Pg. 69: Chris Tebbetts's "Me Myself & Him"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Me Myself & Him by Chris Tebbetts.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Chris Schweitzer takes a hit of whippets and passes out face first on the cement, his nose isn’t the only thing that changes forever. Instead of staying home with his friends for the last summer after high school, he’s shipped off to live with his famous physicist but royal jerk of a father to prove he can “play by the rules” before Dad will pay for college.

Or ... not.

In an alternate time line, Chris’s parents remain blissfully ignorant about the accident, and life at home goes back to normal–until it doesn’t. A new spark between his two best (straight) friends quickly turns Chris into a (gay) third wheel, and even worse, the truth about the whippets incident starts to unravel. As his summer explodes into a million messy pieces, Chris wonders how else things might have gone. Is it possible to be jealous of another version of yourself in an alternate reality that doesn’t even exist?

With musings on fate, religion, parallel universes, and the best way to eat a cinnamon roll, Me Myself & Him examines how what we consider to be true is really just one part of the much (much) bigger picture.

Visit Chris Tebbetts's website.

My Book, The Movie: Me Myself & Him.

The Page 69 Test: Me Myself & Him.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Nemata Blyden's "African Americans and Africa"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: African Americans and Africa: A New History by Nemata Amelia Ibitayo Blyden.

About the book, from the publisher:

An introduction to the complex relationship between African Americans and the African continent

What is an “African American” and how does this identity relate to the African continent? Rising immigration levels, globalization, and the United States’ first African American president have all sparked new dialogue around the question. This book provides an introduction to the relationship between African Americans and Africa from the era of slavery to the present, mapping several overlapping diasporas. The diversity of African American identities through relationships with region, ethnicity, slavery, and immigration are all examined to investigate questions fundamental to the study of African American history and culture.

Learn more about African Americans and Africa at the Yale University Press website.

Nemata Blyden is associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University. She is the author of West Indians in West Africa, 1808–1880: The African Diaspora in Reverse.

The Page 99 Test: African Americans and Africa.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty period dramas for fans of Hilary Mantel

At the Waterstones blog, Mark Skinner tagged twenty books for fans of Hilary Mantel, including:

The Blue Flower
Penelope Fitzgerald

Delivered with typical aplomb by one of literature’s understated geniuses, The Blue Flower chronicles the artistic and physical life of the Romantic poet Novalis. Couched in Fitzgerald’s lean, economic prose this shimmering jewel of a novel ripples with humanity and psychological truth.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Blue Flower is one of Will Eaves's ten top fictional takes on real lives, the Telegraph's ten best historical novels, William Skidelsky's ten best historical novels, Andrew Miller's top ten historical novels, Diana Quick's six best books, Sebastian Faulks' forty recommended books, and appears on Kate Blackwell's list of five books distinguished by sheer originality of language and unique vision.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: J. Todd Scott's "This Side of Night"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: This Side of Night by J. Todd Scott.

About the book, from the publisher:

The vicious Mexican cartel war boils over into the Big Bend in the explosive new novel from the author of The Far Empty and High White Sun.

In the Mexican borderlands, a busload of student protesters is gunned down in broad daylight, a violent act blamed on the Nemesio cartel. But its aging leader, Fox Uno, sees the attack for what it is: another salvo in the long-running battle for control of Nemesio itself; perhaps by a rival cartel, or maybe someone closer to home…

Across the Rio Grande, Sheriff Chris Cherry and his deputies America Reynosa and Danny Ford find themselves caught in Fox Uno’s escalating war with the recent discovery of five dead men at the river’s edge. But when El Paso DEA agent Joe Garrison’s own Nemesio investigation leads him into the heart of the Big Bend, he’s not ready to accept the cartel leader’s retreat or defeat. Not only does he suspect a high-profile drug task force in a neighboring county is corrupt, he can’t shake lingering doubts about the loyalty and motives of the young deputy, Ame Reynosa. And he won’t let Sheriff Cherry ignore them either.

