Monday, March 18, 2024

What is Chris Nickson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Chris Nickson, author of The Scream of Sins.

His entry begins:
At the moment, a variety of things seems to be the answer, and it's all re-reading. A few favourite Georgette Heyer titles: The Grand Sophy (even with its moment of outmoded anti-Semitism) and Veneita. I love that she has strong heroines, and the dialogue between her female and male lead characters is like watching masters fencing, a masterclass in how to do it. I came later to her, but for the most part I'm very much a convert.

Right now, however, I'm on The Investigator by John Sandford, the first in a series featuring Letty Davenport, the daughter of Lucas, the lead in many of Sandford's books. It's...[read on]
About The Scream of Sins, from the publisher:
Thief-taker Simon Westow uncovers an evil lurking in the underbelly of Leeds in this page-turning historical mystery, perfect for fans of Anne Perry and Charles Finch.

Leeds, October 1824.
Thief-taker Simon Westow's job seems straightforward. Captain Holcomb's maid, Sophie, has stolen important papers that could ruin the family's reputation, and he's desperate for their return. But the case very quickly takes a murderous turn, and it becomes clear the papers are hiding a host of sins...

During the search, Simon's assistant, Jane, hears a horrific tale: men are snatching young girls from small towns for use by the rich. Those who are unwanted are tossed on to the streets of Leeds to survive among the homeless. With the help of an unlikely, deadly new companion, Jane will do everything to discover who's responsible and make them pay.

Can Simon and Jane recover Holcomb's letters and get justice for the stolen girls? It becomes a battle that might result in them losing everything . . . including their lives.
Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six spooky & fantastical missing-persons stories

Melissa Albert is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of the Hazel Wood series (The Hazel Wood, The Night Country, Tales from the Hinterland) and Our Crooked Hearts, and a former bookseller and YA lit blogger. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and included in the New York Times list of Notable Children’s Books. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Albert's new novel is The Bad Ones.

At CrimeReads she tagged six "supernatural and horror-inflected stories in which vanishings drive the plot." One title on the list:
Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Twenty years ago college girl Etain left a party in the middle of the night, driving alone into the wilds of rural Ireland. She was found days later, forever changed by the nightmare she survived. What happened to her colors her entire future and that of her husband and daughters—one who vanished in childhood, the other, Ashling, marked by her toxic relationship with an alcoholic mother who can hardly bear to look at her since her other child vanished. But Ashling knows what no one will ever believe: her sister’s disappearance has everything to do with a local children’s television show and a box on set that must never be opened, containing the wicked entity that took her sister away. This is a family horror story threaded through with cult activity and terrifying Celtic mythology, its mysteries revealed with tantalizing precision.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kristin M. Girten's "Sensitive Witnesses"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Sensitive Witnesses: Feminist Materialism in the British Enlightenment by Kristin M. Girten.

About the book, from the publisher:
Kristin M. Girten tells a new story of feminist knowledge-making in the Enlightenment era by exploring the British female philosophers who asserted their authority through the celebration of profoundly embodied observations, experiences, and experiments. This book explores the feminist materialist practice of sensitive witnessing, establishing an alternate history of the emergence of the scientific method in the eighteenth century. Francis Bacon and other male natural philosophers regularly downplayed the embodied nature of their observations. They presented themselves as modest witnesses, detached from their environment and entitled to the domination and exploitation of it. In contrast, the author-philosophers that Girten takes up asserted themselves as intimately entangled with matter—boldly embracing their perceived close association with the material world as women. Girten shows how Lucy Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Charlotte Smith took inspiration from materialist principles to challenge widely accepted "modest" conventions for practicing and communicating philosophy. Forerunners of the feminist materialism of today, these thinkers recognized the kinship of human and nonhuman nature and suggested a more accessible, inclusive version of science. Girten persuasively argues that our understanding of Enlightenment thought must take into account these sensitive witnesses' visions of an alternative scientific method informed by profound closeness with the natural world.
Learn more about Sensitive Witnesses at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Sensitive Witnesses.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Q&A with Sydney Leigh

