What is Paige Classey reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Paige Classey, author of Anna-Jane and the Endless Summer.

Her entry begins:

I am currently reading All the Colors of the Dark (2024), by Chris Whitaker, which a trusted friend recommended to me. Set in the mid-1970s, the story follows the abduction of a boy named Patch and how his absence impacts friends, family, and acquaintances. Through short, gripping chapters, readers get a vivid glimpse into a small Missouri town rocked by tragedy. The swift pacing and heart-wrenching character depictions have made it difficult for me to put down. It would be a great fit for anyone who enjoyed The God of the Woods (2024) by Liz Moore.

I generally like to alternate reading a...[read on]

About Anna-Jane and the Endless Summer, from the publisher:

Anna-Jane couldn’t wait for camp. But when the outside world goes dark, she and her friends soon realize they’re in for the adventure of their lives this summer—and maybe even beyond.

Anna-Jane is thrilled to be back at Camp Chester—the one place she feels like she belongs. She’s excited to swim in the lake, read in her favorite chair, and swap secrets with her best friend under the stars. But not long after Anna-Jane unpacks her trunk, weird things start happening.

First, townspeople near camp begin disappearing. Then, the internet, cell service, and all other forms of communication are cut off. Soon, Anna-Jane and the residents of Camp Chester realize they are completely alone.

Or so they think. Across the lake, the kids spot a strange flashing light. And when animals begin turning up with yellowed eyes and disfigured limbs, it is clear the dangers are only growing. Most alarming of all, though, is the deepening distrust among the campers themselves, which could have deadly consequences. Anna-Jane knows what to expect from a summer at camp . . . but what happens when camp lasts well beyond the summer?

Captured in Anna-Jane’s diary, discover the poignant journey of a young girl’s fight to survive in the face of the unknown.

Visit Paige Classey's website.

Q&A with Paige Classey.

Writers Read: Paige Classey.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jennifer Pearson's "Drop Dead Famous"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Drop Dead Famous by Jennifer Pearson.

About the book, from the publisher:

An investigation turns into an obsession when the younger sister of a slain pop starlet is determined to uncover her sister’s killer, no matter what it costs, in this “tense and intricately plotted thriller…[that] achieves high marks across the board” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

When superstar Blair Baker is murdered moments before her triumphant homecoming concert, her younger sister, Stevie, knows she has one chance to find out who’s responsible.

The thing is, Stevie’s been here before, desperately searching for clues that might reveal who hurt someone she loves…but Stevie was younger then, just a kid. This time, she won’t let the truth slip through her fingers.

What begins as a search for answers about Blair’s death turns into a dangerous journey through the darker side of global fame. Soon, Stevie begins to uncover dark secrets closer to home—secrets that someone wants desperately to keep hidden. Is Stevie ready to confront what the truth reveals?

Visit Jenny Pearson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Drop Dead Famous.

The Page 69 Test: Drop Dead Famous.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books featuring characters who break the “teen girl” trope

Caroline Bicks is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. She is the author of Cognition and Girlhood in Shakespeare’s World and Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England; co-author of Shakespeare Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas; and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast. Her essays and humor pieces have appeared in the Modern Love column of the New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and the show Afterbirth. She lives in Blue Hill, Maine, with her family.

Bicks's new book is Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King.

At Electric Lit Bicks tagged "seven stories [that] feature girls who use their cognitive abilities to challenge social norms and imagine their own destinies." One title on the list:

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Ng imagines a not-too-distant American dystopia where children are taken from their parents to “protect” them from unpatriotic ideas—namely, challenges to the anti-Asian narrative the government has manufactured to justify its authoritarian takeover. The main character, Bird, hasn’t seen his Chinese-American mom for years: rather than risk her son being “re-placed,” she disappears. He’s almost forgotten her when he meets Sadie, a 13-year-old who’s been taken from her family and bounced between foster homes. She’s a fearless truth seeker, asking the teachers where all the missing books are and secretly researching the history of Bird’s mom. When she discovers that her parents have moved with no forwarding address, she runs away and gets herself to New York City, where she helps reunite Bird with his mother. By the end, she still hasn’t found her parents, but she won’t stop searching for them, or for “a way out of all this.”