In this pitiless land it’s kill or be killed, where everyone will make one final bloody stand to decide the fate of Nemesio, the law in the Big Bend, and most of all, the future of America Reynosa.

Visit J. Todd Scott's website.

The Page 69 Test: High White Sun.

My Book, The Movie: High White Sun.

My Book, The Movie: This Side of Night.

The Page 69 Test: This Side of Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Naomi Booth reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Naomi Booth, author of Sealed.

Her entry begins:

I’m currently reading Tentacle by Rita Indiana, and I’ve never read anything quite like it: it imagines a Santo Domingo after a series of climate crises. The novel’s central character is impoverished and brutalised and made highly vulnerable by events around them—they’re also endlessly creative and energetic and regenerative. This is...[read on]

About Sealed, from the publisher:

Heavily pregnant Alice and her partner Pete are done with the city. Alice is haunted by rumors of a skin-sealing epidemic starting to infect the urban population. She hopes their new remote mountain house will offer safety, a place to forget the nightmares and start their family. But the mountains and their people hold a different kind of danger. With their relationship under intolerable pressure, violence erupts and Alice is faced with the unthinkable as she fights to protect her unborn child.

Timely and suspenseful, Sealed is a gripping modern fable on motherhood, a terrifying portrait of ordinary people under threat from their own bodies and from the world around them.

Visit Naomi Booth's website.

The Page 69 Test: Sealed.

Writers Read: Naomi Booth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten thrillers featuring a dance of girlfriends and deception

Allison Dickson is the author of the new thriller, The Other Mrs. Miller.

Dickson lives in Dayton, Ohio, and when not writing, she is typically gaming, blogging, or exploring.

At CrimeReads, she tagged ten thrillers featuring a dance of girlfriends and deception, including:

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

My book has been compared several times to this one by industry folk and reviewers alike, and what a high compliment that is. Constantine’s twisty tale of wicked girlfriend deception is one after my own heart. When Amber decides she wants Daphne’s rich, fairytale life and marriage, she stops at nothing to get it; inserting herself into the picture as a friend while slowly working to seduce the husband and inherit Daphne’s existence. But of course, it’s never quite so easy. “Be careful what you wish for” never felt so true.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Last Mrs. Parrish is among Kristyn Kusek Lewis's eight shocking thrillers featuring scandals, Margot Hunt's top nine thrillers featuring duplicitous spouses, and Jennifer Hillier's eight crime novels of women starting over.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Mrs. Parrish.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carrie Jones & Steven Wedel's "In the Woods," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: In the Woods by Carrie Jones and Steven E. Wedel.

From the entry:

Chrystal – She’s strong. She’s talented. Her dad is a bit eccentric. So is she. She quote Kierkegaard and has a bass guitar. She’s got the Maya Hawke vibe going on. So Maya Hawke?

Logan – He’s trying to be a poet. He’s kind of failing. He’s got farm boy arm strength and some kind eyes and a ridiculously charming smile. He’s occasionally sexist, but he’s trying. So, maybe Roshon Fegan?

Mr. Lawson-Smith (Chrystal’s dad) – Quirky? Eccentric? Basically Doctor Who as a kindergarten teacher/cryptozoologist? I’m going for Matt Smith. Oh! But if Maya Hawke is Chrystal it would be tremendous for...[read on]

Visit Carrie Jones's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Carrie Jones & Tala.

My Book, The Movie: In the Woods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Pamela Toler's "Women Warriors: An Unexpected History"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Women Warriors: An Unexpected History by Pamela D. Toler.

About the book, from the publisher:

Who says women don't go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of women for whom battle was not a metaphor.

The woman warrior is always cast as an anomaly—Joan of Arc, not GI Jane. But women, it turns out, have always gone to war. In this fascinating and lively world history, Pamela Toler not only introduces us to women who took up arms, she also shows why they did it and what happened when they stepped out of their traditional female roles to take on other identities.

