.

At Electric Lit van der Kleut tagged eight thrillers in which "friendships are questioned and pushed to their limits." One title on the list:

The Other Mother by Carol Goodman

New motherhood, and all the insecurities that come with it, can make for gripping thriller fodder. In this novel, Daphne and Laurel—two mothers who meet by chance at a parenting class and both have daughters named Chloe—seem fated to become best friends and support each other through the emotional minefield that is postpartum life. But their friendship soon moves into dysfunctional territory. Laurel starts dressing like Daphne, telling others Daphne’s stories as if they’re her own. Meanwhile, Daphne starts to think that masquerading as Laurel could be her answer to escaping her husband, whom she is afraid thinks she’s an unfit mother and might try to take her daughter away. Posing as Laurel, Daphne takes a job in an eerie, atmospheric mansion archiving materials for an aging author—and she starts to learn that nothing is as it seems.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Other Mother is among Sarah Zettel's ten books about parents with secrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with N. West Moss

From my Q&A with N. West Moss, author of Birdy:

What's in a name?

Birdy and Mouse are brother and sister. These are their secret nicknames that their mother gave them, but their mother has died after a long illness and now Birdy and Mouse are the only two who know these secret names.

There is great power, I think, in naming ourselves rather than taking the names that others give us. Birdy and Mouse are in control of very little in their lives, but they can define themselves through their chosen names. These nicknames remind them of their mother, and also provide a language that only the two of them know. One of the questions of the book is, who will they invite into their chosen family? We can tell who they are coming to trust because...[read on]

Visit N. West Moss's website.

Writers Read: N. West Moss.

Q&A with N. West Moss.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels that use isolation to create horror

Saratoga Schaefer (they/them) is the USA Today Bestselling and Indie Press Bestselling author of Serial Killer Support Group, Trad Wife, The Last Time We Drowned, and A Thousand Monstrous Forms. Their books have been featured in Variety, People magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, and their writing has appeared in Writer’s Digest, CrimeReads, and more. Originally from Brooklyn, Schaefer now lives upstate with several needy animals and a haunted clown table.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "horror books that thrill in keeping their characters (and story) isolated." One title on Schaefer's list:

Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

Three women trapped in a castle under siege contend with divine figures modeled after their saints who infiltrate and twist salvation until it’s something unrecognizable. As the castle descends into madness, cannibalism, and violence, the main characters must fight to survive these false gods while being physically stuck in a location they cannot escape.

Taut, queer as hell, and horrifically enchanting, The Starving Saints traps its characters not only physically but mentally as well. You’ll bite your nails to the quick in this claustrophobic and surreal historical horror.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Daniel R. Langton's "Darwin in the Jewish Imagination"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolutionary Theory by Daniel R. Langton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Darwin in the Jewish Imagination provides an overview of Jewish responses to Darwinian evolution, one of the most transformative and challenging ideas of the industrial age. Spanning a century of intellectual and cultural history, it examines how Jewish thinkers-traditionalists, reformers, secularists, mystics, and philosophers-grappled with the profound implications of evolutionary theory for their religious beliefs and cultural identities. The book offers close readings of key figures and debates from Europe to the United States, situating them within the broader contexts of the religion-science controversy, Jewish-Christian interfaith relations, and the intellectual challenges of modernity. A central theme is the pan(en)theistic tendency evident in Jewish thought, reflecting a vision of God as intimately connected with the evolving universe and its natural laws. It explores how Jewish thinkers reinterpreted foundational concepts such as creation, divine action, and human morality in light of Darwin's ideas. This interdisciplinary work not only illuminates how Jewish thought adapted to evolutionary theory but also reveals the broader cultural and theological exchanges shaping modern Judaism. By examining these responses, the book sheds light on how science and Jewish religion have engaged in an enriching dialogue, with profound consequences for modern Jewish thought, belief, and identity.

