Twenty top scary books for Halloween

At People magazine Sharon Virts tagged twenty books of creepy suspense, scary thrillers and ghoulish ghost stories.

One title on the list:

The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy

Strange voices, eerie premonitions and a killer on the loose — what more do you need? It’s 1955 and Loretta Davenport has lived a sheltered life, that is until a local girl is found dead and strange visions of the girl’s murder fill Loretta’s head. Her husband thinks she’s possessed by the devil. But is she? This is a gothic, atmospheric read for sure.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jenny Milchman's "The Usual Silence"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Usual Silence (Arles Shepherd Thriller) by Jenny Milchman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A psychologist haunted by childhood trauma must unearth all that is buried in her past in this twisting, lyrical novel of suspense by Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Jenny Milchman.

Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past, much of which she’s lost to the shadows of memory. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a ten-year-old boy who has never spoken a word―or so his mother, Louise, believes.

Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His twelve-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses, and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help.

Arles, Louise, and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated. And when the collision occurs, a quarter-century-old secret will be forced out of hiding. Because nothing screams louder than silence.

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Milchman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: The Second Mother.

The Page 69 Test: The Second Mother.

Q&A with Jenny Milchman.

My Book, The Movie: The Usual Silence.

The Page 69 Test: The Usual Silence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Rachel Robbins

From my Q&A with Rachel Robbins, author of The Sound of a Thousand Stars:

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

My original working title was actually Enola Spelled Backwards, which was a nod to the Enola Gay. I thought it was fascinating that Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, named the plane after his mother Enola, who was named for the titular character in the novel Enola: Or Her Fatal Mistake, by Mary Young Ridenbaugh. I loved the self-fulfilling prophecy in that name; when it was reflected in the water over the Pacific, the nose of the plane would spell out the word alone. That’s why I also wrote the storyline of my Japanese character, a Hibakusha who has survived the bomb and must suffer its consequences, in reverse. Through his eyes, we time travel backwards, beginning with the toll the bomb has taken on his world by the end of his life, all the way back to its horrific inception.

In the end, we landed on the title, The Sound of a Thousand Stars, because it connected thematically. I liked that it was a nod to Fred J. Olivi’s famous words on the evening news after the bombing of Nagasaki: “Suddenly, the light of a thousand suns illuminated the cockpit.” It’s also apt because it’s a nod to understanding the world through numbers, and the book is inspired by my grandfather, who was always solving math riddles and quizzing us on square roots. Finally, it’s a paradox. Because there’s no...[read on]

Visit Rachel Robbins's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sound of a Thousand Stars.

Q&A with Rachel Robbins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books that go behind the scenes of publishing

Amy Reading is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the New York Public Library. She is the author of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker and The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con. She lives in upstate New York, where she has served on the executive board of Buffalo Street Books, an indie cooperative bookstore, since 2018.

At Electric Lit Reading tagged "eight nonfiction books that tell stories of the behind-the-scenes relationships that have resulted in some of our most beloved books and magazines." One title on the list:

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Sure, there’s are grisly murders and an unbelievably corrupt acquittal in this book, the stuff of cinema, but Furious Hours also contains a heartbreaking story about writing, not writing, and editing.

In 1978, eighteen years after Tay Hohoff, the lone female editor at Lippincott, had published Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and nineteen years after helping her friend Truman Capote research In Cold Blood, Lee began researching her own true crime novel, The Reverend, about the Alabama serial killer Reverend Willie Maxwell. She sat on the benches at Maxwell’s trial and spent more than a year researching the case. Cep portrays how Hohoff had gained Lee’s trust by working with her over several years to revise the original manuscript of Mockingbird, turning it into something quite different (as would be seen in 2015 when the original was published as Go Set a Watchman). Hohoff desperately wanted a second book from Lee but also guarded her against writing something commercial merely to capitalize on her fame. Hohoff died in her sleep in 1974, which devastated Lee, and when she began to think of Maxwell’s crime as her next book, she had no one to receive it. With astonishing detail, Cep portrays the not-writing that ensued, the gaping holes in Maxwell’s story that Lee would try to bridge in an unchanging routine of writing in longhand and typing the words up each night, an average of a page a day—a routine that was flooded with alcohol. No editor ever wrote Lee letters about her genius or penciled notes in the margins of her pages. The manuscript never appeared.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jeffrey M. Pilcher's "Hopped Up"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity by Jeffrey M. Pilcher.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively history of beer and brewing traditions as globally connected commodities created through borrowing and exchange from precapitalist times to the present.

