Jennifer Murphy's “The Ghost Women,” the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Ghost Women: A Novel by Jennifer Murphy.

The entry begins:

I often consider directors while I’m writing a novel. For me, the director shapes a movie’s entire ambiance and tone. In contrast, I rarely dreamcast characters. I have a picture of each character in my mind before I start writing. I suppose you could say that I write a novel inside out. I know the characters, the setting and the general story itself before I create the actual plot. In this way, the characters I’ve imagined walk into a place that is fully formed and, in this story at least, feels like it has been there for centuries. So for this exercise, I specifically considered directors that could build an eerie, dark, and forested landscape, complete with rituals and magic, that includes a secret art academy located in an ancient monastery and centers on a series of student murders. And I searched for actors that fit the images of the characters I imagined in my mind.

Director

Given the current caliber of TV mini-series, I considered how The Ghost Women might be adapted into either a movie or a mini-series. If a movie, Guillermo del Toro, is the perfect fit for director. Known for his mastery of dark, atmospheric Gothic fairy tales, del Toro would excel at creating a deep, scary, emotional, and mystical world while also capturing a sense of fairy tale magic. His ability to blend beauty with decay fits the story’s ghostly ambiance. Additionally, del Toro has a personal history with...[read on]

Visit Jennifer Murphy's website.

Q&A with Jennifer Murphy.

My Book, The Movie: The Ghost Women.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six essential books about birds

Eric Wagner is a staff writer with the Puget Sound Institute at University of Washington, Tacoma. He is author of After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens and Penguins in the Desert, and wrote the text for Once and Future River: Reclaiming the Duwamish.

His new book is Seabirds as Sentinels: Auklets, Puffins, Shearwaters, and the View from Destruction Island.

At Lit Hub Wagner tagged six essential books about birds, including:

Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk

Here is another book about a raptor, but unlike [J.A. Baker's] The Peregrine, I had read how good this one was ahead of time—had read how, following their father’s death, Macdonald poured their grief into the training of a Eurasian goshawk, juxtaposing their own journey with that of English writer and naturalist T.H. White. Approaching such a highly praised book can be a tricky proposition. Will it justify (or exceed) its reputation? Or will you wonder—awkwardly, uncertainly—whether you alone have seen through the stuff and nonsense in thinking the book not that great? Thankfully, with H is for Hawk, it’s the former. So much the former.

Read about another title on the list.

H Is for Hawk is among Brian Buckbee's eight books about wild animal companions, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman's seven books celebrating the healing magic of birds, Kristina Busch's seven books about daughters grieving their fathers, Raynor Winn's nine top nature memoirs, Lit Hub's ten best memoirs of the decade, Sigrid Nunez's six favorite books that feature animals, Sam Miller's top ten books about fathers, Barack Obama's summer 2016 reading list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten books about justice and redemption, and Alex Hourston’s ten top unlikely friendships in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Danielle Girard's "Pinky Swear"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Pinky Swear: A Novel by Danielle Girard.

About Pinky Swear, from the publisher:

From Danielle Girard, the USA TODAY bestselling author who “effortlessly ratchets up the tension” (J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author), comes a pulse-pounding thriller about a young woman whose surrogate disappears just days before the baby’s due date, leading to a frantic search that uncovers dark truths and the power of a mother’s love.

Lexi thought she knew everything about Mara Vannatta. Best friends since middle school, they drifted apart after a tragedy derailed their senior year. But when Mara shows up on Lexi’s doorstep sixteen years later fleeing an abusive husband, Lexi takes her in without question. Lexi’s own marriage has been strained by her desire to have a baby, and when Mara offers to become her surrogate, their friendship feels stronger than ever.

But four days before the due date, Mara disappears.

Lexi is shocked but certain there must be something wrong—Mara would never willingly leave with her unborn child. Or would she? As she embarks on a perilous cross-country hunt for the truth, Lexi is forced to reconsider a friendship she thought she knew—and what really happened that terrible night their senior year. How many secrets lie in their shared past, waiting to be uncovered? And just how far will Lexi go to bring her child safely home?

Visit Danielle Girard's website.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard (August 2018).

My Book, The Movie: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: White Out.

Q&A with Danielle Girard.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard.