Learn more about Darwin in the Jewish Imagination at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Darwin in the Jewish Imagination.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sofia Robleda's "The Other Moctezuma Girls"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Other Moctezuma Girls: A Novel by Sofia Robleda.

About the book, from the publisher:

In sixteenth-century Mexico, a fearless young woman strives to uncover the secrets her mother kept as the last Aztec empress in a sweeping historical epic by the author of Daughter of Fire.

Tenochtitlan, 1551. Thirty years after the Spanish Conquest destroyed everything she loved, the last Aztec empress has passed and left behind a pristine yet tenuous legacy for her children. As her last will and testament is read out, her daughter Isabel suspects that another account of her mother’s life may exist, hidden away, chapter by chapter, in the Valley of Mexico. Following each clue, Isabel is determined to find out who her mother really was and to discover the secrets she buried in order to survive.

Joined by her siblings and a handsome young cook named Juan, Isabel embarks on a perilous journey to piece together the past―a journey that will force the party to brave the brutal viceroyal court, face fearsome legends in mystical chinampas, and trek through desert, fire, and snow. As Isabel’s feelings for Juan grow, she confronts everything she thought she knew about her Spanish father, her empress mother, and herself. Facing everything from the tunnels of ancient pyramids to the summit of an active volcano, Isabel will meet every challenge to fulfill an epic quest for the truth.

Visit Sofia Robleda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Daughter of Fire.

The Page 69 Test: The Other Moctezuma Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is N. West Moss reading?

Featured at Writers Read: N. West Moss, author of Birdy.

Her entry begins:

A Sky Full of Song by Susan Lynn Meyer

This is a piece of historical fiction set in 1905 on the North Dakota Prairie, and follows a Jewish family of immigrant pioneers as they struggle to make a go of it in America. I continue to love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books about pioneer life, and this gave me a new angle on that time and place that I found both moving and...[read on]

About Birdy, from the publisher:

After the death of their mother, Birdy and Mouse are forced to start over in this debut novel about discovering where you belong—for fans of Forever This Summer and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise.

Eleven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother, Mouse, have always looked out for each other. They make the perfect team: Birdy is realistic and practical, while Mouse is affable and trusting. After their mother dies of cancer, Birdy and Mouse are forced to move out of the city to the country with relatives they’ve never met. Aunt Mitzie and Uncle Shadow’s house is full of organized chaos, and it takes Birdy time to adjust to having adults around. But the kitchen is always stocked, and both kids are allowed to play outside as often as they want. There’s only one problem: it’s all temporary. Their social worker has promised to find them a permanent home by the next school year, whether they want to leave or not. As the summer unfolds, Mouse starts to feel attached to their new life. But Birdy knows better—adults have never been reliable. When Birdy’s fears get the best of her, she makes a big mistake that could jeopardize their future.

Heartfelt and emotionally resonant, this literary coming-of-age novel explores the unbreakable bond between siblings—and how family can be found in the most unexpected places.

Visit N. West Moss's website.

Writers Read: N. West Moss.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark Sanders's "A Will for the Machine"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Will for the Machine: Computerization, Automation, and the Arts in South Africa by Mark Sanders.

About the book, from the publisher"

This study takes up the relations among computerization, labor, and the arts in South Africa.

There are many books about the history and discourses of computerization in the United States but relatively little about these phenomena anywhere in the Global South. In A Will for the Machine, Mark Sanders outlines South Africa’s entry into the computer age in the 1960s and ’70s and explains how it coincided with the high point of apartheid. South Africa’s government viewed automation and computerization as one way of barring Black Africans from skilled work and reserving it for whites. Sanders unpacks this peculiar history, relates it to early twentieth-century struggles around mechanization in mining and telephony in South Africa, and analyzes responses to it by the writers Miriam Tlali and J. M. Coetzee, the artist William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company. Showing how the arts realize ideas about the ethics and politics of automation, Sanders contributes to debates about locally divergent understandings of computer technology and human-computer interaction.