These are the stories of women who fought because they wanted to, because they had to, or because they could. Among the warriors you'll meet are
* Tomyris, ruler of the Massagetae, who killed Cyrus the Great of Persia when he sought to invade her lands
* The West African ruler Amina of Hausa, who led her warriors in a campaign of territorial expansion for more than 30 years
* Boudica, who led the Celtic tribes of Britain into a massive rebellion against the Roman Empire to avenge the rapes of her daughters
* The Trung sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who led an untrained army of 80,000 troops to drive the Chinese empire out of Vietnam
* The Joshigun, a group of 30 combat-trained Japanese women who fought against the forces of the Meiji emperor in the late 19th century
* Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, who was regarded as the "bravest and best" military leader in the 1857 Indian Mutiny against British rule
* Maria Bochkareva, who commanded Russia's first all-female battalion—the First Women's Battalion of Death—during WWII
* Buffalo Calf Road Woman, the Cheyenne warrior who knocked General Custer off his horse at the Battle of Little Bighorn
* Juana Azurduy de Padilla, a mestiza warrior who fought in at least 16 major battles against colonizers of Latin America and who is a national hero in Bolivia and Argentina today
* And many more spanning from ancient times through the 20th century.

By considering the ways in which their presence has been erased from history, Toler reveals that women have always fought—not in spite of being women but because they are women.

Visit Pamela D. Toler's website.

The Page 99 Test: Women Warriors: An Unexpected History.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven titles celebrating 50 years since the Apollo 11 Moon landing

At the B&N Reads blog Ross Johnson tagged eleven books celebrating 50 years since the Apollo 11 Moon landing, including:

Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11, by James Donovan

Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, an event that shocked Americans with the revelation that their Cold War adversary might be leaping ahead in the Space Race. It led to the Mercury mission to put an American into orbit, the Gemini mission to extend our capabilities in space, and, of course, the Apollo program, which took us to the Moon. Donovan explores the whole series of events from beginning to end, highlighting the triumphs and disasters of the three programs that eventually did put people on the Moon. There were incredible challenges, heartbreaking losses, and moments that might have turned out very differently—such as when a critical alarm went off 40,000 feet over the lunar surface—were it not for human ingenuity.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Courtney Maum's "Costalegre"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Costalegre by Courtney Maum.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sinuous and striking, heartbreaking and strange, Costalegre is heavily inspired by the real-life relationship between the heiress Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter, Pegeen. Acclaimed author Courtney Maum triumphs with this wildly imaginative and curiously touching story of a privileged teenager who has everything a girl could wish for except for a mother who loves her back.

It is 1937, and Europe is on the brink of war. In the haute-bohemian circles of Austria, Germany, and Paris, Hitler is circulating a most-wanted list of “cultural degenerates”―artists, writers, and thinkers whose work is deemed antithetical to the new regime. To prevent the destruction of her favorite art (and artists), the impetuous American heiress and modern art collector, Leonora Calaway, begins chartering boats and planes for an elite group of surrealists to Costalegre, a mysterious resort in the Mexican jungle, where she has a home.

The story of what happens to these artists when they reach their destination is told from the point of view of Lara, Leonora’s neglected 15-year-old daughter, who has been pulled out of school to follow her mother to Mexico. Forced from a young age to cohabit with her mother’s eccentric whims, tortured lovers, and entourage of gold-diggers, Lara suffers from emotional, educational, and geographical instability that a Mexican sojourn with surrealists isn’t going to help. But when she meets the outcast Dadaist sculptor Jack Klinger, a much older man who has already been living in Costalegre for some time, Lara thinks she might have found the love and understanding she so badly craves.

Visit Courtney Maum's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You.

The Page 69 Test: Touch.

The Page 69 Test: Costalegre.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Claire Lombardo reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Claire Lombardo, author The Most Fun We Ever Had.