From my Q&A with Sydney Leigh, author of Peril in Pink:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title of my book, Peril in Pink lets the reader know two key things. First, that something bad is going to happen. It’s a murder mystery, so that’s a plus. Second, that the book has a fun vibe. This is a story about Jess, a woman who quits her job and partners with her best friend, Kat, to open a Bed & Breakfast. Jess and Kat paint all of the doors of the B & B pink to help establish their brand (and the title of the book!). Of course, when someone is murdered during the opening weekend, Jess feels compelled to get involved and becomes an amateur sleuth in the process.

No one is going to read the title and think this is an angst-fueled spy novel or a literary thriller (two genres I love to read but cannot write). Like the story, the title is light and playful.

My working title as I wrote the book was...[read on]
Visit Sydney Leigh's website.

Q&A with Sydney Leigh.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books for St. Patrick’s Day

The Zoomer Book Club's Nathalie Atkinson tagged eight notable new reads in the Irish literary wave, including:
WHERE THEY LIE by Claire Coughlan

Celebrated Irish author John Banville, who writes the popular Quirke crime series set in mid-century Ireland, praises journalist Coughlan’s 1968-set historical literary thriller. The murder mystery follows Nicoletta, an ambitious young reporter, as new evidence in a long-forgotten murder is uncovered; it’s related to an underground feminist abortion service, making the novel as much about Irish women’s long quest for reproductive autonomy as a whodunnit.
Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Where They Lie.

Q&A with Claire Coughlan.

My Book, The Movie: Where They Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rachel Lyon's "Fruit of the Dead," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Fruit of the Dead: A Novel by Rachel Lyon.

The entry begins:
There are many young actresses who could play a version of Cory really well. She is described as tall and beautiful, but she also sees herself as awkward and gawky, with a big nose. In my opinion, Maya Hawke would be ideal.

And if Maya Hawke were playing Cory—and I had all the power in the world—I'd obviously have to cast...[read on]
Visit Rachel Lyon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Self-Portrait with Boy.

My Book, The Movie: Self-Portrait with Boy.

The Page 69 Test: Fruit of the Dead.

My Book, The Movie: Fruit of the Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Five top Irish-themed books

The Amazon Book Review editors tagged five of their favorite Irish reads, including:
The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson

America’s fascination with the Kennedy family has been undimmed for over six decades now. The store of cold, hard facts about their lives and deaths have long ago been exhausted and have given way to reams of speculation. And then, just when it seems there are no fresh angles on Camelot, along comes Neal Thompson’s The First Kennedys. The first American Kennedys, that is: Patrick and Bridget Kennedy, driven—as over a million and a half Irish people were—by the Famine to seek refuge in a country that didn’t exactly put out the welcome mat. In penetrating prose studded with information and insight, Thompson vividly describes how, as a young widow, Bridget Kennedy went from maid to businesswoman, outmaneuvering relentless discrimination to steer her family out of the jaws of poverty. Through her story, Thompson shows us the seeds of one of the great American stories.
Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 99 Test: The First Kennedys.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David L. Kirchman's "Microbes"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Microbes: The Unseen Agents of Climate Change by David L. Kirchman.

About the book, from the publisher:
For billions of years, microbes have produced and consumed greenhouse gases that regulate global temperature and in turn other aspects of our climate. The balance of these gases maintains Earth's habitability. Methane, a greenhouse gas produced only by microbes, may have kept Earth out of a deep freeze billions of years ago. Likewise, variations in carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas released by microbes and other organisms, help to explain the comings and goings of ice ages over the last million years.