The Page 69 Test: Pinky Swear.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Isabel Booth reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Isabel Booth, author of Then He Was Gone: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I belong to two neighborhood book clubs. Both meet this week and I’ve been reading like mad the past few days to be prepared. When you see the first selection, you’ll understand why.

All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker

595 pages! I found it engrossing to the end. This is a missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, and a love story. Set in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, the novel centers around Joseph “Patch” Macauley and his friend Saint. Thirteen-year-old Patch, born with one eye and fancying himself a pirate, saves a girl from being kidnapped and he is taken instead. This sets off a complex, decades-long story of trauma and obsession, loss, hope, lasting friendships, and love. The ending is a treasure because it has twists and turns that...[read on]

About Then He Was Gone, from the publisher:

Desperate parents search for their missing son in this tense thriller, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Jennifer Hillier.

When attorney Elizabeth English and her husband, Paul, catch up to their energetic sons at the end of their hike, they expect to find the two boys waiting by their car. It’s been only minutes since Henry and Nick bolted ahead. But when Elizabeth and Paul emerge from the trail, Henry is gone, and all Nick says is that he saw a lone truck leaving the lot shortly after Henry went to the bathroom.

Gritty park ranger Hollis Monroe launches a massive search and teams up with a local detective to investigate the possibility that Henry was kidnapped. Elizabeth and Paul aren’t sure which is worse: their six-year-old lost in Rocky Mountain National Park or scared and bound in the back of a stranger’s pickup.

The search drives the couple to their breaking point, and secrets they have been keeping from each other are revealed for Henry’s sake. With every hour that passes, finding Henry becomes less likely, and Elizabeth becomes ferocious in her determination to make the impossible come true and find her son.

This nail-biting and unsettling thriller will leave readers breathlessly turning the page. Fans of Mary Kubica and Harlan Coben will love this new master of suspense.

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Then He Was Gone.

Q&A with Isabel Booth.

The Page 69 Test: Then He Was Gone.

Writers Read: Isabel Booth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Patti M. Marxsen's "Karen Blixen’s Search for Self"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Karen Blixen's Search for Self: The Making of "Out of Africa" by Patti M. Marxsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Karen Blixen’s Search for Self, Patti M. Marxsen presents a twenty-first-century reconsideration of Blixen’s iconic memoir Out of Africa, originally published in 1937 and now regarded as a classic of twentieth-century literature. The methodology of this “book about a book” draws on seasoned historical perspectives of European colonial activities in early twentieth-century Africa as it engages Blixen’s letters, tales, speeches, interviews, the photographic record of her various personas, memoir literature of others who knew her, and three generations of scholarship, including pointed postcolonial critiques. Mixing scholarly research with personal reflection, Marxsen recounts an inspiring tale of a writer’s evolution, along with thoughtful analysis of the art and craft of memoir.

As a modern woman both trapped and liberated by privilege, Karen Christentze Dinesen Blixen experienced considerable personal and financial challenges during her years living in colonial Kenya (1914–1931), a period that Marxsen approaches as a belated coming-of-age journey rather than a romantic tale. Blixen returned to Denmark at age forty-six, bankrupt and in a state of physical and mental fragility with no idea about what she would do or how she would live in a bourgeois society that she viewed as “incarceration.” Only when Blixen set out to reinvent herself with the “liberating mask” of the pseudonym Isak Dinesen did she begin to realize her potential as a storyteller and find the strength to develop her uniquely poetic narrative voice by writing about her African years.

Blixen’s process of loss and recovery through writing constitutes the frame of Marxsen’s book, just as it constitutes the frame of Out of Africa. Marxsen traces Blixen’s inner life through letters and writings to probe the origins of her imaginative power, her instinctive multiculturalism (considered “eccentric” in colonial Kenya), and the feminism of a creative woman in a new century. Marxsen continues the story through the contested legacies of the book, including its serving as the basis for the acclaimed, Academy Award–winning film released in 1985.

This new study of Blixen’s widely read memoir, which has remained consistently in print for almost ninety years, broadens understandings of the author’s complex self-realization, the skill of her literary art, and the book’s evolving afterlife.

Visit Patti M. Marxsen's website.