Learn more about A Will for the Machine at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Learning Zulu.

The Page 99 Test: A Will for the Machine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the ups & downs of friendship

Lillian Li is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.

Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

[Writers Read: Lillian Li (June 2018)]

Li's new novel is Bad Asians.

At Lit Hub the author tagged eight titles about the ups and downs of friendship. One book on the list:

Elizabeth Ames, The Other’s Gold

Complicated characters? A story structured around their worst mistakes? A book spanning college to motherhood? Sign me up! Ames’ character study of four young women—Lainey, Ji Sun, Margaret, and Alice—is a brave and ambitious exploration of how flawed people can find the grace they need in their friends.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Other’s Gold is among Emily Layden's nine top campus novels.

The Page 69 Test: The Other’s Gold.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Louise Fein's "Book of Forbidden Words"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Book of Forbidden Words: A Novel by Louise Fein.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From bestselling author Louise Fein comes a new historical novel set in a world of banned books and censorship, in which an encrypted manuscript unleashes a chain of consequences across 400 years, perfect for fans of Weyward and The Briar Club.

1552, PARIS: The print­ing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.

1952, NEW YORK: Milly Bennett is a lonely housewife struggling to find her way in her new neighborhood amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. She finds her life taking an unexpected turn when a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, pulling her into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

Visit Louise Fein's website.

Q&A with Louise Fein.

Writers Read: Louise Fein.

The Page 69 Test: Book of Forbidden Words.

--Marshal Zeringue

Verlin Darrow's "The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow by Verlin Darrow.

The entry begins:

Since the protagonist of The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow—Kade Tobin—is the leader of a spiritual community who may or may not have a sketchy background, casting would be challenging. On the one hand, an actor would need to have enough gravitas to make it believable that seekers would follow him and respect his teachings. On the other hand, he’d need to be able to at least hint that there was more to him than just the beneficent guy he seems to be at first. In other words, the part would call for someone who could project complexity—be a bit of a mystery in and of himself. After all, this is a story of murder, and everyone’s a suspect.

I suppose a classically trained English actor well-versed in an American accent would work. Forgetting ages, I’m thinking of people like Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, and Peter O’Toole. Each of their voices has a commanding or self- assured element, and I respect their abilities to play diverse roles.

The detective who works with Kade—Bill Cullen—could be played by a number of people, including Walton Goggins, Colin...[read on]

Visit Verlin Darrow's website.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (May 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (April 2024).

My Book, The Movie: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

My Book, The Movie: The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Julie L. Reed's "Land, Language, and Women"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Land, Language, and Women: A Cherokee and American Educational History by Julie L. Reed.

About the book, from the publisher:

Historians largely understand Native American education through the Indian boarding schools and reservation schools established by the US government during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Native Americans taught and learned from one another long before colonization, and while white settlers and institutions powerfully influenced Indigenous educational practices, they never stopped Native peoples from educating one another on their own terms.

In this ambitious and imaginatively conceived book, Julie L. Reed uses Cherokee teaching and learning practices spanning more than four centuries to reframe the way we think about Native American educational history. Reed draws on archaeological evidence from Southeastern US caves, ethnohistorical narratives of Cherokee syllabary development, records from Christian mission schools, Cherokee Nation archives, and family and personal histories to reveal surprising continuity amid powerful change. Centering the role of women as educators across generations in Cherokee matrilineal society, the power of land to anchor learning, and the significance of language in expressing sovereignty, Reed fundamentally rethinks the nature of educational space, the roles played by teachers and learners, and the periodization imposed by US settler colonialism onto the Indigenous experience.