Now we face a human-made climate crisis with drastic consequences. The complete story behind greenhouse gases, however, involves microbes and their role in natural ecosystems. Microscopic organisms are also part of the solution, producing biofuels and other forms of green energy which keep fossil fuels in the ground. Other microbes can be harnessed to reduce the release of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture, and geoengineering solutions that depend on microbes could pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

In this book, David L. Kirchman introduces a unique and timely contribution to the climate change conversation and the part microbes play in our past, present, and future. He takes readers into the unseen world behind the most important environmental problem facing society today and encourages us to embrace microbial solutions that are essential to mitigating climate change.
Learn more about Microbes: The Unseen Agents of Climate Change at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Microbes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laura McNeal's "The Swan's Nest"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Swan's Nest: A Novel by Laura McNeal.

About the book, from the publisher:
A tender and engrossing historical novel about the unlikely love affair between two great 19th-century poets, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.

On a bleak January day in 1845, a poet who had been confined to her room for four years by recurrent illness received a letter from a writer she secretly idolized but had never seen. “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,” Robert Browning wrote, “and I love you too.”

Elizabeth Barrett was ecstatic. She was famous for her poetry but completely cut off from the kind of international travel that Browning used to fuel his obscure, unsuccessful, innovative poems, one of which was written from a murderer’s point of view. They began an affectionate correspondence, but Elizabeth kept delaying a visit. What would happen when he saw her in person? What was Robert really like? Could she persuade her father and brothers that he was honorable, even though she had never met his family? And what would happen if she gave in to Robert’s wild proposal that they go to Italy and see if the sun could cure her?

McNeal brilliantly tells the story of how Robert and Elizabeth fell in love with each other’s words and shocked her conservative, close-knit family and the literary world. Sensitively and lyrically written, as rich as the lovers' own poetry, The Swan's Nest will sweep up readers in the triumphant story of two people forced to choose between a safe, stable life and the love they felt for each other.
Visit Laura McNeal's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Laura McNeal & Link.

The Page 69 Test: The Incident on the Bridge.

Writers Read: Laura McNeal (May 2016).

My Book, The Movie: The Incident on the Bridge.

My Book, The Movie: The Swan's Nest.

The Page 69 Test: The Swan's Nest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, March 15, 2024

Five of the best books inspired by classic novels

Sophie Ratcliffe is professor of literature and creative criticism at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor at Lady Margaret Hall. In addition to her scholarly books, including On Sympathy, she has published commentary pieces and book reviews for the Guardian, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other outlets, and has served a judge for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize.

Ratcliffe's forthcoming book is Loss, A Love Story: Imagined Histories and Brief Encounters.

At the Guardian she tagged five top books inspired by classic novels, including:
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes

Retired doctor, Geoffrey Braithwaite, is obsessed with works of Gustave Flaubert. But gradually, his diligent accretion of details about Flaubert’s fiction reveal themselves as a carapace – and a way of avoiding his own reality. The layers of this brilliant love story lift painfully, with the ghost of Flaubert’s most famous heroine, Madame Bovary, drifting beneath the surface. Flaubert’s Parrot doubles back on itself so many times it feels like a corridor of mirrors. But you’re left, in the end, not with emptiness, but with a feeling of generous, sorrowful yearning. “Books”, Braithwaite bleakly reflects, “make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people’s lives, never your own.”
Read about another entry on the list.

Flaubert’s Parrot is among Antoine Laurain's top ten books about books and Álvaro Enrigue's ten notable books based on other books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Donna J. Nicol's "Black Woman on Board"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action by Donna J. Nicol.

About the book, from the publisher:
Offers a rare view inside the university boardroom, uncovering the vital role Black women educational leaders have played in ensuring access and equity for all.

Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action
examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Author Donna J. Nicol tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University(CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974–94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Amid a growing white backlash against changes brought on by the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Nicol argues that Hampton enacted "sly civility" to persuade fellow trustees, CSU system officials, and state lawmakers to enforce federal and state affirmative action mandates.

Black Woman on Board explores how Hampton methodically "played the game of boardsmanship," using the soft power she cultivated amongst her peers to remove barriers that might have impeded the implementation and expansion of affirmative action policies and programs. In illuminating the ways that Hampton transformed the CSU as the "affirmative action trustee," this remarkable book makes an important contribution to the history of higher education and to the historiography of Black women's educational leadership in the post-Civil Rights era.
Visit Donna J. Nicol's website.