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Caroline Sharples's "The Long Death of Adolf Hitler"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History by Caroline Sharples.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fascinating exploration of why Hitler’s death was only confirmed in 2018

Adolf Hitler has taken a long time to die, despite the lethal efficiency of the gun he put to his head in April 1945. Although eagerly anticipated around the world, there were no available witnesses to his suicide—and his corpse was not put on display. This created the perfect vacuum for myth and survival legends, while rival intelligence agencies and propaganda further confounded the investigations of successive historians.

Caroline Sharples explores the aftermath of events at the Führerbunker in the first cultural account of this decisive yet elusive moment. Hitler’s death was widely anticipated, and the news elicited a huge range of emotions as governments and secret services scrambled to verify what they heard. The search for proof of death led to an outpouring of conspiratorial thinking, and the final moments of Hitler’s life have been reimagined ever since.

This is an intriguing, unsettling account of a historical event we all think we know—and a sophisticated examination of how history is written.

Learn more about The Long Death of Adolf Hitler at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Long Death of Adolf Hitler.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is April Howells reading?

Featured at Writers Read: April Howells, author of The Unforgettable Mailman: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I’m currently reading The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs and loving it. I enjoy books with older protagonists and the cat-and-mouse approach to this story caught my eye.

I recently finished Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley. I adored How to Age Disgracefully and picked up Clare’s backlist knowing it would be up my alley. I was right. Iona is a fun, tenacious main character others can’t help but gravitate to. She’s the perfect blend of...[read on]

About The Unforgettable Mailman, from the publisher:

It's never too late for the adventure of a lifetime, even if you can't remember why you started.

The Unforgettable Mailman is a heartwarming story about intergenerational friendship and the power of human connection, perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman and Virginia Evans' The Correspondent.

1966, Chicago. Backlogged with millions of undelivered letters, the post office announces a temporary closure. But eighty-one-year-old Henry Walton can't stand idly by when there’s mail waiting to be delivered. He believes letters are what keep people connected, and he’s not about to let them get lost in the chaos.

Plus, connection keeps the mind sharp—according to a note someone’s pinned up in his kitchen.

While the post office scrambles to get things under control, Henry races against time and forgetfulness. Taking it upon himself to deliver the mail, he discovers hatred and tragedy, triumph and joy in the letters he carries and the people he meets along the way.

Inspired by true events, this delightful story will linger with readers long after they turn the last page—and might just inspire someone to write a letter, the old-fashioned way.

Visit April Howells's website.

Q&A with April Howells.

My Book, The Movie: The Unforgettable Mailman.

The Page 69 Test: The Unforgettable Mailman.

Writers Read: April Howells.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books for fans of "Margo’s Got Money Troubles"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged seven titles for fans of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, including:

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Like Margo’s Got Money Troubles, this funny and heartfelt coming-of-age story by Jessica Anya Blau touches upon parenthood, family, substance abuse, fame, creating art, and finding yourself. In 1970’s Baltimore, bookish teen Mary Jane lands a summer job as a nanny for a psychiatrist’s toddler daughter. What Mary Jane didn’t realize is that the doctor is hosting a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer as the rock star works on recovering from substance abuse. Just as Margo gets life advice from her famous dad, so too does Mary Jane from the eccentric and lovable cast of characters she spends her summer with.

Read about another entry on the list.

Mary Jane is among Matthew Norman's seven novels featuring musicians & the lure of rock stardom and Jessica Gentile's eight titles with all the band drama of Daisy Jones & the Six.