Virtually every country has a bestselling or iconic national beer brand: from Budweiser in the United States and Corona in Mexico, to Tsingtao in China and Heineken in Holland. Yet, with the sole exception of Ireland's Guinness, every label represents the same style: light, crisp, clear, Pilsner lager. The global spread of lager can be told as a story of Western cultural imperialism: a European product travels through merchants, migrants, and imperialists to upend local patterns and transform faraway consumers' tastes. But this modern beer is just as much a product of globalization, invented and reinvented around the world. While distinctive craft beers such as London Porter, India Pale Ale, and Belgian sour ales have been revived by aficionados over the past half-century, they too have globalized through the same circuits of trade, migration, and knowledge that carried lager.

Here eminent food historian Jeffrey M. Pilcher narrates the brewing traditions and contemporary production of beer across Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America--from the fermented beverages of precapitalist societies to the present. Over the centuries, he shows, the exchange of technological advances in brewing contributed to regional divergences and convergences in beer varieties, but always in tandem with other social and cultural developments. Unique local products, often homebrewed by women, were transformed into homogenous global commodities as giant brewing factories exported their beers using new refrigeration technology, railroads, and steamships. Industrial food processing helped to recast strong flavors as a source of potential contamination, turning lager, with its clean, fresh taste, into a symbol of hygiene and civilization. Local elites demonstrated their modernity and sophistication by opting for chilled lagers over traditional beverages. These beers became so standardized that most consumers could not tell the difference between them, leading to cutthroat competition that bankrupted countless firms. Over the past half-century, the global concentration of the brewing industry has spawned a reaction among those seeking to return brewing to the local, artisanal, and communitarian roots of the premodern alehouse, but microbrewers have often been driven by the same capitalist quest for profit and expansion.

Based on a wealth of multinational archives and industry publications, Hopped Up explores not only how humans have made beer but also how consumers--from nobility and clergy in the past to those raising a pint today--have used beer to make meaning in their lives.

Learn more about Hopped Up at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hopped Up.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan Walter's "Running Cold," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Running Cold: A Novel by Susan Walter.

The entry begins:

Of all my books, this is the one I most want to see as a movie … because it was inspired by a movie! Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones starred in a 1993 film called The Fugitive about a doctor (Ford) who was framed for killing his wife (the impossibly beautiful Sela Ward) and escapes arrest in a spectacular collision between a bus and a train. Ford is pursued by a scrappy U.S. Marshal (brilliantly played by Tommy Lee Jones) while trying to solve the murder and clear his name. Thirty years later, I still can’t get this movie out of my head. So I decided to do a version with women in the starring roles, and then up the stakes by setting it in the Canadian Rockies during a blizzard.

Julie Weston Adler is working as a chambermaid in the spooky Banff Springs Hotel (yes it’s a real place!) because her husband lost all their money then took his own life. Not your average hotel employee, Julie is a former Olympian. Her sport, the biathlon, combines skiing and sharp shooting … and yes she has her rifle with her … and may be forced to use it!

I imagine Julie as a Canadian Katniss Everdeen - fearless and athletic with a strong connection to nature. So of course I wrote her with Jennifer Lawrence in mind! Other actresses I think would make excellent Julies are Blake Lively (so tall and commanding!) and...[read on]

Visit Susan Walter's website.

Q&A with Susan Walter.

My Book, The Movie: Running Cold.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best (and most cynical) fixers in fiction

Matthew FitzSimmons is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Gibson Vaughn series, which includes Origami Man, Debris Line, Cold Harbor, Poisonfeather, and The Short Drop, and the Constance series. Born in Illinois and raised in London, he makes his home in Washington, DC.

[The Page 69 Test: Constance]

FitzSimmons's new novel is The Slate.

At CrimeReads he tagged four of the best (and most cynical) fixers in fiction, including:

Mae Pruett / Everybody Knows / Jordan Harper / 2023

There are two different kinds of readers: the ones who hope the good guys triumph over the bad guys, and the ones who think the whole notion of good guys and bad guys is nothing but wistful thinking. Enter noir, stage left. This latter group prefers a story told in greyscale and stocked with damaged, jaded, and cynical characters. There are no heroes and no redemption to be found here. Their bookshelves are thick with first editions of James Ellroy novels.