The Page 99 Test: Black Woman on Board.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Clare McHugh

From my Q&A with Clare McHugh, author of The Romanov Brides: A Novel of the Last Tsarina and Her Sisters:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I feel so lucky to have landed on the perfect title for this novel! What better title than The Romanov Brides for a book that brings to life on the page the momentous decisions made by two German princesses, the sisters Ella and Alix of Hesse, to marry into the Romanov family, imperial rulers of Russia.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

I think that my teenage self would be delighted to see that I achieved my dream of publishing an historical novel. In fact...[read on]
Visit Clare McHugh's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Romanov Brides.

Q&A with Clare McHugh.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Six great psychological thrillers set in Washington D.C.

Aggie Blum Thompson worked as a newspaper reporter, covering cops, courts, and trials, with a healthy dose of the mundane mixed in. Her writing has appeared in newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. A native New Yorker, she now lives just over the Washington D.C. line in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband, two children, cat, and dog.

Thompson's new novel is Such a Lovely Family.

At CrimeReads she tagged six top non-political thrillers set in the nation’s capital, including:
In Follow Me, Kathleen Barber’s tale of taut psychological suspense, Audrey Miller moves to D.C. and lands a job as the head of social media at a Smithsonian art museum. But things start to go haywire when someone who has been obsessively following her on social media for years—from her first WordPress blog to her most recent Instagram story — crosses the line into her real life.

What to visit: the Smithsonian’s Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden, where you can see modern sculptures and enjoy a cup of coffee in a quiet spot hiding in plain sight along the National Mall.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthieu Grandpierron's "Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Powers Cope with Status Decline by Matthieu Grandpierron.

About the book, from the publisher:
Why do great powers go to war? Why are non-violent, diplomatic options not prioritized? Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War argues that world leaders react to status decline by going to war, guided by a nostalgic, virile understanding of what it means to be powerful. This nostalgic virility – a system of subjective beliefs about power, bravery, strength, morality, and health – acts as a filter through which leaders articulate glorified interpretations of history and assess their power and their country’s status on the international stage. In this rigorous study of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Matthieu Grandpierron tests the theory of nostalgic virility against the two more common theoretical frameworks of realism and the diversionary theory of war. Consulting thousands of newly declassified government documents at the highest levels of decision making, Grandpierron examines three specific cases – the early years of the Indochina War (1945–47), the British reconquest of the Falklands in 1982, and the US invasion of Grenada in 1983 – convincingly contending that status-seeking behaviour and nostalgic virility are more relevant in explaining why a leader chooses war and conflict over non-violent, diplomatic options than the dominant frameworks. Looking to the recent past, Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War considers how this new model can be applied to current conflicts – from the Russian war in Ukraine to Chinese actions in the South China Sea – and provides surprising ways of thinking about the relationship between power, decision makers, and causes of war.
Learn more about Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War at the McGill-Queens University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Chris Nickson's "The Scream of Sins"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins by Chris Nickson.

About the book, from the publisher:
Thief-taker Simon Westow uncovers an evil lurking in the underbelly of Leeds in this page-turning historical mystery, perfect for fans of Anne Perry and Charles Finch.

Leeds, October 1824.
Thief-taker Simon Westow's job seems straightforward. Captain Holcomb's maid, Sophie, has stolen important papers that could ruin the family's reputation, and he's desperate for their return. But the case very quickly takes a murderous turn, and it becomes clear the papers are hiding a host of sins...

During the search, Simon's assistant, Jane, hears a horrific tale: men are snatching young girls from small towns for use by the rich. Those who are unwanted are tossed on to the streets of Leeds to survive among the homeless. With the help of an unlikely, deadly new companion, Jane will do everything to discover who's responsible and make them pay.