Learn more about Land, Language, and Women at the University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Land, Language, and Women.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great sci-fi books about competitions

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five great sci-fi titles about competitions. One title on the list:

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

It’s a space race against time in this exciting series starter about a salvage crew’s attempt to find a legendary warship. Boots, a once-famous treasure hunter, and Nilah, a driver from the Pan Galactic Racing Federation, team up to find the Harrow, which may or may not be real. But if it is real, it would be terrible if it fell into the hands of the wrong people, so they have to try. Making their efforts more difficult is the fact that there’s a killer hot on their ship’s heels!

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

The Page 69 Test: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Laura Jensen Walker reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker, author of The Alphabet Sleuths.

Her entry begins:

I usually have two or three books going at the same time—toggling between them depending on my mood. Recently, I finished The Correspondent, the book that has taken the world by storm. Understandably so. I loved this debut novel by Virginia Evans (and confess to feeling jealous that she knocked it out of the park with her first book.) I’ve always liked epistolary novels—The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a particular favorite—and found this contemporary tale of the smart, stubborn, and opinionated septuagenarian Sybil as revealed through her daily letters and emails, captivating and moving. Dubbed “a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person,” this book is all that and more. Brilliant, witty, and eloquent Sybil van Antwerp, a retired lawyer, sits down at her desk every day to...[read on]

About The Alphabet Sleuths, from the publisher:

Disposing of a body is as easy as A, B, C! Introducing the Alphabet Girls, four senior gal pals turned accidental sleuths―The Thursday Murder Club meets The Golden Girls, with a splash of Killers of a Certain Age

At sixty-nine years old, Claire Reynolds is changing things up. She’s volunteering. Learning to rollerblade. She’s rescued a shelter dog. And today, she’s killed a man. It wasn’t on her to-do list, but stuff happens.

Besides, the man in question was strangling her good friend Daphne, and what’s a gal to do? Scream, possibly. Call the cops. Or―at retired officer Daphne’s insistence―call in the rest of their senior gal pals, roll up the body in a blanket, and toss it off a cliff.

The dead man is a member of the local crime family, and if the police get involved it’s not just Daphne at risk, it’s them all.

But the body’s just the start. Soon the Alphabet Girls―Atsuko, Barbara, Claire, and Daphne―must transform into the Alphabet Sleuths, if they’re to keep both their liberty . . . and their lives.

Meet Atsuko Kimura (75, retired journalist), Barbara Wright (age redacted, retired actress), Claire Reynolds (69, retired paralegal), and Daphne Cole (62, retired cop) in the first funny, fast-paced Alphabet Girls Mystery from award-winning author Laura Jensen Walker.

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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Rahul Bhattacharya

From my Q&A with Rahul Bhattacharya, author of Railsong: A Novel:

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

Railsong. The word is, of course, a neologism. Isn’t it a beautiful one? I feel unabashed in praising it because I didn’t coin it. My literary agent did. I had the phrase “song of the rails” in the novel, and she turned that into this title. It is not exactly an “about” title, yet to my mind, it evokes so much of the novel’s spirit. The railroads that run like a song through the soul of India, braiding the staggering diversity of its people and landscapes. The song that runs through the life of Charulata Chitol, my railway worker protagonist, whose tragedies and triumphs we follow over three decades. I did, in fact, consider naming the novel after her, but...[read on]

Visit Rahul Bhattacharya's website.

Q&A with Rahul Bhattacharya.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lytton N. McDonnell's "Counterpoints of Ecstasy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Counterpoints of Ecstasy: Music, Mysticism, and the Enchantment of Modern America by Lytton N. McDonnell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cultural history of the relationship between music and trance in America, from the early colonial era to the Jazz Age.