Picking up on themes from L.A. Confidential, Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows gives us the latest and greatest entry in the Fixer pantheon: Mae Pruett. It isn’t hard to imagine Mae as a distant relative of Jack Vincennes. Leaping forward to present day Los Angeles, she skillfully navigates a city where nothing has fundamentally changed in seventy years apart from the sophistication of the tactics that shield the powerful from repercussions or responsibility. Mae Pruett would be equally at home in either time period. Though young, she is calculating and eye-wateringly cynical. Qualities that make her exceptional but also come at a steep price. The price that all Fixers pay: her profound isolation. In the end, Fixers are prisoners of their own cynicism since the last thing they will risk is showing genuine vulnerability and getting played the way they’ve played so many others. For the Fixer that is a fate worse than death.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Rachel Robbins's "The Sound of a Thousand Stars"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel by Rachel Robbins.

About the book, from the publisher:

Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.

Sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive—at any cost.

Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country’s call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on—what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author’s grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.

Learn more about The Sound of a Thousand Stars at the publisher's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sound of a Thousand Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Eugenie Montague

From my Q&A with Eugenie Montague, author of Swallow the Ghost: A Novel:

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

I like what my super-smart and talented friend and writer, Brendan Park, has to say about titles: that they should open up rather than shut down, evoke, rather than diagnose. And, actually, he suggested the title here. I had originally chosen another title, and my (also super-smart and talented) editors encouraged a change. When I mentioned that I needed a new title to Brendan, he recommended "swallow the ghost," which came from a line in the book. The specific sentence the title comes from did not make it into the final book, but I think Swallow the Ghost is a title that begins to make sense within the context of the novel and that it works on both plot and thematic levels....[read on]

Visit Eugenie Montague's website.

Q&A with Eugenie Montague.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top contemporary and genre-spanning vampire books

Claudia Guthrie is a writer covering culture, entertainment, and lifestyle content. Her work has appeared in ELLE, The Muse, Food52, and more. Originally from Kansas City, she now resides
 in Denver, where you can find her reading the newest thriller or knitting sweaters for her cats.

At Electric Lit Guthrie tagged ten of "the best contemporary and genre-spanning vampire books," including:

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

Nena and Néstor were inseparable as children … until one night when Nena is attacked by an enigmatic beast. Thinking his friend dead, Néstor flees, unable to face a new world without her. When events of the Mexican-American War call him home nine years later, he learns Nena survived the attack … and that the Anglos aren’t the only thing for the people of El Norte to fear.

Like Isabel Cañas’ first novel The Hacienda, Vampires of El Norte is a deeply romantic and deeply spooky historical gothic tale.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Yujin Nagasawa's "The Problem of Evil for Atheists"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Problem of Evil for Atheists by Yujin Nagasawa.

About the book, from the publisher:

The problem of evil has long perplexed traditional theists: Why do terrible events, such as crimes, wars, and natural disasters, occur in a world believed to be created by an omnipotent and wholly good God? In The Problem of Evil for Atheists, Yujin Nagasawa offers a fresh perspective that seeks to transform the perennial philosophical debate on this matter.

The book contends that the problem of evil surpasses its conventional understanding, impacting not only traditional theists but also posing a challenge for atheists and other 'non-theists', including pantheists, axiarchists, and followers of Eastern religious traditions. Moreover, it posits that traditional theists, who typically embrace some form of supernaturalism, are better equipped to address the problem than naturalist atheists/non-theists because the only potentially successful response requires supernaturalism. Conversely, it suggests that if atheists/non-theists can develop a successful naturalist response, traditional theists can also adopt it. The volume concludes that traditional theists are better positioned than atheists/non-theists to grapple with the problem-an unexpected assertion, given that the problem of evil is normally viewed as an argument against traditional theism and in favour of atheism/non-theism.

The Problem of Evil for Atheists presents a comprehensive defence of a fundamentally new approach to tackling the age-old philosophical conundrum. By challenging the conventional perspective, it endeavours to reshape our understanding and interpretation of evil in a profound manner.

Visit Yujin Nagasawa's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Problem of Evil for Atheists.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Paula Munier reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Paula Munier, author of The Night Woods: A Mercy Carr Mystery.

From her entry:

Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson / Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie ranks among my all-time most beloved detectives, right up there with Maigret and Morse and Vera. In this new entry in the series, #6, Atkinson brings back some of my favorite characters—most notably Reggie and Louise—to play with Jackson in a send-up of Golden Age mysteries that’s as funny as it is clever. Atkinson is the only crime writer I read with a dictionary by my side, which I naturally consider a plus.