The Page 99 Test: Karen Blixen's Search for Self.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top literary romance books

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

At Book Riot she tagged five top literary romance novels, including:

Possession by A.S. Byatt

A.S. Byatt subtitles this book “a romance,” but while it is very romantic, it is not a romance novel. I’ve seen it described as literary, historical, postmodern, mystery, and even historiographic metafiction, but I included it on the list. While it’s longer and experiments with format more than most genre romances, I think the prominence of the love story will still satisfy romance novel readers. There are two love stories in this big doorstop of a book. The first is between rival scholars researching a pair of Victorian poets. When they uncover a link between the poets, letters, diary entries, and poetry is used to tell a hidden tale of longing, lust, and literary influence.

Read about another entry on the list.

Possession also appears on Molly O’Sullivan's list of seven works that push narrative boundaries, Ceillie Clark-Keane's list of nine literary mysteries with a big winter mood, Emily Temple's list of the twelve best descriptions of flowers in literature, Jae-Yeon Yoo's list of ten books about the importance of the post office, Paraic O’Donnell's top ten list of modern Victorian novels, a list of four books that changed Charlie Lovett, Michelle Dean's list of the six best books about university life, Kelly Anderson's top five list of books for newlyweds, Rebecca Mead's list of six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era, Marina Warner's ten top list of fairytales, Ester Bloom's top ten list of fictional feminists, Niall Williams's list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, Kyle Minor's list of fifteen of the hottest affairs in literature, Emily Temple's list of the fifty greatest campus novels ever written, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best fossils in literature, ten of the most memorable libraries in literature, ten of the best fictional poets, ten of the best locks of hair in fiction, ten of the best graveyard scenes in fiction, and ten of the best lawyers in literature, and on Rachel Syme's list of the ten most attractive men in literature, Christina Koning's critic's chart of six top romances, and Elizabeth Kostova's top ten list of books for winter nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Lyla Lane

From my Q&A with Lyla Lane, author of The Best Little Motel in Texas: A Novel:

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

My title was picked by my publisher because it conveys the exact expectation for the novel. It was heavily inspired by the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. So calling this book, with sex workers as the leads in the mystery, The Best Little Motel in Texas would immediately give people familiar with this movie an idea of the tone of the book.

What's in a name?

I picked the name Cordelia for my main character because...[read on]

Visit Lyla Lane's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Best Little Motel in Texas.

Q&A with Lyla Lane.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that explore disrupted and shattered childhoods

As a passionate advocate of lifelong learning, Frances Crawford was delighted to graduate with distinction at age sixty from Glasgow University’s Creative Writing program. Frances grew up in North Glasgow, and credits the people of Possilpark and Milton as her writing inspiration. She still lives in Glasgow with her family and likes libraries and punk rock.

A Bad, Bad Place is Crawford's debut novel.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six of her favorite books that explore disrupted and shattered childhoods, including:

Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory

It is a testament to Banks’ stunning writing that we feel sympathy for a sixteen-year-old engaged in bizarre rituals, animal torture and murder. Frank is both disturbing and hilarious as he tries to carve a path through a life warped by the behaviour of an adult.

The twist at the end simply takes your breath away, and you will never ever forget what happened to Eric. For all Frank’s shocking behavior, the novel raises questions about identity and gender which resonate even louder today.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alec Worsnop's "Rebels in the Field"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Rebels in the Field: Cadres and the Development of Insurgent Military Power by Alec Worsnop.

About the book, from the publisher:

Insurgent movements around the world vary widely in their military efficacy, from little-known and short-lived organizations to the Taliban, which completed its takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. What accounts for this variation in insurgent military power and success on the battlefield?

Rebels in the Field answers this question by developing the cadre theory: an insurgent organization's ability to conduct complex military activities, like guerrilla warfare, depends on its development of cadres that create strong links between the organization, the environment, and its members. More complex forms of military power, argues Alec Worsnop, require organizations to develop effective small-unit combat leaders: military cadres. Revising conventional wisdom, Worsnop finds that strong social and political ties do not result in meaningful combat power on their own--and can even detract from military potential. After building the cadre theory through the lens of the Taliban (2001-2021), the book tests the theory by evaluating 17 organizations in Vietnam (1940-1975) and Iraq (2003-2016), reshaping our understanding of civil wars and military

Visit Alec Worsnop's website.

The Page 99 Test: Rebels in the Field.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Isabel Booth's "Then He Was Gone"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Then He Was Gone: A Novel by Isabel Booth.

About the book, from the publisher:

Desperate parents search for their missing son in this tense thriller, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Jennifer Hillier.