The Page 69 Test: Mary Jane; Q&A with Jessica Anya Blau.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Paige Classey

From my Q&A with Paige Classey, author of Anna-Jane and the Endless Summer:

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

Anna-Jane and the Endless Summer introduces our narrator and signifies something unusual is afoot. Summer is supposed to have an end date; kids away at summer camp know this all too well. This title prepares the reader for atypical times. The original title was Anna-Jane and the Last Summer, but my editor and I worried that that maybe implied it was her last summer, as opposed to a last normal summer for all.

What's in a name?

Anna-Jane is a name I...[read on]

Visit Paige Classey's website.

Q&A with Paige Classey.

--Marshal Zeringue

T. Greenwood's "Everything Has Happened," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Everything Has Happened: A Novel by T. Greenwood.

The entry begins:

I have been told before that my writing is cinematic, and I think that comes from my deep love of movies. (I often say that in another life, I would have studied film in college.) When I write a novel, I approach each scene like a cinematographer - with a keen eye for detail and physical nuance, with vivid descriptions that help place readers in the moment. I try to create work that provides a sensory experience for the reader rather than a cerebral one.

I don't "cast" my novels per se, but after the novel is done, I often dream about who would play the characters in a film version of the book.

Everything Has Happened is a dual timeline literary mystery about a little boy who goes missing in 1986. The story is narrated by his older sister, Edie, both in the months leading up to his disappearance and nearly forty years later when the cold case is reopened. But in addition to being a mystery, the novel is also a sapphic love story about two young women at the precipice of their lives, and how the secrets they keep change their respective trajectories forever.

Edie Marshall, the narrator, is seventeen in 1986. She's a runner and an aspiring poet obsessed with Sylvia Plath. She comes from a traditional, middle-class family, her mother a pediatric nurse, and her father a carpenter. Trillium Jenkins (Trill) is new to school their senior year, the daughter of counter-culture parents, now living with her mother and older brother, Jericho, on the grounds of a defunct commune. Trill cracks Edie's world wide-open. She is magic. But...[read on]

Visit Tammy Greenwood's website.

My Book, The Movie: Rust and Stardust.

The Page 69 Test: Rust and Stardust.

Writers Read: T. Greenwood (August 2019).

The Page 69 Test: Keeping Lucy.

My Book, The Movie: Keeping Lucy.

Q&A with T. Greenwood.

The Page 69 Test: Such a Pretty Girl.

My Book, The Movie: The Still Point.

My Book, The Movie: Everything Has Happened.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about historic betrayals

Emma Parry's debut novel, Mrs. Benedict Arnold, is a compelling exploration of the life of Peggy Shippen, the wife of Benedict Arnold, during the American Revolution. The novel delves into the complexities of love, loyalty, and treason, as Peggy navigates the political currents of the time while seeking safety and peace for her family. Parry's writing is noted for its historical accuracy and the vivid portrayal of the characters, including the famous figures of the era. The novel has been praised for its fresh take on a well-known historical figure and its ability to shift the reader's perception of America's most famous traitor.

At The Nerd Daily Parry tagged five titles about historic betrayals, including:

Tatiana de Rosnay’s SARAH’S KEY takes the story of a ten year old French girl, and the American journalist excavating her case, to dramatize the unthinkably massive betrayal of 76000 Jewish men, women and children by French citizens and authorities in 1942.

With a plot like clockwork and clear, vivid prose, de Rosnay makes history indelible. Through spare details and deep feeling she conjures the bond between siblings, the casual cruelty of a concierge, and Parisians who profited from properties vacated by the round-up, and the Vichy-pleasing French police who exceeded even Nazi expectations. With a seamless dual timeline, the book’s momentum doesn’t let up.

Though de Rosnay’s focus is the cost of hate, more than its agents, she includes the chilling detail of Le Juif et La France, an anti-semitic propaganda exhibition in Paris staged in the run up to the round-up, and sends the reader to Chirac’s 1995 speech marking the anniversary of July 16 with its enjoinder to vigilance. Watch for cynical politics, the propagation of fear and exclusion, remember, horror is not impossible and refuse to be “passive onlookers, or accomplices, to the unacceptable”.

