Q&A with Lisa Roe

From my Q&A with Lisa Roe, author of Big & Lily: A Novel:

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

Big & Lily is the story of two very different, but very codependent sisters, Bridget (Big) Ackerman-Petty and Lily Ackerman who accidently sign up for an extreme Alaskan adventure. Choosing to use just the sisters’ names as the title draws focus to the most important aspect of the book—the sisters’ relationship. In addition, by using Bridget’s nickname “Big” (short for Big Sister), readers will quickly understand the key theme of the story—the exploration birth order theory (a fascination of mine, being a big sister myself) and its role in each of the women’s lives. Big & Lily is also a play on Big & Little, which further brings the point home.

When I first started drafting the book, my working title was Big and Lily Come to a Fork, but I soon realized that...[read on]

Visit Lisa Roe's website.

Q&A with Lisa Roe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best SFF books about gods and demons

Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has worked in web production and content management. When she’s not nesting among her books and rough drafts, she’s chasing the baby while the dog watches in confused amusement. She lives with her family in a suburb of Indianapolis.

At Book Riot she tagged six of the best science fiction and fantasy books about gods and demons, including:

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

Let’s close out this list with some medieval dark fantasy/horror, shall we?

I’ve been a fan of Starling since reading Yellow Jessamine, and I also adored The Death of Jane Lawrence. Starling’s work is as mysterious as it is startling, and she’s fantastic at sprinkling tender moments among the horrors. The Starving Saints is a somewhat-historical fantasy/horror about Aymar Castle, which has been under siege for six months. The people within its walls are starving and desperate. Then, lo and behold, the Constant Lady and her Saints arrive. Miraculously and, somehow, despite the barricades. Suddenly, the stores are replenished. All they ask in return is adoration.

What follows is a story told from the point of view of multiple women, from a war hero to a nun-turned sorceress, to a serving girl. They all see their situation for what it is, and they must consider how they will survive under the sway of the Constant Lady and her bacchanalian feasts. More than anything else, though, this is a survival story.

Read about another title on the list.

The Starving Saints is among Lyndsie Manusos's top six medieval horror books and Saratoga Schaefer's five novels that use isolation to create horror.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Greg Garrett's "White Lies"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths About Race by Greg Garrett.

About the book, from the publisher:

A timely analysis of the myths that underpin white supremacy--and how to counteract them

For centuries, white men in the West have cultivated and perpetuated a set of false narratives about Black people in order to subjugate and maintain power over them. Some of these myths originated abroad but flourished in America, while others were cultivated solely on American soil. All of them, however, continue to find expression in the present as white supremacy strains to maintain its privilege.

These myths have been expressed in almost every form of discourse, from court rulings and sermons to literature and film to material culture and textbooks. They vary from the biological--Black Africans and their descendants are mentally inferior to whites--to the anthropological--Black Africans are incapable of governing themselves and require the supervision of whites--and all have helped to perpetuate Black Americans' enslavement, imprisonment, and exclusion.

White Lies analyzes ten of the most dangerous and pervasive of these myths and observes how they still emerge in political discourse, legislation, pop culture, and religion. This racist rhetoric is present in the words of Abraham Lincoln, George Wallace, and Donald Trump, and the power of white Christian nationalism often evokes these myths, sometimes so subtly listeners may not be conscious of how they are being manipulated. White Lies connects the dots between past narratives, images, and ideas, and present speech about violence, urban life, the suburbs, voter and welfare fraud, and white saviors. It explores myths that individuals and communities may employ to avoid confronting racism, including the notion that America is either post-racial or that white people are the group most liable to suffer discrimination. While these myths continue to spread, White Lies also notes some of the powerful competing narratives which seek to correct them.

Follow Greg Garrett on Facebook and Substack.

The Page 99 Test: Entertaining Judgment.

Writers Read: Greg Garrett (June 2017).

The Page 99 Test: Living with the Living Dead.