When attorney Elizabeth English and her husband, Paul, catch up to their energetic sons at the end of their hike, they expect to find the two boys waiting by their car. It’s been only minutes since Henry and Nick bolted ahead. But when Elizabeth and Paul emerge from the trail, Henry is gone, and all Nick says is that he saw a lone truck leaving the lot shortly after Henry went to the bathroom.

Gritty park ranger Hollis Monroe launches a massive search and teams up with a local detective to investigate the possibility that Henry was kidnapped. Elizabeth and Paul aren’t sure which is worse: their six-year-old lost in Rocky Mountain National Park or scared and bound in the back of a stranger’s pickup.

The search drives the couple to their breaking point, and secrets they have been keeping from each other are revealed for Henry’s sake. With every hour that passes, finding Henry becomes less likely, and Elizabeth becomes ferocious in her determination to make the impossible come true and find her son.

This nail-biting and unsettling thriller will leave readers breathlessly turning the page. Fans of Mary Kubica and Harlan Coben will love this new master of suspense.

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Then He Was Gone.

Q&A with Isabel Booth.

The Page 69 Test: Then He Was Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lyla Lane's "The Best Little Motel in Texas," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Best Little Motel in Texas: A Novel by Lyla Lane.

The entry begins:

Since I got the inspiration for The Best Little Motel in Texas from the Dolly Parton/Burt Reynolds movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, I would absolutely want Colin Higgins to direct if he were still alive. He was bold and unafraid of taking chances, and I think my book would be the right kind of bonkers to appeal to him.

Since my book is about a reserved 30-year-old librarian inheriting a brothel for senior sex workers and trying to solve a murder that happened at her place of business, I’d want to cast someone known for more prim and proper roles for my main character, Cordelia. Probably Emily Blunt because I think she plays that role so well.

For the chicks, the 60-year-old sex workers, I’d cast...[read on]

Visit Lyla Lane's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Best Little Motel in Texas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen memoirs & bios for Women’s History Month

One title on Tertulia's list of "memoirs and biographies [that] spotlight remarkable women across literature, activism, and the arts:"

The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change
Rebecca Solnit

Few writers have done more to help readers understand the hidden rhythms of social change than Rebecca Solnit. In this sequel to her influential Hope in the Dark, she surveys decades of political, cultural, and scientific transformation to argue that change is not only possible but already underway. The result is a bracing meditation on collective action, interconnection, and the long arc of progress—what the Los Angeles Times calls “an urgent manifesto for our tumultuous time.”

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Kelsey Day

From my Q&A with Kelsey Day, author of The Spiral Key:

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

Every year at Lincoln Academy, a high school student named Madison Pembroke throws a highly exclusive birthday party that takes place in a virtual reality called Ametrine. The high school’s social order bends around who receives an invitation and who doesn’t. Those invitations take the form of custom-made spiral keys—sleek, shiny keys that fit into the VR consoles used at Madison’s party. Receiving a spiral key means everything, especially for the social outcasts of the school. That’s why the book is called The Spiral Key: the key initially symbolizes the promise of acceptance, friendship, desirability…but turns to something much darker as the party begins.

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

Teenage me wouldn’t be surprised, but...[read on]

Visit Kelsey Day's website.

Q&A with Kelsey Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Danielle Girard reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Danielle Girard, author of Pinky Swear: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

My Friends by Fredrik Backman.

I’m in awe with the way Backman portrays friendship and emotion with such remarkable tenderness and authenticity. His characters reveal love, loyalty, guilt, and forgiveness through subtle gestures and shared silences. Backman captures the fragility of human connection, showing how friendships endure through vulnerability, miscommunication, and unwavering compassion. When...[read on]

About Pinky Swear, from the publisher:

From Danielle Girard, the USA TODAY bestselling author who “effortlessly ratchets up the tension” (J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author), comes a pulse-pounding thriller about a young woman whose surrogate disappears just days before the baby’s due date, leading to a frantic search that uncovers dark truths and the power of a mother’s love.

Lexi thought she knew everything about Mara Vannatta. Best friends since middle school, they drifted apart after a tragedy derailed their senior year. But when Mara shows up on Lexi’s doorstep sixteen years later fleeing an abusive husband, Lexi takes her in without question. Lexi’s own marriage has been strained by her desire to have a baby, and when Mara offers to become her surrogate, their friendship feels stronger than ever.

But four days before the due date, Mara disappears.