Her entry begins:

Between releasing my first book, packing up my house in Iowa City, and watching seasons one and two of Fleabag on near-constant repeat, I’m afraid I’ve been a less-than-vigorous reader lately, but I have been trying to take advantage of Midwestern porch weather and read a bit each evening. Right now I’m at the beginning of Mona Awad’s Bunny, which called out to me both because it’s been compared to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History—one of my all-time favorites—and because...[read on]

About The Most Fun We Ever Had, from the publisher:

A dazzling, multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple–still madly in love after forty years–recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they’ve built.

When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that’s to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she’s not sure she wants by a man she’s not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents’.

As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt–given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before–we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons’ past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.

Spanning nearly half a century, and set against the quintessential American backdrop of Chicago and its prospering suburbs, Lombardo’s debut explores the triumphs and burdens of love, the fraught tethers of parenthood and sisterhood, and the baffling mixture of affection, abhorrence, resistance, and submission we feel for those closest to us. In painting this luminous portrait of a family’s becoming, Lombardo joins the ranks of writers such as Celeste Ng, Elizabeth Strout, and Jonathan Franzen as visionary chroniclers of our modern lives.

Visit Claire Lombardo's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Most Fun We Ever Had.

Writers Read: Claire Lombardo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top historical crime novels

Laura Purcell worked in local government, the financial industry and a bookshop before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Colchester, the oldest recorded town in England, with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Fascinated by the darker side of royal history, Purcell has also written two historical fiction novels about the Hanoverian dynasty. Her new novel is The Poison Thread.

At CrimeReads, Purcell tagged a few of her "favorite novels that play with the theme of guilt and will have you questioning your own morality," including:

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

The clue is perhaps in the title for this one. In a land riddled by the plague, witchcraft and poverty, nine medieval travelers throw their lot in together in a bid to survive. Each one hides a secret—some more dangerous than others.

Like all Maitland’s work, this tale is rich in creepy atmosphere and suspense, offering deep themes and a satisfying mystery at the same time. The reader is tricked time and again by a diverse cast whose character arcs not only explore the concept of mistruth, but also whether it can be morally right to withhold information.

By the end of this dark and fantastical book, the reader finds themselves faced with the scary realization that we are, essentially, the lies we tell ourselves.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Company of Liars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joseph M. Adelman's "Revolutionary Networks"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763–1789 by Joseph M. Adelman.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the American Revolution, printed material, including newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and broadsides, played a crucial role as a forum for public debate. In Revolutionary Networks, Joseph M. Adelman argues that printers—artisans who mingled with the elite but labored in a manual trade—used their commercial and political connections to directly shape Revolutionary political ideology and mass mobilization. Going into the printing offices of colonial America to explore how these documents were produced, Adelman shows how printers balanced their own political beliefs and interests alongside the commercial interests of their businesses, the customs of the printing trade, and the prevailing mood of their communities.

Adelman describes how these laborers repackaged oral and manuscript compositions into printed works through which political news and opinion circulated. Drawing on a database of 756 printers active during the Revolutionary era, along with a rich collection of archival and printed sources, Adelman surveys printers' editorial strategies. Moving chronologically through the era of the American Revolution and to the war's aftermath, he details the development of the networks of printers and explains how they contributed to the process of creating first a revolution and then the new nation.

By underscoring the important and intertwined roles of commercial and political interests in the development of revolutionary rhetoric, this book essentially reframes our understanding of the American Revolution. Printers, Adelman argues, played a major role as mediators who determined what rhetoric to amplify and where to circulate it. Offering a unique perspective on the American Revolution and early American print culture, Revolutionary Networks reveals how these men and women managed political upheaval through a commercial lens.

Visit Joseph M. Adelman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Revolutionary Networks.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Naomi Booth's "Sealed"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sealed by Naomi Booth.

About the book, from the publisher:

Heavily pregnant Alice and her partner Pete are done with the city. Alice is haunted by rumors of a skin-sealing epidemic starting to infect the urban population. She hopes their new remote mountain house will offer safety, a place to forget the nightmares and start their family. But the mountains and their people hold a different kind of danger. With their relationship under intolerable pressure, violence erupts and Alice is faced with the unthinkable as she fights to protect her unborn child.