A novel that illuminates and disseminates history as well as fiction can.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Dale J. Stahl's "Two Rivers Entangled"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Two Rivers Entangled: An Ecological History of the Tigris and Euphrates in the Twentieth Century by Dale J. Stahl.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the twentieth century, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers underwent a profound physical transformation, one that mirrored the region's political shift from imperial rule to nation-state. Here, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey took shape in the wake of the Ottoman Empire, and the two rivers became sites of economic development planning and large-scale environmental engineering. It is a modern conceit that industrial, technological societies transcend ecological change, that technology and ecology operate separately. With this book, Dale J. Stahl instead centers riverine ecologies within the context of social and political projects and shows how natural processes encounter human intentions to manage, control, or modernize.

Weaving imperial and national histories with ecological ones, Two Rivers Entangled undermines familiar accounts of the invention of states, the advance of nations, and the triumphs of technical expertise. Stahl entangles a wide range of human and nonhuman actors―knitting together the movement of engineers and bureaucrats with that of salt particles, linking the disappointment of revolutionaries to the dissolution of unreliable rock, and following the flow of water over embankments and into poetry. Ultimately, this book offers an alternative account of twentieth-century Middle Eastern history, one subject as much to ecological change as to human visions and intentions.

Visit Dale J. Stahl's website.

The Page 69 Test: Two Rivers Entangled.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Travis Mulhauser's "Fair Chase"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fair Chase by Travis Mulhauser.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Travis Mulhauser, “who always honors his characters with firebrand intelligence, knife-sharp wit, and reckless heart,” (Nickolas Butler) comes the gripping story of a desperately hopeful foster child who’s searching for his family—even though they’re dangerous, complicated, and never see him coming.

There hasn't been a gray wolf in Michigan's lower peninsula in over 100 years, but when one migrates onto the Sawbrook family's vast acreage, the small community of Cutler finds itself in the throes of a panic. A trail of mutilated chickens and barn cats have peppered the area's remote outskirts, and concerns about safety are accompanied by the economic and political cost of an endangered species' uninvited return to northern Michigan. The Sawbrook siblings—Lucy, Buckner, and Jewell—find themselves at odds with locals, property owners, and the state's department of resources.

When fourteen-year-old runaway, Delos Harris, arrives on the family property claiming to be the siblings’ second cousin, and to have knowledge of the wolf’s exact location, the Sawbrooks are skeptical, but desperate, and can’t deny something about the boy seems oddly familiar. With time running out, they forge ahead together against gathering threats.

The state wants the wolf moved, the locals and the developers want it dead, and the Sawbrooks see its return as a decisive victory in their battle to preserve the natural world in northern Michigan. But when a poacher is hired to settle the matter permanently, the Sawbrooks must fight to protect each other, their land, and the brave child whose mysterious connection to the wolf will either save them all, or deliver the Sawbrooks to their final ruin.

Visit Travis Mulhauser's website.

Q&A with Travis Mulhauser.

The Page 69 Test: Fair Chase.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top suspense novels with heart

Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing, In Twenty Years, and Time of My Life.

She lives in Los Angeles with her family and their two rescue dogs, Hugo and Mr. Peanut.

Her new novel is The Insomniacs.

At CrimeReads Scotch tagged five mysteries that pack an emotional punch, including:

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

This isn’t just a book about a ghostwriter solving a decades-old mystery, it’s a read about a daughter trying to understand her father before she loses the chance to make peace with him. That relationship spurs so many of the actions that Clark masterfully takes us through, and that exploration turns this book into a masterclass.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Richard Elwes's "Huge Numbers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Huge Numbers: A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7 by Richard Elwes.

About the book, from the publisher:

How humanity’s long pursuit of ever-larger numbers broke the boundaries of mathematics and propelled us into the Information Age

What if, every time you wanted to write down 1,000,000, you had to draw a picture of a god? And what if that number were the biggest you had a symbol for? If you were doing math in ancient Egypt, those were the rules: anything bigger broke math.