The Page 99 Test: White Lies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five seriously scary horror titles

Hannah Whitten has been writing to amuse herself since she could hold a pen, and sometime in high school, figured out that what amused her might also amuse others. Her books have been international bestsellers and translated into multiple languages. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, watching horror movies, or chasing after her feral children. She lives in Tennessee with her family, two dogs who think they run the house, and a cat who actually does.

Whitten's new novel is Reliquary . c At People magazine the author tagged five "favorite horrors with autumnal vibes, so we can pretend the air doesn’t feel like walking through hot soup." One title on the list:

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

if you read horror, you’ve probably heard of this book — and with good reason! After desecrating a sacred hunting ground in their youth, four Blackfeet men are visited by dire consequences in adulthood. Something about a Creepy Deer Book screams “perfect autumn read” to me, and there’s a scene that truly made my mouth drop open and changed the entire vibe of the book. I still think about it when I’m writing as the perfect example of a complete heel-turn.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Only Good Indians is among Daphne Fama's eight top folklore-inspired horror novels, Alena Bruzas's seven best literary horror novels, Samsun Knight's seven top horror novels about mysticism, B.R. Myers's ten quietly effective suspense novels, and Gus Moreno's top ten groundbreaking horror novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jeanne M. Dams reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jeanne M. Dams, author of A Thief's Folly (A Dorothy Martin Mystery, 28).

Her entry begins:

I'm usually working on at least three books at a time. Many of them are re-reads from my copious library. Right now I've read through almost all my Miss Silver books by Patricia Wentworth. This series, begun in the late 20s and continued through 1961, seems old-fashioned now. But then I'm 84 and enjoy a lot of things that are somewhat dated. The heroine/detective in this series is an elderly maiden lady, sometime governess, who has an insight into human nature and a comforting manner, that enable her to...[read on]

About A Thief's Folly, from the publisher:

When a thief strikes, Dorothy Martin is quickly on the case...

Dorothy Martin is enjoying a conversation in the garden with her neighbour and best friend, Jane Langland, one perfect June afternoon, when Jane suddenly has a stroke.

Dorothy is devastated when she visits her friend in hospital and discovers that she’s unable to speak yet desperate to tell her something, and is soon convinced there’s something valuable hidden in Jane’s house – but what is it? A thief targeting the house suggests they’ve found it first...

After identifying Jane's treasured – and sadly stolen – item, Dorothy is determined to track it down, even if that means embarking on a trip overseas. One thing’s for sure – in taking on Dorothy Martin, this thief has made a huge mistake!

This twisty, absorbing mystery featuring an Anglophile sleuth is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton and Faith Martin.

Visit Jeanne M. Dams's website.

Writers Read: Jeanne M. Dams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: E.J. Copperman's "Where There’s Smoke…"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Where There's Smoke... (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery, 2) by E.J. Copperman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small town’s public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.

Don’t mess with a paint store owner’s safe haven!

Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and it’s clear from the beginning that it must be arson.

Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didn’t like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?

As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective father’s ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth―and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!

A light-hearted cozy mystery with a paranormal twist and Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.

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

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

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

The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.

My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.

The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.

Q&A with E. J. Copperman.

The Page 69 Test: Same Difference.

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

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Marina Cano's "Theatrical Afterlives"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Theatrical Afterlives: Nineteenth-Century Women's Novels on the Stage by Marina Cano.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is the first in-depth study of the theatrical afterlives of nineteenth-century women novelists. Whereas previous scholarship has shown a strong bias towards male writers, especially Charles Dickens, this book innovatively brings woman-authored novels centre stage--literally and metaphorically. Theatrical Afterlives: Nineteenth-Century Women's Novels on the Stage examines the dramatic offspring of Jane Austen, the Brontës, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Ellen Wood, and George Eliot, through particular, and sometimes unexpected, theatrical lenses (e.g., prison drama, Irish theatre, suffrage drama). It prioritises the performance event--what actually happens onstage--through attention to a series of theatre ephemera, unpublished manuscript material, and specially commissioned interviews with practitioners. The book argues that the theatrical afterlives allegorize key socio-political debates and tensions of the past two hundred years, including the woman question, the Irish question, colonial legacies, and the #MeToo era.