Argos: The Story of Odysseus as Told by His Loyal Dog, by Ralph Hardy / Just in time for the publication of The Night Woods, Mercy Carr #6 and my humble homage to The Odyssey, I met Ralph Hardy, who’s penned the most wonderful adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, written from the point of view of the dog....[read on]

About The Night Woods, from the publisher:

The sixth Mercy Carr Mystery in which Mercy and Elvis must prove the innocence of a new friend accused of murder.

Record snow and sleet and rain are pummeling Vermont and a wild boar has escaped from an exclusive hunting club nearby—but that won’t stop a very pregnant and very bored Mercy Carr from hiking her beloved woods with her loyal dog Elvis. She’s supposed to be decorating the nursery and helping her mother plan the baby shower, but she’d much rather be playing Scrabble with Homer Grant, a word-loving, shotgun-toting hermit living deep in the forest. But when she and Elvis drop by Homer’s cabin for their weekly game, they arrive to find an unknown dead man—and no sign of Homer.

As they search the woods, Mercy discovers a patch of devastation that could only be left behind by wild boar. She’s relieved when Elvis tracks Homer, injured but alive. But Homer’s troubles are far from over, as he’s still the number one suspect and he remembers nothing of the attack. When another corpse with a link to Homer is found, Mercy is determined to help her friend, an effort complicated by the unexpected arrival of her young cousin Tandie, sent by Mercy’s mother to keep an eye on her until the baby is born.

As the floods worsen, Troy and Susie Bear are called out with all the other first responders, and Mercy finds herself alone at Grackle Tree Farm with a concussed Homer, Tandie, and Elvis. As waters rise and the wild boar rampages, Mercy realizes that the murderer is out there ready to strike again, this time much closer to home.

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

Q&A with Paula Munier.

My Book, The Movie: The Wedding Plot.

The Page 69 Test: The Wedding Plot.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (July 2022).

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Home at Night.

The Page 69 Test: Home at Night.

My Book, The Movie: The Night Woods.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Woods.

Writers Read: Paula Munier.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that explore the complexities of the stock market

Samantha Greene Woodruff is the author of Amazon #1 bestseller The Lobotomist’s Wife. She studied history at Wesleyan University and continued her studies at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where she earned an MBA. Woodruff spent nearly two decades working on the business side of media, primarily at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, before leaving corporate life to become a full-time mom. In her newfound “free” time, she took classes at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she accidentally found her calling as a historical fiction author. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Female First, Read 650, and more.

Woodruff's new novel is The Trade Off.

[My Book, The Movie: The Lobotomist's Wife; My Book, The Movie: The Trade Off; Q&A with Samantha Greene Woodruff]

At Lit Hub the author tagged five standout books that explore the complexities of the stock market:

David Liss, A Conspiracy of Paper

This historical mystery isn’t a book about the New York Stock Exchange, instead, it takes place in eighteenth-century London, in the earliest days of the first stock market. A story about a Jewish former boxer turned investigator who seeks to uncover the truth about his father’s death, is both a stealth examination of the complex social pecking order of the 1700s, and a rare glimpse into the beginning of the trading of “paper money” and the first major market crash: the burst of the South Sea bubble.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Stephanie Wrobel's "The Hitchcock Hotel"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Hitchcock fanatic with an agenda invites old friends for a weekend stay at his secluded themed hotel in this fiendishly clever, suspenseful new novel from the international bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold.

Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.

To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.

But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.

After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.

Visit Stephanie Wrobel's website.

The Page 69 Test: Darling Rose Gold.

My Book, The Movie: Darling Rose Gold.

Q&A with Stephanie Wrobel.

The Page 69 Test: The Hitchcock Hotel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Susan Doran's "From Tudor to Stuart"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I by Susan Doran.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I tells the story of the troubled accession of England's first Scottish king and the transition from the age of the Tudors to the age of the Stuarts at the dawn of the seventeenth century.

From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I tells the story of the dramatic accession and first decade of the reign of James I and the transition from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean era, using a huge range of sources, from state papers and letters to drama, masques, poetry, and a host of material objects.

The Virgin Queen was a hard act to follow for a Scottish newcomer who faced a host of problems in his first years as king: not only the ghost of his predecessor and her legacy but also unrest in Ireland, serious questions about his legitimacy on the English throne, and even plots to remove him (most famously the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). Contrary to traditional assumptions, James's accession was by no means a smooth one.