Timely and suspenseful, Sealed is a gripping modern fable on motherhood, a terrifying portrait of ordinary people under threat from their own bodies and from the world around them.

Visit Naomi Booth's website.

The Page 69 Test: Sealed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Tebbetts's "Me Myself & Him," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Me Myself & Him by Chris Tebbetts.

The entry begins:

I love questions like this—in part because I was a film major in college; I’m a freak for movies in general; and when I write, some part of me is always imagining my scenes on the screen. I think about where I’d put the camera (aka, what I want to show the reader), when to use a long shot (description of the setting), when to go in for a close up (get inside the character’s head), etc., etc., etc.

As for my prospective actors, I saw a preview the other day for Spiderman: Far From Home, and I have to say, Tom Holland has that average-guy, accessible-but-funny feel to him that I associate with my character Chris (who is, of course, partially based on myself). And Zendaya has impressed me ever since launching off from the Disney Channel (is that where she came from?). She’d be perfect for...[read on]

Visit Chris Tebbetts's website.

My Book, The Movie: Me Myself & Him.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books about doppelgangers

Laurence Scott’s essays and criticism have appeared on NewYorker.com and in the Guardian, the Financial Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. He is a lecturer in writing at New York University in London and lives in London.

Scott’s new book is Picnic Comma Lightning: The Experience of Reality in the Twenty-First Century.

At the Guardian, he tagged his favorite books on convincing imposters. One title on the list:

There are many ways to steal a face, and not all of them rely on the supernatural. The string of murderous misadventures in Patricia Highsmith’s 1950s novel The Talented Mr Ripley depend on Ripley’s ability to impersonate the privileged Dickie Greenleaf. Here, a lack of technology perpetuates the hoax. In a world before it was possible to verify someone’s identity online, a passing resemblance to Greenleaf’s passport photo and a knack with signatures allow Ripley to draw money from his account and take over the dead man’s life.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Talented Mr Ripley is on J.S. Monroe's list of seven suspenseful literary thrillers, Simon Lelic's top ten list of false identities in fiction, Jeff Somers's list of fifty novels that changed novels, Olivia Sudjic's list of eight favorite books about love and obsession, Roz Chast's six favorite books list, Nicholas Searle's top five list of favorite deceivers in fiction, Chris Ewan's list of the ten top chases in literature, Meave Gallagher's top twenty list of gripping page-turners every twentysomething woman should read, Sophia Bennett's top ten list of books set in the Mediterranean, Emma Straub's top ten list of holidays in fiction, E. Lockhart's list of favorite suspense novels, Sally O'Reilly's top ten list of novels inspired by Shakespeare, Walter Kirn's top six list of books on deception, Stephen May's top ten list of impostors in fiction, Simon Mason's top ten list of chilling fictional crimes, Melissa Albert's list of eight books to change a villain, Koren Zailckas's list of eleven of literature's more evil characters, Alex Berenson's five best list of books about Americans abroad John Mullan's list of ten of the best examples of rowing in literature, Tana French's top ten maverick mysteries list, the Guardian's list of the 50 best summer reads ever, the Telegraph's ultimate reading list, and Francesca Simon's top ten list of antiheroes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Samet's "Deadline"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Deadline: Populism and the Press in Venezuela by Robert Samet.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since 2006, Venezuela has had the highest homicide rate in South America and one of the highest levels of gun violence in the world. Former president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, downplayed the extent of violent crime and instead emphasized rehabilitation. His successor, President Nicolás Maduro, took the opposite approach, declaring an all-out war on crime (mano dura). What accounts for this drastic shift toward more punitive measures?