All these foci allow Marina Cano to investigate the dramatizations as expressions and affirmation of identities that have at one point been marginalized, while also enabling creative interconnections to emerge through the juxtaposition of novelists, plays, historical movements, and locations. The dramatizations, the book concludes, matter, not only for what they tell us about how woman-authored novels have been utilised, but also because these plays provide a fresh methodology to access and reread the novels themselves, and read them anew.

Learn more about Theatrical Afterlives at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Theatrical Afterlives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Barbara O’Neal's "A Thousand Painted Hours," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: A Thousand Painted Hours: A Novel by Barbara O'Neal.

The entry begins:

I would so dearly love to see this as a movie! It would be the kind of movie I'd watch ten times. It is a love story at its most elemental level, an epic story told over several decades about Elsie Turner, the daughter of an British civil servant in Nainital, India, and Elsie's friend Tanveer Singh, the son of a local Maharajah. It begins with the Blitz in London, a subject I never quite get enough of, and flashes back to the friendship, then love story of the two over time, and follows the pair as they fight for their ideals, not always in harmony, and for the lives they each wish to have. Tanveer is devoted to Indian Independence, while Elsie is trying to find her voice as an artist, and as they come together and are torn apart many times, they each have to grapple with the times and their class, and the very real, sustained connection they've found with each other.

Honestly, there are any number of actors who would play Tanveer beautifully. I love Riz Ahmed's soulful face. I also love Himesh Patel, and the wildly talented Dev Patel. Lately, I have been smitten by the Punjabi singer Diljit Dosanjh and...[read on]

Visit Barbara O'Neal's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Thousand Painted Hours.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that complicate the marriage plot

Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Bucknell University. Formerly the editor in chief of The Rumpus, she has received fellowships from The Kenyon Review and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Their first essay collection, A Fish Growing Lungs, was a finalist for The Believer Book Awards.

Sawchyn's new essay collection is I Have This Thing for Flowers.

At Lit Hub the author tagged seven "favorite titles, both fiction and non-fiction, that complicate and distract from and look askance at the traditional story of two people falling in love and getting married." One title on the list:

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

I read this book at a friend’s insistence: I had just returned from a research trip to the Ware Collection and she was in the middle of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and surely, my friend insisted, the coincidence of the was too perfect to ignore. She was right.

At the opening of the novel, former childhood friends Sadie and Sam see each other for the first time in many years at a train station near Harvard, where they are both attending school. This is another book in which a protagonist’s marriage happens off the page: It is through Sam that Sadie meets Marx, the man who will be both their business partner and eventually, Sadie’s husband. Though there are jealousies and complications surrounding Sadie’s marriage, these are mostly considered in relation to Sadie’s relationship with Sam.

Read about another entry on the list.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is among Keith Stuart's five top books about video games and Garnett Cohen's seven novels about characters shaped by their cravings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sophie Gee's "The Barbarous Feast"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Barbarous Feast: Eating and Writing in the Eighteenth-Century World by Sophie Gee.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold new argument about how eating rituals across the eighteenth-century globe reveal an untold story about the rise of the novel

In The Barbarous Feast, Sophie Gee argues that novels and eating rituals were interconnected, but conflicting, systems used to depict selfhood and represent personal inwardness in colonial Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Gee tells a vibrant story of how people living at the margins of colonial power drew upon eating and writing to manage their own interior lives. She coins the term “metabolic subjectivity” to describe the idea of energetic, embodied selfhood that is made by eating and drinking and which connects humans to other living species. This concept, while taken from colonial eating rituals, offers new ways to understand personal inwardness in written texts. Gee tells intersecting stories of eating and writing that range from the Protestant Lord’s Supper to West Indian Indigenous predation rituals.

Gee alternates chapters of literary analysis, offering new readings of Daniel Defoe, Richard Ligon, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, and others, with personal nonfiction essays exploring the afterlife of empire and imperial inwardness in Australia. With The Barbarous Feast, she offers an expansive account of inwardness in and out of novels, and across countries, historical periods, and cultures, putting literary studies in conversation with environmental studies, religious history, Indigenous studies, and food studies.