The really important question about James's reign, of course, is the extent of change that occurred in national political life and royal policies. Sue Doran also examines how far the establishment of a new Stuart dynasty resulted in fresh personnel at the centre of power, and the alterations in monarchical institutions and shifts in political culture and governmental policies that occurred. Here the book offers a fresh look at James and his wife Anna, suggesting a new interpretation of their characters and qualities.

But the Jacobean era was not just about James and his wife, and Regime Change includes a host of historical figures, many of whom will be familiar to readers: whether Walter Raleigh, Robert Cecil, or the Scots who filled James's inner court. The inside story of the Jacobean court also brings to life the wider politics and national events of the early seventeenth century, including the Gunpowder Plot, the establishment of Jamestown in Virginia, the Plantations in Ulster, the growing royal struggle with parliament, and the doomed attempt to bring about union with Scotland.

Learn more about From Tudor to Stuart at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: From Tudor to Stuart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five dark academia novels by BIPOC authors

Lauren Ling Brown received a BA in English literature from Princeton University and an MFA in film production with a focus in screenwriting from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she works as a film editor.

Her new novel is Society of Lies.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "favorite dark academia novels by BIPOC authors." One title on the list:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

In this haunting tale, Kathy recounts her days at Hailsham, an idyllic boarding school on the English countryside where the teachers both showered the students with praise and kept an eerie distance from them. Now a young woman, Kathy has reconnected with former classmates, Ruth and Tommy, and is finally beginning to realize how they ended up in Hailsham and what that means for their future.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Never Let Me Go is on Costanza Casati's list of five of the best titles about literary threesomes, Sadi Muktadir's seven novels that give you hope before devastating you, Scott Alexander Howard's list of eight titles from across the world about isolation, Kat Sarfas's list of thirteen top dark academia titles, Raul Palma's list of seven stories about falling into debt, Akemi C. Brodsky's list of five academic novels that won’t make you want to return to school, Claire Fuller's list of seven top dystopian mysteries, Elizabeth Brooks's list of ten great novels with unreliable narrators, Lincoln Michel's top ten list of strange sci-fi dystopias, Amelia Morris's lits of ten of the most captivating fictional frenemies, Edward Ashton's eight titles about what it means to be human, Bethany Ball's list of the seven weirdest high schools in literature, Zak Salih's eight books about childhood pals—and the adults they become, Rachel Donohue's list of seven coming-of-age novels with elements of mystery or the supernatural, Chris Mooney's list of six top intelligent, page-turning, genre-bending classics, James Scudamore's top ten list of books about boarding school, Caroline Zancan's list of eight novels about students and teachers behaving badly, LitHub's list of the ten books that defined the 2000s, Meg Wolitzer's ten favorite books list, Jeff Somers's lists of nine science fiction novels that imagine the future of healthcare and "five pairs of books that have nothing to do with each other—and yet have everything to do with each other" and eight tales of technology run amok and top seven speculative works for those who think they hate speculative fiction, a list of five books that shaped Jason Gurley's Eleanor, Anne Charnock's list of five favorite books with fictitious works of art, Esther Inglis-Arkell's list of nine great science fiction books for people who don't like science fiction, Sabrina Rojas Weiss's list of ten favorite boarding school novels, Allegra Frazier's top four list of great dystopian novels that made it to the big screen, James Browning's top ten list of boarding school books, Jason Allen Ashlock and Mink Choi's top ten list of tragic love stories, Allegra Frazier's list of seven characters whose jobs are worse than yours, Shani Boianjiu's list of five top novels about coming of age, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five top "What If?" books, Lloyd Shepherd's top ten list of weird histories, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best men writing as women in literature and ten of the best sentences as titles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jenny Milchman's "The Usual Silence," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Usual Silence (Arles Shepherd Thriller) by Jenny Milchman.

The entry begins:

Having their work made into a film or show is pretty much every writer’s dream, but there’s also a tension inherent in adapting a book to an audio-visual medium. Because while the lines and dots and dashes that make up text perform an alchemy in the reader’s mind, as soon as we put a voice and face and body to a character, everybody pretty much sees and hears the same thing. Through our own lenses, of course, but still—there isn’t that unique magic that allows every individual to read their own personal version of a story.

So I don’t have a cast in mind for The Usual Silence, which features a thirty-seven year old psychologist who happens to be beautiful with fiery red hair (I did watch Perry Mattfeld in In the Dark and she captured Dr. Arles Shepherd’s blend of anger and compassion particularly well, so if she’s available, maybe give her a call); a hard-working mother to an Autistic son; and a middle-aged dad with an ailing heart whose daughter has gone missing; plus...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Milchman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: The Second Mother.