Counterpoints of Ecstasy provides an engaging exploration of the relationship between music and self-transcendent experiences in America from the 1620s to the 1920s. It investigates how diverse Americans-from Puritan settlers to vaudeville entertainers-used music to find meaning in ecstasy, trance, and other mystical experiences that drastically altered their senses of subjectivity. These moments of profound transformation unfolded in settings as diverse as revival tents, concert halls, parlors, and movie theaters. The book introduces four distinct modes of self-transcendent experience-supernatural, natural, internal, and equivocal-demonstrating how various interpretations of ecstasy evolved out of and alongside each other. Blending historical analysis with cultural theory, the book integrates traditional narratives of disenchantment and re-enchantment, offering a richly textured account of music's power to dissolve boundaries and foster connection. A vital contribution to the histories of religion, spirituality, music, and American culture, Counterpoints of Ecstasy invites readers to reconsider the profound, sometimes paradoxical, role that music played in the quest for meaning beyond the self.

Learn more about Counterpoints of Ecstasy at the State University of New York Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Counterpoints of Ecstasy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine memoirs about dating, desire, & reclamation

Estelle Erasmus, an award-winning journalist and 2025 TEDx Speaker, is the author of Writing That Gets Noticed (named a "Best Book for Writers" by Poets & Writers Magazine), as well as the host/executive producer of the podcast Freelance Writing Direct. She is an adjunct instructor for NYU’s School of Professional Studies/Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts, and has written for over 150 publications, including the New York Times, Next Avenue, WIRED, Slate, The Independent, the Washington Post, and AARP: The Magazine.

At Electric Lit Erasmus tagged nine memoirs that "offer a realistic counterpoint to Valentine’s Day myths, and a clearer understanding of what it really meant to search for love." One title on the list:

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

In Everything I Know About Love, British journalist and podcaster Dolly Alderton chronicles the chaotic early years of dating, friendship, disordered eating, partying, and growing up, using sharp humor and emotional candor to capture what it feels like to want love before knowing how to ask for it. Structured as a collage of personal essays, text messages, lists (“The Most Annoying Things People Say”), recipes (“The Seducer’s Sole Meunière”), and “Bad Date Diaries,” the memoir mirrors the messiness of real life and romantic longing. Alderton moves swiftly through breakups, nights out, getting drunk, getting dumped, and intense female friendships, tracing how romantic pursuit often runs parallel to the deeper work of self-definition. Therapy eventually helps her leave behind destructive patterns as she approaches thirty, but the book resists a tidy redemption arc. More than a dating memoir, this is a coming-of-age story that argues that friendship and self-knowledge gained from heartbreak can be just as formative and sustaining as romantic love.

Read about another entry on the list.

Everything I Know About Love inspired Chloe Gong to dream big.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Megan Chance's "The Vermilion Sea"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Vermilion Sea: A Novel by Megan Chance.

The entry begins:

The Vermilion Sea was lot of fun to write. It’s not only historical fiction, but it’s also got a bit of paranormal and some horror thrown in for good measure. Given that it all takes place on a specimen-collecting luxury cruise on the Gulf of California, and there’s nowhere for the guests or the scientists to go once things begin to go horribly wrong, it’s a locked-door story as well.

Since we’re dealing with the realms of the fantastic here, and weird creatures and big weird atmosphere energy, for a director, I’m going to pick Guillermo Del Toro, though honestly it would have been fun to see what Alfred Hitchcock would have done with the tension in the book as well.

When I was writing, I had distinct actors in mind. For the main female protagonist, marine biologist Billie McKennan, I pictured British actor Emily Beecham, who starred in the Netflix series 1899 (RIP 1899. I loved you with my whole heart). For the character of James Holloway, the rich benefactor and owner of the cruise ship Eurybia, I pictured...[read on]

Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance (January 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Glamorous Notions.

The Page 69 Test: Glamorous Notions.

My Book, The Movie: The Vermilion Sea.

The Page 69 Test: The Vermilion Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Patrick J. Connolly's "Newton's Metaphysics of Substance"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Newton's Metaphysics of Substance: God, Bodies, Minds by Patrick J. Connolly.