Learn more about The Barbarous Feast at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test:The Scandal of the Season.

Writers Read: Sophie Gee (June 2009).

The Page 99 Test: The Barbarous Feast.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jacqueline Friedland's "Breathing Under Water"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Breathing Under Water by Jacqueline Friedland.

About the book, from the publisher:

The current is threatening to pull them under.

Berry thought she had it figured out—juggling her vice principal role while raising her sixteen-year-old autistic son, Leo. But when a promotion opportunity collides with her family's deepest needs, she must confront whether she's been fighting the wrong battles all along.

McKenna is drowning. Between caring for her grandmother with dementia, losing her swimming scholarship, and facing homelessness, the college student's carefully constructed world is crumbling. Her only lifeline? Teaching swim lessons to children with autism—including Leo.

As these two women's paths converge in the most unexpected way, they discover that sometimes the people who need saving the most are the ones who end up saving you.

Visit Jacqueline Friedland's website.

Writers Read: Jacqueline Friedland.

The Page 69 Test: Breathing Under Water.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Jon St. Denis

From my Q&A with Jon St. Denis, author of Killer Art: A Novel:

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

Titles are always hard for me. Not hard to come up with, but hard to weed and finally come up with the right one. Killer Art was no different.

I am reluctant to list its initial title—so utterly bland, so non-descriptive.

Pictures at an Exhibition.

See what I mean? I just could not come up with something more specific, and besides, the music to that Mussorgsky piece sticks with me. So guilty twice: bland, non-helpful title plus plagiarism (though titles do not have copyright—in which case, why didn’t I just call it War and Peace?)

I stuck with that bland title for several months, opening the file daily to those dreary words at the top of the MS. Adding a tweak here and there to the body, wondering why it was so hard to sell this one.

Then it just came to me, something with more zip that could actually give the reader an idea what the book is actually about.

Killer Art.

Using ‘killer’ in its double meaning. Good art and literally deadly art. Which is at the very center of the novel, Killer Art. Once I was there, I also toyed with Art to Die For, but…

I immediately felt that this new title could give readers a better idea about what the novel is about, where it’s going. And publishers clearly felt so, as well. Repackaged with a new title, Killer Art sold within a couple of weeks. It didn’t hurt the book also has an AI angle to...[read on]

Visit Jon St. Denis's website.

The Page 69 Test: Killer Art.

Writers Read: Jon St. Denis.

Q&A with Jon St. Denis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top creature feature horror novels

K. W. Colyard is the author of the BNW-nominated “Those Who Forget and Those Who Perish,” published by Seize the Press in 2022. Their fiction has also appeared in Clarkesworld and Diabolical Plots.

At Book Riot Colyard tagged five novels in which "the horrors are externalized, even personified, in the shape of the villains." One title on the list:

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Speaking of hungry, let’s talk about the Donner Party, shall we? Alma Katsu’s The Hunger examines what might have transpired in the Sierra Nevada all those years ago. As the wagon train’s food supplies dwindle in the snowy pass, neighbors begin to turn on each other. But none of them is prepared for the entrance of a legendary monster that makes men crave manflesh.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Hunger is among C.J. Cooke's seven historical horror titles inspired by true events, Reedsy's one hundred best (and scariest) horror books of all time, Steph Auteri's ten modern horror classics keeping the genre alive, Sharon Virts's twenty scary books for Halloween, C. J. Tudor's five top winter thrillers, Brittany Bunzey's twenty-five "must-read, truly bone-chilling" horror books, Deborah E. Kennedy's seven hot mysteries set in the Midwestern winter, Meagan Navarro top ten scary good horror novels, Jac Jemc's top ten haunting ghost stories and Mallory O'Meara's top thirteen spine-chilling books written by female authors.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas Leonard-Roy's "Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Thomas Leonard-Roy.