The Page 69 Test: The Second Mother.

Q&A with Jenny Milchman.

My Book, The Movie: The Usual Silence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Barbara Gayle Austin

From my Q&A with Barbara Gayle Austin, author of What You Made Me Do: A Novel:

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

My novel is a dark psychological thriller. The original title, Lowlands, doesn’t say what kind of book it is or what it’s about.

The publisher wanted a title that would appeal to readers of thrillers, so I brainstormed with my daughter, and we suggested ten options. What You Made Me Do is a variation of one of those suggestions. The title is brilliant—it works on multiple levels. As the reader delves into the book, they will wonder which character(s) the title refers to.

What's in a name?

The novel is set in the Netherlands, and the characters are Dutch. But I wanted to avoid names that are difficult for native English speakers to pronounce. If I had known that there would be an audio edition of the book, I would have picked names that are even easier. Fortunately...[read on]

Visit Barbara Gayle Austin's website.

The Page 69 Test: What You Made Me Do.

Q&A with Barbara Gayle Austin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Paula Munier's "The Night Woods"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Night Woods: A Mercy Carr Mystery by Paula Munier.

About the book, from the publisher:

The sixth Mercy Carr Mystery in which Mercy and Elvis must prove the innocence of a new friend accused of murder.

Record snow and sleet and rain are pummeling Vermont and a wild boar has escaped from an exclusive hunting club nearby—but that won’t stop a very pregnant and very bored Mercy Carr from hiking her beloved woods with her loyal dog Elvis. She’s supposed to be decorating the nursery and helping her mother plan the baby shower, but she’d much rather be playing Scrabble with Homer Grant, a word-loving, shotgun-toting hermit living deep in the forest. But when she and Elvis drop by Homer’s cabin for their weekly game, they arrive to find an unknown dead man—and no sign of Homer.

As they search the woods, Mercy discovers a patch of devastation that could only be left behind by wild boar. She’s relieved when Elvis tracks Homer, injured but alive. But Homer’s troubles are far from over, as he’s still the number one suspect and he remembers nothing of the attack. When another corpse with a link to Homer is found, Mercy is determined to help her friend, an effort complicated by the unexpected arrival of her young cousin Tandie, sent by Mercy’s mother to keep an eye on her until the baby is born.

As the floods worsen, Troy and Susie Bear are called out with all the other first responders, and Mercy finds herself alone at Grackle Tree Farm with a concussed Homer, Tandie, and Elvis. As waters rise and the wild boar rampages, Mercy realizes that the murderer is out there ready to strike again, this time much closer to home.

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

Q&A with Paula Munier.

My Book, The Movie: The Wedding Plot.

The Page 69 Test: The Wedding Plot.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (July 2022).

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Home at Night.

The Page 69 Test: Home at Night.

My Book, The Movie: The Night Woods.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Woods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine books with deadly invitations

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged nine "thrillers that’ll make you think twice about booking your next stay, from themed hotels to haunted mansions and sinister ski trips." One title on the list:

Shiver by Allie Reynolds

A weekend in the French Alps should be exhilarating in all the right ways, and this trip is anything but. With five friends stranded during a snowstorm and sinister happenings at every corner, this resort is anything but relaxing.

Read about another book on the list.

Shiver is among C.J. Tudor's five notable winter thrillers and B.P. Walter's five top winter mysteries.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul M. McGarr's "Spying in South Asia"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States, and India's Secret Cold War by Paul M. McGarr.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this first comprehensive history of India's secret Cold War, Paul McGarr tells the story of Indian politicians, human rights activists, and journalists as they fought against or collaborated with members of the British and US intelligence services. The interventions of these agents have had a significant and enduring impact on the political and social fabric of South Asia. The spectre of a 'foreign hand', or external intelligence activity, real and imagined, has occupied a prominent place in India's political discourse, journalism, and cultural production. Spying in South Asia probes the nexus between intelligence and statecraft in South Asia and the relationships between agencies and governments forged to promote democracy. McGarr asks why, in contrast to Western assumptions about surveillance, South Asians associate intelligence with covert action, grand conspiracy, and justifications for repression? In doing so, he uncovers a fifty-year battle for hearts and minds in the Indian subcontinent.

Learn more about Spying in South Asia at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Spying in South Asia.

--Marshal Zeringue