In Deadline, anthropologist Robert Samet answers this question by focusing on the relationship between populism, the press, and what he calls “the will to security.” Drawing on nearly a decade of ethnographic research alongside journalists on the Caracas crime beat, he shows how the media shaped the politics of security from the ground up. Paradoxically, Venezuela’s punitive turn was not the product of dictatorship, but rather an outgrowth of practices and institutions normally associated with democracy. Samet reckons with this apparent contradiction by exploring the circulation of extralegal denuncias (accusations) by crime journalists, editors, sources, and audiences. Denuncias are a form of public shaming or exposé that channels popular anger against the powers that be. By showing how denuncias mobilize dissent, Deadline weaves a much larger tale about the relationship between the press, popular outrage, and the politics of security in the twenty-first century.

Learn more about Deadline at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Deadline.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Daphne Kalotay's "Blue Hours"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Blue Hours by Daphne Kalotay.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mystery linking Manhattan circa 1991 to eastern Afghanistan in 2012, Blue Hours tells of a life-changing friendship between two memorable heroines. When we first meet Mim, she is a recent college graduate who has disavowed her lower middle class roots to befriend Kyra, a dancer and daughter of privilege, until calamity causes their estrangement. Twenty years later, Kyra has gone missing from her NGO's headquarters in Jalalabad, and Mim—now a recluse in rural New England—embarks on a mid-life journey to find her.

Anchored by an uninvited voyage into an extraordinary place, with a love story at its core, Blue Hours combines the adventure and moral complexity of Lillian Hellman's Julia and Ann Patchett's State of Wonder to tell a global story at an intimate level. In its ethical provocations, Blue Hours becomes an unconventional page-turner, confronting America's role in the conflicted, interconnected world.

Learn more about the book and author at Daphne Kalotay's website.

The Page 69 Test: Sight Reading.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Hours.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Heather Child reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Heather Child, author of Everything About You.

Her entry begins:

I read a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, the latter often as research for whatever I’m writing.

This is what brought me to Selfie by Will Storr. It’s ostensibly about our current selfie-taking celebrity culture, but I was surprised to find it a far-reaching study that chronicles how the concept of ‘the individual’ came to be revered, from ancient Greece through to American neoliberalism.

Putting the self first is a western - rather than universal - cultural tendency, and it’s fascinating to read about how research was wilfully misused to argue that high self-esteem would solve all social ills – violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy etc – so that the majority of US primary schools put programmes in place to boost it. Of course, low self-esteem isn’t great either, but...[read on]

About Everything About You, from the publisher:

THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU SHARE YOUR LIFE ONLINE.

Freya has a new virtual assistant. It knows what she likes, knows what she wants and knows whose voice she most needs to hear: her missing sister's.

It adopts her sister's personality, recreating her through a life lived online. But this virtual version of her sister knows things it shouldn't be possible to know. It's almost as if the missing girl is still out there somewhere, feeding fresh updates into the cloud. But that's impossible. Isn't it?

Visit Heather Child's website.

The Page 69 Test: Everything About You.

Writers Read: Heather Child.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Cate Holahan & Westley

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Cate Holahan & Westley.

The author, on how Westley got his name:

My husband and I named him Westley after the pirate in The Princess Bride. We’d hoped he would do “as you wish.” Like the Dread Pirate Roberts, he really does as...[read on]

About Cate Holahan's novel, One Little Secret:

The glass beach house was supposed to be the getaway that Susan needed. Eager to help her transplanted family set down roots in their new town—and desperate for some kid-free conversation—she invites her new neighbors to join in on a week-long sublet with her and her workaholic husband.

Over the course of the first evening, liquor loosens inhibitions and lips. The three couples begin picking up on the others’ marital tensions and work frustrations, as well as revealing their own. But someone says too much. And the next morning one of the women is discovered dead on the private beach.

Town detective Gabby Watkins must figure out who permanently silenced the deceased. As she investigates, she learns that everyone in the glass house was hiding something that could tie them to the murder, and that the biggest secrets of all are often in plain sight for anyone willing to look.

Visit Cate Holahan's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Cate Holahan & Westley.

--Marshal Zeringue