About the book, from the publisher:

The eighteenth century was the great age of hate-writing and hate-reading. Hatred, contempt, resentment, and disdain were immensely generative feelings for authors in Britain, written into not only malicious satires and belligerent pamphlets but also novels, biographies, letters, journals, and the margins and flyleaves of books. Writerly Hate restores the animosities of major authors from across the century--Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Horace Walpole, and Frances Burney--and shows how hatred and its sister feelings were creative forces in a thriving print market and combative literary culture.

There was no shortage of invective and abuse in eighteenth-century writing. But authors also hated in a rich variety of other styles: half-joking prejudice, withering criticism, confessional self-hate, haughty 'indifference and contempt', resentful doublespeak. Hate could be harsh and jarring, but it could also be subtle, refined, and dazzling. One does not have to look far to find warnings about hate's harmfulness, but the feeling could also be good in the way it staked out moral principles, condemned cruelty and sin, gave pleasure, and entertained loved ones. Hate vitalized eighteenth-century literary culture, and later helped shape the field of eighteenth-century studies.

Visit Thomas Leonard-Roy's website.

The Page 99 Test: Writerly Hate in Eighteenth-Century Britain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Katie Tallo's "Where Her Secrets Lie"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Where Her Secrets Lie by Katie Tallo.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the bestselling author of Dark August comes a tense, moody thriller about a reclusive grandmother forced to confront her darkest fears to protect her family from a ruthless foe.

Seventy-year-old Lenny Bird lives in a cage of her own making. It’s protected by a strong will, stubborn habits, and hidden secrets―like the crime scene photos in her basement. And the body in her backyard.

Lenny shut down long ago, when her daughter was murdered and her husband committed suicide. But fifteen years later, a court has ordered her estranged grandson Juls to move back in with her when he’s arrested, courtesy of his notorious paternal grandfather. Juls has crossed the wrong people and his criminal world comes crashing through Lenny’s door, along with his twin daughters.

Lenny’s sanctuary overrun, she and Juls clash over long-held grudges. When she delves into his shady world, Lenny realizes he’s more pawn than player. But when her investigation threatens to dredge up her own dark past, Lenny must fight a ruthless crime boss―and choose between protecting her private purgatory … or breaking free to save the family she loves.

Visit Katie Tallo's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dark August.

Q&A with Katie Tallo.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Buried Road.

Writers Read: Katie Tallo (December 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Where Her Secrets Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Where Her Secrets Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five thrilling & chilling supernatural mysteries

Carinn Jade is a lawyer, writer, and cohost of the Pop Fiction Women podcast. Her debut novel, The Astrology House, was a 2025 International Thriller Writers’ Awards finalist in the category of Best First Novel.

The Dahlia Suite is her new novel.

At CrimeReads Jade tagged five "favorite books that refuse to stay grounded in the reality we can explain." One title on the author's list:

Riley Sager, The House Across the Lake

This novel begins with a very strange occurrence: a woman found face down, drowned, in a lake is revived with no real effort. The story follows Casey Fletcher, a widowed actress who becomes entangled in the mysterious disappearance of her neighbor while staying at the family’s lake house.

But what really happens is far more eerie and shocking than any true crime documentary could ever touch.

Read about another mystery on the list.

The House Across the Lake is among Maia Chance's six top uncanny domestic thrillers and Alice Blanchard's five mysteries set in still waters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Bond's "Animate"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Animate: How Animals Shape the Human Mind by Michael Bond.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mind-expanding deep dive into how animals have shaped us, from the Paleolithic Period to the present day.

In Animate, acclaimed science writer Michael Bond explores how animals have profoundly influenced our minds and cultures. Drawing on cutting-edge insights from psychology, anthropology, literature and neuroscience, Bond traces the varied ways their lives have affected ours, from our hunter-gatherer ancestors whose brains were rewired by the prey they hunted and the predators they feared, to the medieval and Enlightenment thinkers who used animals to promote notions of human supremacy.

Scientists today are challenging the assumption that we are separate from and superior to animals, showing that they too possess intelligence, empathy, creativity and even the ability to use tools. If everything that supposedly makes us human is shared with other creatures, where does that leave us? And if we are not as exceptional as we thought, how should we be treating the animals we live alongside?