Lexi is shocked but certain there must be something wrong—Mara would never willingly leave with her unborn child. Or would she? As she embarks on a perilous cross-country hunt for the truth, Lexi is forced to reconsider a friendship she thought she knew—and what really happened that terrible night their senior year. How many secrets lie in their shared past, waiting to be uncovered? And just how far will Lexi go to bring her child safely home?

Visit Danielle Girard's website.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard (August 2018).

My Book, The Movie: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: White Out.

Q&A with Danielle Girard.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Bianca J. Baldridge's "Laboring in the Shadows"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work by Bianca J. Baldridge.

About the book, from the publisher:

Youth workers are essential to the fabric of society. Schools, families, and many of our social institutions rely heavily on their work, yet their contributions often go unrecognized. Laboring in the Shadows explores the critical role of Black youth workers, especially in the lives of vulnerable youth, and the challenges they face in their unstable, underappreciated position.

Bianca J. Baldridge situates the experiences of Black youth workers within the broader context of anti—Blackness and historical inequities. Drawing on rich interview data from across the United States, Baldridge offers a nuanced analysis of how the precarity of this work—marked by high turnover rates, low wages, and housing insecurity—compounds the challenges these workers face. She highlights how Black youth workers resist these structural harms by adopting and implementing innovative pedagogical practices alongside practices of "freedom dreaming" and joy as forms of resistance and pathways to agency for youth despite their precarious roles.

Positioning Black youth workers within a broader network of informal care workers in the United States, Baldridge underscores the significance, fragility, precarity, and power of these dedicated professionals, their essential work, and the possibilities they create for youth.

Visit Bianca J. Baldridge's website.

The Page 99 Test: Laboring in the Shadows.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top modern classics of historical fiction

Leah Rachel von Essen is an editor, writer, and book reviewer. She is a copyeditor and fact-checker at Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as a contributing editor, Adult Books, for American Library Association’s magazine Booklist. She writes regularly for Chicago Review of Books and is a senior contributor at Book Riot.

At Book Riot she tagged ten must-read modern classics of historical fiction. One title on the list:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A young blind girl named Marie-Laure escapes to the walled city of Saint-Malo as the Nazis invade France, bringing a hidden treasure with them. Meanwhile, a German teen is slowly drawn into the Nazi ranks thanks to his instinctive skill with radios and tech. The two youth illuminate what it was like for kids and teens to try and survive, persist, and come of age in the midst of the violence, fear, and tragedy of World War II. This emotional, lovely work has quickly become a modern-day classic and must-read.

Read about another novel on the list.

All the Light We Cannot See is among Melanie Maure's five top novels about women discovering unimaginable strength through tragedy, Audrey Gale's five top novels about war, Jyoti Patel's top ten books about family secrets, Kimi Cunningham Grant's top six books featuring father-daughter relationships, Liz Boulter's top ten novels about France, Emily Temple's fifty best contemporary novels over 500 pages, Jason Allen's seven top books with family secrets, Whitney Scharer's top ten books about Paris, David Baldacci's six favorite books with an element of mystery, Jason Flemyng's six best books, Sandra Howard's six best books, Caitlin Kleinschmidt's twelve moving novels of the Second World War and Maureen Corrigan's 12 favorite books of 2014.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Marina Evans's "The Cheerleader"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Cheerleader: A Novel by Marina Evans.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone wants to be a Dallas Lonestars Cheerleader, but fame can have a deadly price…

The Dallas Lonestars Cheerleaders are untouchable. They are the epitome of glitz and glamour, reeking of hairspray and perfection. But everything changes when America’s Angel and cheerleading captain Jentry Rae Randall is found murdered in the squad’s locker room.

Filmmaker Nikki Keegan has the opportunity of a lifetime. Brought in to document the Lonestars’ potential comeback after four disastrous seasons, Nikki is now perfectly placed to investigate the murder of the team’s iconic frontwoman.

Nikki turns to cheerleader Shaunette Simmons, the deceased’s best friend, for help. As Nikki becomes closer to Shaunette, the more she suspects that Shaunette is hiding something.

But when Shaunette is run off the road and left to die, it’s clear that nobody on this cheer squad is safe. Because some people would kill to be a Dallas Lonestars Cheerleader…

Marina Evans, a former NFL cheerleader herself, takes readers “behind the gloss” of this iconic American subculture in this high octane debut that is filled with twists, turns, and high kicks. Weaving between sisterhood and ambition, survival and scandal, The Cheerleader will keep you riveted until the final page.