As mathematician Richard Elwes shows in Huge Numbers, this is the strange story of math. Even today, writing down some numbers is beyond us: try it with all the zeroes in a googolplex, or an outrageous alien number like TREE(3). Safer not to try: even harnessing every particle in the universe, you wouldn’t come close. But this book is no mere bestiary of numerical monsters. It shows how, by hunting down and studying ever-bigger numbers, arithmetic has reshaped human thought and made our modern era of science and computation possible.

Where many math books celebrate abstract algebra or ineffable infinities, Huge Numbers is both more practical and far weirder. It reveals a world where most numbers remain out of reach until we discover how to chase them down and tame them, and so remake our world again.

Visit Richard Elwes's website.

The Page 99 Test: Huge Numbers.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Leslie Karst reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Leslie Karst, author of Murder, Local Style (An Orchid Isle Mystery, 3).

Her entry begins:

I’m currently reading Fell Murder, by E.C.R. Lorac, the pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett, who was a member (along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton) of the prestigious “Detection Club.” First published in 1944, this mystery novel is set in the fells and dales of England not far from the Lake District, and concerns the murder of the patriarch of a family who’d farmed the north country for generations.

What I most love about Fell Murder is the slow pace and detailed descriptions of the tight-knit and insular farming community, the dramatic landscape, and the World War II setting. Reading this book reminds me of...[read on]

About Murder, Local Style, from the publisher:

Retired caterer Valerie Corbin investigates a suspicious poisoning in this Orchid Isle cozy culinary mystery, featuring a feisty queer couple who swap surfing lessons for sleuthing sessions in tropical Hilo, Hawai‘i.

A dinner to die for!

It’s been an eventful transition, but retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen are finally settling into life on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Val’s even joined the neighborhood orchid society to make some new friends. So when she’s asked to step in to cater their latest social event, as the newbie of the group she can’t exactly say no.

But what should have been a straightforward gig is soon a dining disaster when the food from the event poisons and kills the society president. As Val herself becomes a suspect in the murder investigation, she’s determined to uncover the truth. Who would want to kill the mild-mannered president of the orchid society?

Turns out the list is longer than a celebrity chef's tasting menu. Apparently some of the residents did not "love thy neighbor." Can she reveal the killer’s identity before they strike again?

This mouthwatering cozy mystery is perfect for fans of Ellen Byron, Jennifer J Chow, Lucy Burdette, and Raquel V Reyes, and includes a selection of delicious Hawaiian recipes to cook at home.

Visit Leslie Karst’s website.

Coffee with a Canine: Leslie Karst & Ziggy.

My Book, The Movie: The Fragrance of Death.

Q&A with Leslie Karst.

The Page 69 Test: Waters of Destruction.

My Book, The Movie: Waters of Destruction.

Writers Read: Leslie Karst (April 2025).

The Page 69 Test: Murder, Local Style.

Writers Read: Leslie Karst.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about women with secret lives

Bonnie Friedman is the author of the bestselling, widely anthologized Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life. She is also the author of the memoirs The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy and Surrendering Oz.

Her essays have been selected for inclusion in The Best Writing on Writing, The Best American Movie Writing, The Best Buddhist Writing, and The Best Spiritual Writing. Her new novel is Don’t Stop.

At Lit Hub Friedman tagged eight "books that reveal covert lives, truths that society forbids or shames, and an effusion of vibrant spirit." One title on the list:

The Words of Dr. L., and Other Stories, Karen E. Bender

Suspenseful speculative fiction about isolated women hiding something dangerous. Pregnancy and a quest for the illegal means to end it in a surveillance society features in one story; people becoming physically (and to them shamefully) invisible due to their being treated with an oblivious daily cruelty that has become endemic centers another. Further stories illuminate emotional realities burrowed deep within enormously likeable characters, often moving the reader (or this reader anyway) to astonished tears. To read it is to sit at the feet of a master of the short story form. Speculative fiction has never been my thing. This book changed that.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Benjamin A. Saltzman's "Turning Away"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Turning Away: The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture by Benjamin A. Saltzman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping account of how we are at our most human when we turn away from the pains of the world.