A fascinating exploration of what it means to be both human and animal, Animate shows that to better understand ourselves, we must pay more attention to the other beings with whom we share our world.

Visit Michael Bond's website.

The Page 99 Test: Animate.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jacqueline Friedland reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jacqueline Friedland, author of Breathing Under Water.

Her entry begins:

I'm currently reading Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey. It's a big-hearted story about a burnt-out NICU nurse and a high school baseball coach who once almost made it big. It's full of fun summer themes, human connections, complex situations, and adorable side characters. I picked it up because I love a great summer read, and Kristy Woodson Harvey always delivers. It felt like the perfect book to throw in a beach bag or read poolside, and so far, I've been totally right about that!

Also just finished...[read on]

About Breathing Under Water, from the publisher:

The current is threatening to pull them under.

Berry thought she had it figured out—juggling her vice principal role while raising her sixteen-year-old autistic son, Leo. But when a promotion opportunity collides with her family's deepest needs, she must confront whether she's been fighting the wrong battles all along.

McKenna is drowning. Between caring for her grandmother with dementia, losing her swimming scholarship, and facing homelessness, the college student's carefully constructed world is crumbling. Her only lifeline? Teaching swim lessons to children with autism—including Leo.

As these two women's paths converge in the most unexpected way, they discover that sometimes the people who need saving the most are the ones who end up saving you.

Visit Jacqueline Friedland's website.

Writers Read: Jacqueline Friedland.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Jensen Walker's "The Postmistress of Puddlington," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Postmistress of Puddlington by Laura Jensen Walker.

The entry begins:

I’m a big movie buff, so when I began writing The Postmistress of Puddlington during lockdown, I cast the film in my head.

Middle-aged spinster postmistress Hester Smith who loves Dickens and Jane Eyre is a toss-up between Olivia Colman and Kate Winslet—without makeup. Both are excellent actresses and Kate has proven she can do plain as shown in Mare of Easttown. (Plus, her hair color is the same as Hester’s.) But. . . there’s something about Olivia Colman that gives her a slight edge.

For Minerva Winterbottom, the bohemian, aging lady of the manor who likes to jitterbug, I envisioned two of my favorite actresses, and found it impossible to choose between them. Sadly,...[read on]

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

My Book, The Movie: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the greatest novellas of all time

Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa.

At Collider he tagged the ten greatest novellas of all time...and ranked them. Number five on the list:

Heart of Darkness (1899)

"The horror! The horror!" This slender work served as the basis for Apocalypse Now, though the original story takes place in the Congo rather than Vietnam. In it, veteran sailor Charles Marlow recounts a journey upriver in search of the mysterious ivory trader Kurtz. However, what begins as a straightforward commercial expedition eventually morphs into a psychological and moral descent, as Marlow witnesses the brutality of European colonialism.

As its title suggests, Heart of Darkness is shadowy and ambiguous, resisting simple interpretation. Kurtz, in particular, is a remarkably mercurial character, at once an idealist, a tyrant, a visionary, and a cautionary tale about unchecked power. Despite (because of?) it, the novella was not well-received on release, but has since been canonized as a classic and a cornerstone of postcolonial literature.

Read about another title on the list.

Heart of Darkness is on David Grann's list of six top books about adventure and exploration, Katharine Norbury top ten list of books about rivers, Michael Palin's six favorite books list, Robert Twigger's list of five of the best books about rivers, Robert McCrum's list of ten of the best closing lines of books, Mark Malloch-Brown's list of six favorite novels of empire, John Mullan's list of ten of the best fogs in literature, Tim Butcher's list of the top 10 books about Congo, Martin Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa, Thomas Perry's best books list, and is #9 on the 100 best last lines from novels list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Rachel Peterson's "Killing Sadie"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Killing Sadie by Rachel Peterson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Perfect for fans of How to Survive Your Murder and Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets, this young adult thriller unspools the truth behind a tragic murder through multiple unreliable narrators who all have secrets to keep.