Visit Marina Evans's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Cheerleader.

Q&A with Marina Evans.

Writers Read: Marina Evans.

The Page 69 Test: The Cheerleader.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Aidan Seale-Feldman's "The Work of Disaster"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Work of Disaster: Crisis and Care Along a Himalayan Fault Line by Aidan Seale-Feldman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A compelling portrait of post-disaster imaginaries of repair in Nepal.

In a world marked by escalating disasters, the forms that care takes are increasingly fraught. In this powerful book, anthropologist Aidan Seale-Feldman focuses on Nepal, where in 2015 a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and equally powerful aftershock struck the country’s central region. The disaster claimed more than nine thousand lives and inspired a surge of humanitarian concern for the mental health of Nepali people. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, The Work of Disaster examines the possibilities generated by disaster, as well as the vexed relationship between crisis and care.

Moving between NGO offices, mountain trails, therapeutic interventions, and affected villages, Seale-Feldman tells the story of an emergent “mental health crisis” and the forms of care that followed in the disaster’s wake. She also analyzes the changes emergency services bring about in the places they seek to assist, the challenges of psychiatric support provided by international organizations, and the place of mental health counseling in a modern biopolitical reality. The Work of Disaster reveals the simultaneous violence and gentleness of humanitarian encounters, engaging along the way with broader debates about world making and the ethics of care.

Visit Aidan Seale-Feldman's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Work of Disaster.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six contemporary novels that center caretaking through crisis

Sarah Bruni is a graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis and the MA in Latin American Studies at Tulane University. She has taught English and writing classes in New York and St. Louis, and she has volunteered as a writer-in-schools in San Francisco and Montevideo, Uruguay. She is also the author of the novel The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, and her translations have appeared in the Buenos Aires Review. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Bruni's new novel is Mass Mothering.

At Lit Hub the author tagged six contemporary novels that "explore the psychological toll of caretaking, the challenge of parenting through personal and political awakening, or the legacy of mutual aid within community." One title on the list:

Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

The primary narrator of Lost Children Archive is a mother and a collector of soundscapes, embarking on a road trip with her husband and two children, from New York City to Arizona. It soon emerges that the family is on the brink of crisis, as it’s unclear whether her husband will return with the family once they reach their destination. Their children, a ten-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, also narrate, navigating their shifting network of family relationships, while also tracking the simultaneous voyages of unaccompanied children seeking political asylum in the US. When the mother-narrator’s children go missing and cross paths with the lost children, their narrative cohabitation unearths questions around what it means to mother in the same world that children are forced to flee violence alone. In prose that renders the inner architecture of kids’ minds at work, the novel is as much a meditation on childhood as it is on caretaking, collection, and the politics of bearing witness.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Isabel Booth

From my Q&A with Isabel Booth, author of Then He Was Gone: A Novel:

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

Then He Was Gone gets right to the heart of the story: someone’s missing. Combined with the cover art, the reader knows that it’s a story about a missing child. I came up with the title after I finished writing the book. The folks at Crooked Lane Books and I played around with some other titles, but ultimately it was the publisher’s decision, and they stuck with the original.

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

My teenage reader self would be thrilled but not surprised. I was a voracious reader then, as now, and I started writing poems and stories at an early age. My teenage self might say, “Ah. Go ahead and be a...[read on]

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Then He Was Gone.

Q&A with Isabel Booth.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Karen E. Olson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Karen E. Olson, author of A Defiant Woman: A Modern Tudor Mystery.

Her entry begins:

The Tudors are clearly top my non-fiction subjects—and while my new novels are re- tellings, I like to loosely base my plots on actual Tudor history. It was for this reason that I recently picked up Nicola Tallis’s Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey. Tallis’s easy narrative is more novel-like than a dry biography of the young woman who was officially queen for nine days after Edward VI died, casting aside his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth in the line of succession in favor of his cousin—who did have a direct line to the throne as her grandmother was Henry VIII’s youngest sister Mary. Jane, who was a scholar and a linguist rivaling her cousin Elizabeth, was first a reluctant bride when her father conspired with the Duke of Northumberland to marry her to his son—and then was a reluctant queen in the plot that would put both her and her husband on the throne. But no matter how reluctant she was, Jane did attempt to...[read on]

About A Defiant Woman, from the publisher:

Kate Tudor’s marriage to billionaire Hank Tudor continues to fray when his ex-wife resurfaces in the wake of their daughter’s kidnapping, in the latest novel in this genre-defying crime series.