About the book, from the publisher:

Newton's Metaphysics of Substance offers a systematic interpretation of Isaac Newton's views on the ontology of substance and related issues of modality, causation, and dependence. Alongside and sometimes in dialogue with his work in mathematics and physics, Newton developed a coherent and unified account of God, material bodies, human minds, and the relations between them. Drawing on a large number of published and unpublished sources, Patrick J. Connolly traces the development of Newton's views, situates them within the wider context of early modern philosophy, and highlights their value and originality.

Newton holds that God is different in kind from created substances. While God has a substantial essence or nature, created substances like bodies and human minds are merely collections of powers. Created substances nonetheless enjoy considerable independence and autonomy. Newton rejects positions like occasionalism which deeply involve God in the immediate production of nature's works. Much of his project, then, involves individuating, defining, and analysing the different powers that join together to account for the phenomena displayed by minds and bodies.

Exploring Newton's understanding of God, bodies, and minds in this way reveals his deep engagement with many of the central philosophical issues considered by his contemporaries. Among other topics, the book canvases Newton's approach to arguments for God's existence, the univocity of being, causation, atomism and infinite divisibility, the architecture of matter, human cognitive faculties, and the mind-body problem. On each of these topics Newton carefully engages the views of his predecessors in the course of developing arguments for his preferred position.

While Newton's work is of continuing interest for philosophy of science, this book shows that his philosophical interests and achievements were much broader. Although he never published a unified treatment of his metaphysical views, it is possible to understand Newton as having constructed a philosophical system. In this sense, he can be usefully situated alongside figures like Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz.

Learn more about Newton's Metaphysics of Substance at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Newton's Metaphysics of Substance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best cult thrillers

Jennifer Brody, also known as Vera Strange, is the award—winning author of the Disney Chills series, the Continuum Trilogy, and Stoker finalist Spectre Deep 6, which prompted Forbes to call her “a star in the graphic novel world.” She is the coauthor of All Is Found: A Frozen Anthology and Star Wars: Stories of Jedi and Sith, in which she penned the Darth Vader story. A graduate of Harvard University, Brody is also a film/TV producer and writer and a creative writing instructor. She began her career in Hollywood working for A—list directors and movie studios on many films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Golden Compass. Brody lives and writes in Joshua Tree, California.

Her new novel is Namaste and Slay: A Dark Romantic Thriller.

At CrimeReads Brody tagged six top cult thrillers that "aren’t just escapist reads; they’re cautionary tales about the perils of seeking salvation in the wrong places." One title on the list:

Amina Akhtar, Kismet

Finally, Amina Akhtar’s Kismet (2024) skewers Sedona’s crystal-clutching scene with murderous wit. Ronnie Khan, a New Yorker escaping her abusive past, follows wellness influencer Marley to Arizona’s red rocks. What starts as downward dogs and aura cleansings spirals into rivalries, esoteric power plays, and bodies piling up amid the vortexes. Akhtar’s satire is sharp, exposing the performative spirituality of influencers while delivering thriller thrills. The cult energy pulses through the “glittering guru” crowd, where enlightenment hides cutthroat ambition. It vibes with Namaste and Slay’s luxury-gone-wrong ethos, blending humor with horror in a desert of deception.

Read about another entry on the list.

Kismet is among Elisa Shoenberger's eight top thrillers about influencers and the world of influencing, Rachel Koller Croft's eight top thrillers in which the characters actually get to have fun, Jamie Lee Sogn's eight top mysteries & thrillers set in the wellness industry, Molly Odintz's twelve wacky, weird, and wildly entertaining mysteries & thrillers and Meredith Hambrock's five recent crime novels featuring messy female characters.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Louise Fein reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Louise Fein, author of Book of Forbidden Words: A Novel.