Here’s what we do know: there was another infamous barn party at the McClain family farm last night, and things went horribly wrong. By the end of the night, there were two dead bodies in the old barn: seventeen-year-old Sadie Cooper and her killer, Mason Vreeland. The murder was heartbreakingly witnessed by Sadie’s twin sister, Jayne, and Sadie died in her arms. Mason was killed by Sadie’s boyfriend, Ben, in an attempt to save Sadie.

Aside from figuring out Mason’s motive, it should be an open and shut case.

But it’s not.

The story unfolds just after the murders, and Jayne, Ben, and Sadie’s best friend, Liz, are telling the cops what transpired at the party and the events leading up to it. But little details don’t match. And those little details start to add up to big discrepancies. But who’s lying, and why?

The shocking truth is revealed in the third act, when the POV shifts to victim Sadie herself, in the days leading up to the party. Witness exactly what happened—and see if you can piece it all together. Because poor Sadie totally missed what was right in front of her.

Visit Rachel Peterson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Killing Sadie.

Writers Read: Rachel Peterson.

Q&A with Rachel Peterson.

The Page 69 Test: Killing Sadie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ahsan I. Butt's "The Lies That Bind Us"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Lies That Bind Us: Nationalism and History Textbooks by Ahsan I. Butt.

About the book, from the publisher:

In The Lies That Bind Us, Ahsan I. Butt explores how history textbooks become battlegrounds of national belonging, borders, and memory.

History education has always sparked fierce debate. Disagreements erupt not just over what to include but whose version to tell―how proud or shameful episodes are portrayed; who bears responsibility; and which voices are heard or silenced. These fights are typically domestic, but when a state's past involves international conflict, the stakes―and the critics―multiply.

Butt delves into such flashpoints in his analysis of the politics of history textbooks. He first disaggregates national identity into three dimensions: boundaries of membership, space, and time. He then considers how each dimension is addressed in narratives of race and immigration across US history textbooks; territorial conflicts in Argentinean and Chilean textbooks; and finally, imperial legacies and independence struggles in Indian and Pakistani textbooks. As book bans and curriculum wars roil classrooms worldwide, The Lies That Bind Us exposes the varieties of nationalism driving textbook battles and how they shape not just which histories students learn but what kind of nation a country becomes.

Visit Ahsan I. Butt's homepage.

The Page 99 Test: The Lies That Bind Us.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top time loop mysteries & thrillers

Elisa Shoenberger is a freelance writer and journalist. At Book Riot she tagged "six time loop mysteries and thrillers for you to enjoy over and over again." One title on the list:

All This & More by Peng Shepherd

This is a fascinating twist on the time loop premise. While the other books involve protagonists who find themselves in a time loop, Marsh chooses to live in one. She’s a contestant on the popular show All This and More, where she can return to the past and make different choices in her life. Then, she gets to experience the consequences of those choices before making a final decision. Will she choose to save her marriage, continue her legal career, marry her high school sweetheart, or take a completely different path? But as she plays out different scenarios, weird things keep repeating. She starts to realize that changing the past may not be as simple as the show makes it seem. Can she change her life for the better, or will she make it worse?

Read about another title on the list.

All This and More is among Natalie Zutter's eight fictional books that read like reality TV.

The Page 69 Test: All This and More.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Rachel Peterson

From my Q&A with Rachel Peterson, author of Killing Sadie:

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

Now this is a juicy question! The title of Killing Sadie is, at first glance, a pretty obvious summary of the novel. But just like our unreliable teenage narrators and the twisty lies they tell to the police and themselves, nothing is quite as straightforward as it seems. The title is designed to pull readers in immediately with what happened. But the truly unexpected and shocking question that matters most as readers dive into the world of Sadie Cooper is … why.

What's in a name?

The names I choose for our cast of characters in Killing Sadie are...[read on]

Visit Rachel Peterson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Killing Sadie.

Writers Read: Rachel Peterson.

Q&A with Rachel Peterson.

--Marshal Zeringue