Eight years ago, Nan Tudor escaped her husband, billionaire businessman Hank Tudor, afraid for her life and leaving a dead body behind—but in doing so, she abandoned her three-year-old daughter, Lizzie. Still wracked with guilt for that decision, she is living a quiet life as a restaurant cook in France with her son when she receives a mysterious text: “We have your daughter.”

Lured back to the scene of the crime on Martha’s Vineyard by a threat against Lizzie’s life, Nan believes the kidnapper is exacting revenge against her, stopping at nothing to do so—and discovers that she and her daughter may not be the only targets. Kate Parker—Hank’s sixth and latest wife—is also on the island and drawn into the kidnapper’s elaborate web of retaliation.

Keeping their alliance secret from Hank, Hank’s fixer Thomas Cromwell, investigator Steve Gardiner, and reporter Tom Seymour, the two women find themselves in a race against time to rescue Lizzie—and to make sure they both stay alive.

Visit Karen E. Olson's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Inconvenient Wife.

Q&A with Karen E. Olson.

The Page 69 Test: A Defiant Woman.

Writers Read: Karen E. Olson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Megan VanGorder's "A Mother’s Work"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Mother's Work: Mary Bickerdyke, Civil War–Era Nurse by Megan VanGorder.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mary Ann Bickerdyke led a remarkable life. A widowed mother from Illinois, she became an influential traveling nurse and Sanitary Commission agent during the American Civil War. She followed the Union army through four years and nineteen battles, established hundreds of hospitals, assisted surgeons with amputations, treated fevers, and fed the soldiers in her care. Known affectionately as “Mother” to thousands of soldiers, Bickerdyke bridged the private world of home caregiving and the public demands of wartime and institutional medicine.

Drawing on a rich archive of personal letters, military records, and newspapers, Megan VanGorder explores how Bickerdyke used her maternal identity to challenge norms, advocate for soldiers, and pioneer compassionate care practices before, during, and after the Civil War. A Mother’s Work uses key episodes from Bickerdyke’s life to reveal broader truths about motherhood, medicine, and women’s roles in the nineteenth century, and offers an intimate and historically grounded portrait of one woman’s evolving identity and the moniker that made her famous. In reassessing Bickerdyke’s work and legacy, this book also serves as a new perspective on how white working-class women contributed to the transitional period of the Civil War era and reshaped public health, social care, and national memory.

Visit Megan VanGorder's website.

The Page 99 Test: A Mother's Work.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six atmospheric thrillers set during heatwaves

Elizabeth Arnott is an award-winning writer and journalist and has written critically acclaimed historical fiction as Lizzie Pook. Her work—covering everything from true crime to Arctic exploration—has featured in publications including The Sunday Times, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, and The Guardian. She lives with her husband and their young daughter in London, where she spends far too much time drinking iced coffee and watching serial killer shows.

Arnott's new novel is The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six "of the finest, most evocative crime novels that take place during heatwaves." One title on the list:

Jane Harper, The Dry

Harper is the undeniable queen of Outback noir, using boab-flecked landscapes and searing Australian heat to add tension to her stifling small-town narratives. With The Dry, her smash hit debut, we follow Federal Police agent Aaron Falk as he returns to his rural hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, Luke Hadler, who died in an apparent murder suicide alongside his wife and young son.

But when Luke’s parents press Falk to investigate further, dark secrets bubble to the surface and Falk’s own murky past is called into question. The action takes place in the fictional farming community of Kiewarra during the arid, unbearably hot Dry season. With a backdrop of scrubby crop fields, desiccated riverbeds and vast Outback emptiness, the heat swells from every page, creating a claustrophobic yet utterly compulsive reading experience.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Dry is Peter Nichols's six novels whose crimes and mysteries grow out of place & manners, Kate Alice Marshall's five mysteries and thrillers about returning to your hometown, Olivia Kiernan's seven modern classics of small town mystery, Sarah J. Harris's top eight mysteries with images that might stay with you forever and Fiona Barton's eight favorite cold-case mysteries.

--Marshal Zeringue