One title she mentions:

The Artist [US title - The Artist and the Feast] by Lucy Steeds

This is a story of a young aspiring journalist who hopes to kick start his career by travelling to rural Provence shortly after the end of World War I to interview a famous, reclusive artist. There he encounters the artist’s strange and silent niece. This is a stunningly beautiful and evocative novel, which positively drips with secrets, colour, light and the slow pace of life in 1920’s rural Provence. It is part mystery, part love story, part exploration of the twisted, painful affairs of the human heart. I loved every exquisite...[read on]

About Book of Forbidden Words, from the publisher:

From bestselling author Louise Fein comes a new historical novel set in a world of banned books and censorship, in which an encrypted manuscript unleashes a chain of consequences across 400 years, perfect for fans of Weyward and The Briar Club.

1552, PARIS: The print­ing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.

1952, NEW YORK: Milly Bennett is a lonely housewife struggling to find her way in her new neighborhood amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. She finds her life taking an unexpected turn when a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, pulling her into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

Visit Louise Fein's website.

Q&A with Louise Fein.

Writers Read: Louise Fein.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mara Casey Tieken's "Educated Out"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges-And What It Costs Them by Mara Casey Tieken.

About the book, from the publisher:

Through the stories of nine rural, first-generation students and their families, Educated Out shows how geography shapes college opportunities, from admission to postgraduation options.

A former third-grade teacher in rural Tennessee, education researcher Mara Casey Tieken watched as her former students graduated high school. She was shocked at how few were heading to college—and none were going to elite four-year schools. These students were representative of a larger national phenomenon: In 2021, 31 percent of rural adults aged twenty-five and older held a postsecondary degree, compared to 45 percent of urban adults, and rural students are especially unlikely to pursue degrees from private, selective schools. Why, Tieken wondered? And what happens to the handful of rural students who do attend elite colleges, colleges that may feel worlds away from home?

Tieken addresses these questions in Educated Out—a study that shows how geography shapes rural, first-generation students’ access to college, their college experiences, and their postgraduation plans and opportunities. Tieken closely follows a group of nine students for their college years and beyond at an elite New England private school that she calls Hilltop. Interviews with these students reveal the critical moments in the students’ educational careers when their rural origins mattered most: when applying to college, she shows how students are hindered by limited college counseling resources. Once on campus, they learn that many of the school’s opportunities are not available to them: they cannot access spring break trips, job networks, or low-pay-but-important internships. These students discover that home and college are very different worlds with different academic, social, and political climates—and, over time, they start to question both. As they near graduation and navigate a job market in which the highest-paying and most prestigious opportunities are located in urban centers, they begin to feel the complicated burden of their schooling: they’ve been “educated out.” Their stories show the costs of college for rural students: If they do not pursue higher education, they lose the opportunity for social mobility; if they do, they face a more permanent departure. These costs are individual, but rural families and communities also suffer—they lose young people with talent and skills.

In addition to advocating for a higher education landscape that truly includes rural students, Tieken critiques a system that requires people to leave their rural homes in search of opportunities. Our current economy depends on inexpensive rural labor. Without meaningful change, some students will have to make the impossible decision to leave home—and far more will remain there, undereducated and overlooked.

Both engaging and accessible, Educated Out presents important and timely questions about rurality, identity, education, and inequality.

Learn more about Educated Out at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Educated Out.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top fake dating romance novels

Haruka Iwasaki is a writer and bookseller living in Brooklyn, NY. She writes personal essays about her Japanese American identity, grief and growing up in NYC. One essay has appeared in print this year in Oh Reader magazine.

At Lit Hub Iwasaki tagged seven favorite fake dating romance novels to read for Valentine’s Day, including:

Lynn Painter, Better than the Movies

Romantic comedy-obsessed Liz has been fantasizing about the perfect romance with her dream guy, Michael, who just moved back to town. But Michael is also friends with Liz’s next door neighbor (and nemesis), Wes. Naturally, Liz decides to create her own rom-com HAE and rope Wes into helping her win Michael’s heart by pretending to fake date each other. Will Liz’s romantic notions help her win Michael or Wes? Despite its screwball plot, this book will have you in a puddle of tears!

Read about another title on the list.

Q&A with Lynn Painter.

--Marshal Zeringue