Can Simon and Jane recover Holcomb's letters and get justice for the stolen girls? It becomes a battle that might result in them losing everything . . . including their lives.
Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Eight books about characters with psychic abilities

Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter and translator. Her novel, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed, LitHub and others, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, German, and Italian. She has published stories in various literary magazines and translated poetry and prose for Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky (2008), short-listed for the Best Translated Book Award. She co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film New Orleans, Mon Amour, which premiered at SXSW in 2008. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George grant, an Olin Fellowship, the Alena Wilson prize, and a 3rd Year Fiction Fellowship from Washington University in St. Louis, where she did her MFA. She has done residencies at VCCA, Playa, Ucross, Art Omi: Writing, and Fondation Jan Michalski in Switzerland. Born in Moscow, she grew up in Boston, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter and dog.

Apekina's new novel is Mother Doll.

At Electric Lit the author tagged eight "stories about characters who can predict the future and connect to the other side," including:
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Alison, a psychic, and Colette, her personal assistant, travel around the suburbs of London doing readings and channeling the dead. When they settle down in the suburbs, things gets dark. Alison’s contact with the dead has been scarier than she has let on.
Read about another entry on the list.

Beyond Black is among M. M. DeLuca's five top books that feature mediums & the spirit world, Isaac Fellman's five books that feel like a trippy haunted house, Laura Purcell's ten top books about spirit mediums, Jess Kidd's ten essential supernatural mysteries, and Sarah Porter's five top books with unusual demons and devils.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Arthur Goldwag's "The Politics of Fear"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Politics of Fear: The Peculiar Persistence of American Paranoia by Arthur Goldwag.

About the book, from the publisher:
From the author of Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies, a probing exploration of the bizarre and dangerous conspiracies that have roiled America over the past decade and captured the minds of so many Americans

Some of the conspiracy theories now gripping American politics contend that Joe Biden was executed and replaced by a clone and that John F. Kennedy Jr., faked his death and will one day return to slay Trump’s enemies. But who is susceptible to them, and what makes them so politically potent?

Investigating the historical roots of our peculiar brand of political paranoia, Arthur Goldwag helps us make sense of the senseless and, in so doing, uncovers three uncomfortable truths: that it is older than Trumpism and will outlast it; that theocratic authoritarianism is as hardwired in our American heritage as the principles of the Enlightenment; and that the fear that our system is “rigged” is not altogether unfounded. A probing, surprising, and critical examination of America’s paranoid style, The Politics of Fear sheds new light on the age-old question: What exactly are we so afraid of?
Visit Arthur Goldwag's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Politics of Fear.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Rachel Lyon

From my Q&A with Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead: A Novel:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Fruit of the Dead came to me through researching the myth of Persephone. While in the underworld, Persephone eats six pomegranate seeds, sometimes referred to as "fruit of the dead," an act that, without her knowledge, binds her to the place for eternity. Every time I revisit the myth I'm offended on Persephone's behalf that nobody tells her, on entry, "Hey, just be aware, the food here is cursed, stay away from it," or, like, offers her any paperwork to look over, any fine print. In my book, the 18-year-old Cory, an analogue for Persephone, is given an NDA to sign, but becomes hooked on a (fictional) drug that her employer, a pharmaceutical CEO, has yet to bring to market. He describes it as, "a highly effective, highly popular, highly pleasant, highly safe, frankly groundbreaking painkiller. Greater efficacy. Fewer side effects. Longer relief. Plus, you know, between you and me, it’s a good time. Not too good. Just good enough, let’s say. Granadone is so safe we used it in a cocktail at the company Christmas party. Vodka, soda, bitters, a splash of pomegranate juice, a slice of lime. Tasty—kind of plummy—and so potent you felt like you’d transcended this earthly sphere. We called the cocktail Fruit of the Dead. I mean, come on. Irresistible, right?" So the titular phrase refers not just to the mythical seeds, but also to this fictional, drug-spiked cocktail, which Cory...[read on]
Visit Rachel Lyon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Self-Portrait with Boy.