Why do we look away from the suffering of others? Why do we cover our faces in shame? Why do we lower our heads in grief? Few gestures are as universal as the averted gaze. Fewer still are as ambivalent and inscrutable. In this incisive study, Benjamin A. Saltzman reveals how the kaleidoscopic appearance of these gestures in art, poetry, and philosophy has turned them into an essential language for our uncomfortable engagements with the world, challenging us to reflect on the ways we fundamentally relate to others.

Into the horizon of contemporary discourse, Turning Away sets out from five influential scenes in which figures avert their gaze: Timanthes's Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Plato's Republic, Augustine's Confessions, Christ's Crucifixion, and the Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve. The gestures of aversion in these scenes refract across visual media, through philosophy and politics, into modernity and the present day, having been reimagined along the way by thinkers like Hannah Arendt, artists like Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí, poets like Langston Hughes, and many others. Saltzman offers a timely critique of the privilege of turning away and of the too-easy condemnation of our tendencies to do so.

Visit Benjamin A. Saltzman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Turning Away.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Catherine Mack

From my Q&A with Catherine Mack, author of This Weekend Doesn't End Well for Anyone: A Novel:

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

A lot! The titles are everything in this series! Usually, I come up with a concept first, but it was the title that came to me first with Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies, and each title after that has to live up to that one. They convey the tone, the topic, and the genre.

What's in a name?

The main character of my books is called Eleanor Dash. She’s named after...[read on]

Visit Catherine McKenzie's website.

The Page 69 Test: Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies.

Q&A with Catherine Mack.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight mysteries about cryptids & cryptozoology

Elisa Shoenberger is a freelance writer and journalist. At Book Riot she tagged eight "mystery books [that] explore the wide world of cryptids, from werewolves to Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster." One title on the list:

A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan

Some people knit; others fix up old cars. Morgan Carter tries to find cryptids when she’s not tending her bookshop in Door County, Wisconsin. But her hobby becomes serious when she’s asked to look into some mysterious deaths. Several bodies found in the water appear to have been mauled by a large creature. Will she get to the bottom of the crime, or will she become another victim of this nameless creature? It’s the first book in the Mystery Hunter series, which just saw book four, Monster in the Moonlight, drop in January.

Read about another entry on the list.

Q&A with Annelise Ryan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kayla Hardy's "The Quarter Queen"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Quarter Queen: A Novel by Kayla Hardy.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Voodoo witch must navigate a magically and racially divided nineteenth-century New Orleans to save her mother—and the soul of the city itself—in this lush debut novel inspired by the life of Marie Laveau.

In 1843 New Orleans, the reigning Voodoo queen is Marie Laveau, feared by her enemies and followers alike. Her daughter, Marie "Ree" Laveau the Second, is everything her cutthroat and principled mother is not—spoiled and entitled, with a wickedly rebellious streak—and defies her mother at every turn. But Ree’s world is turned upside down when she finds Marie comatose in the bayou, cursed by exiled Voodoo king Jon the Conjurer—Marie’s former teacher, lover, and greatest enemy.

As Marie hovers on the brink of death, Ree races to uncover the secrets of her mother’s life in search of a cure and gradually uncovers a web of alliances, dangers, and deception. What’s worse, Henryk Broussard, Ree’s long-missing childhood best friend, returns as a witch hunter of the Church, tasked with investigating her. With so many enemies circling, including a puritanical-minded Brotherhood of alchemists and the slave-holding mayor of the city, Ree must confront the past and face her mother’s demons that have now become her own—or die trying.

Told in alternating timelines between Ree in the present and Marie’s rise to power twenty-five years earlier, The Quarter Queen is an intimate yet epic portrait of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand one another, and a captivating exploration of racism, family, and womanhood.

Visit Kayla Hardy's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Quarter Queen.

--Marshal Zeringue