My Book, The Movie: Self-Portrait with Boy.

The Page 69 Test: Fruit of the Dead.

Q&A with Rachel Lyon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Seven great vacation and road trip rom-coms

New York Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch's novels include Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing, In Twenty Years, and Time of My Life. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and their two rescue dogs, Hugo and Mr. Peanut.

Her new novel, Take Two, Birdie Maxwell -- think Notting Hill meets The Proposal -- is new in bookstores.

At LitHub Scotch tagged seven favorite great vacation and road trip rom-coms, including:
Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

If you haven’t picked up Doan’s books yet, you’re in for a treat. All of them are gorgeously written and absolutely consuming, and Summer Hours is no exception. A nostalgic, swoony road trip with the man who broke her heart offers Becc Reardon a second chance at love but just as critically, forces her to consider what’s ultimately worth fighting for—both in love and within herself.

Be sure to also pick up Doan’s Lady Sunshine when you’re done, another one of my favorites—I’m on a mission to make her a household name.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Summer Hours.

My Book, The Movie: Lady Sunshine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Anne Berg's "Empire of Rags and Bones"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Empire of Rags and Bones: Waste and War in Nazi Germany by Anne Berg.

About the book, from the publisher:
Paper, bottles, metal scrap, kitchen garbage, rubber, hair, fat, rags, and bones--the Nazi empire demanded its population obsessively collect anything that could be reused or recycled. Entrepreneurs, policy makers, and ordinary citizens conjured up countless schemes to squeeze value from waste or invent new purposes for defunct or spent material, no matter the cost to people or the environment. As World War II dragged on, rescued loot--much of it waste--clogged transport routes and piled up in warehouses across Europe.

Historicizing the much-championed ideal of zero waste, Anne Berg shows that the management of waste was central to the politics of war and to the genesis of genocide in the Nazi Germany. Destruction and recycling were part of an overarching strategy to redress raw material shortages, procure lebensraum, and cleanse the continent of Jews and others considered undesirable. Fostering cooperation between the administration, the party, the German Army, the SS, and industry, resource extending schemes obscured the crucial political role played by virtually all German citizens to whom salvaging, scrapping, and recycling were promoted as inherently virtuous and orderly behaviors. Throughout Nazi occupied-Europe, Jews, POWs, concentration camp inmates, and enemy civilians were forced to recycle the loot, discards, and debris of the Nazi race war. In the end, the materials that were fully exploited and the people who had been bled dry were cast aside, buried, burned, or left to rot. Nonetheless, waste reclamation did not have the power to win the war.

Illuminating how the Nazis inverted the economy of value, rescuing discards and murdering people, Empire of Rags and Bones offers an original perspective on genocide, racial ideology, and World War II.
Learn more about Empire of Rags and Bones at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Empire of Rags and Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Clare McHugh's "The Romanov Brides"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Romanov Brides: A Novel of the Last Tsarina and Her Sisters by Clare McHugh.

About the book, from the publisher:
From the author of A Most English Princess comes a rich novel about young Princess Alix of Hesse—the future Alexandra, last Empress of Imperial Russia—and her sister, Princess Ella. Their decision to marry into the Romanov royal family changed history.

They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs.

Defying the Queen’s dire warnings, Ella weds the tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Serge. Cultivated, aloof, and proud, Serge places his young wife on a pedestal for all to admire. Behind palace gates, Ella struggles to secure private happiness.

Alix, whisked away to Russia for Ella’s wedding, meets and captivates Nicky—heir apparent to the Russian throne. While loving him deeply, Alix hears a call of conscience, urging her to walk away.

Their fateful decisions to marry will lead to tragic consequences for not only themselves and their families, but for millions in Russia and around the globe.

The Romanov Brides is a moving and fascinating portrait of two bold and spirited royal sisters, and brings to vivid life imperial Russia—a dazzling, decadent world on the brink of disappearing forever.
Visit Clare McHugh's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Romanov Brides.

--Marshal Zeringue