Jennifer Pearson's "Drop Dead Famous," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Drop Dead Famous by Jennifer Pearson.

The entry begins:

In Drop Dead Famous, global popstar Blair Baker is murdered during her triumphant hometown show. The world is shaken but for her younger sister Stevie, it’s deeply personal. What starts as a search for answers pulls Stevie into the dark, toxic side of fame, where secrets, lies, and betrayal hit closer to home than she ever expected.

When I was writing Stevie, I had Emily Hampshire who plays Stevie Budd in Schitt’s Creek in my mind, but as she’s even older than me, so, unfortunately, I don’t think I can cast her in the role. Instead, I’d go for Jessica Barden. Stevie needs someone who can balance vulnerability with an offbeat edge, and Barden excels at exactly that. Known for her ability to portray complex, emotionally layered characters, shecould capture Stevie’s inner struggles and sharp wit effortlessly.

Colby brings the spark of fun and energy that keeps the story from getting too heavy. That’s why...[read on]

Visit Jenny Pearson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Drop Dead Famous.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven music-themed books

Delphine Seddon writes female-driven contemporary fiction and poetry. She is a graduate of Faber & Faber’s writing academy and studied poetry at Goldsmiths University.

Her debut novel is Darkening Song.

For the past 20 years she has worked in the music business.

At The Nerd Daily Seddon tagged seven favorite music-themed books. One title on the list:

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid

Band member + new lead singer + falling in love = band imploding
This is a gorgeous book. The story is told via a series of interviews with the former members of fictional band, The Six, and their new lead singer, Daisy Jones and it just feels real, even down to the language the characters use which is reflective of the time (1970s). Daisy is a very strong female lead, but there’s also a real vulnerability to her which is beautifully conveyed. Lots of early reader reviews say Darkening Song reminds them of Daisy Jones & The Six but a darker, present day version – every time I see someone write that I nearly faint with joy because it’s such a huge compliment.

Read about another entry on the list.

Daisy Jones and the Six is among Pamela Spradlin Mahajan's five best books about the fabulous—and painful—parts of fame, Isabelle McConville's ten Taylor Swift song-to-book recommendations, Julia Fine's seven novels inspired by other art forms, Elvin James Mensah's seven top novels that celebrate pop music, Glenn Dixon's ten best novels about fictional bands, and Benjamin Myers's top ten mentors in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Curtis Dozier's "The White Pedestal"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate by Curtis Dozier.

About the book, from the publisher:

How white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics

It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Curtis Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it’s hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today.

Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success.

Learn more about The White Pedestal at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The White Pedestal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: April Howells's "The Unforgettable Mailman"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Unforgettable Mailman: A Novel by April Howells.

About the novel, 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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books for "Devil Wears Prada" lovers

At People magazine Shyla Watson and Lizz Schumer tagged ten must-read workplace dramas for Devil Wears Prada lovers. One title on the list:

Charity Trickett Is Not So Glamorous by Christine Stringer

Charity Trickett arrives in Los Angeles in 1997 to assist on a major blockbuster and quickly learns the industry is far less glamorous than it seems. Determined to become a screenwriter and producer, she works tirelessly to prove herself while navigating cutthroat coworkers, financial struggles, heartbreak and a mistake that could cost the studio millions.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg 99: Craig Fehrman's "This Vast Enterprise"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark by Craig Fehrman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: For the first time in a generation, This Vast Enterprise offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes in American history, humanizing forgotten figures and shattering long-held myths.

In 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their journey—having led the Corps of Discovery across eight thousand miles of rapids, mountains, forests, and ravines—they bring an incredible tale starring themselves as courageous explorers, skilled survivalists, underrated scientists, and peaceful ambassadors. While there is truth in those descriptions, there is also distortion.

From one of the most exciting new historians to emerge in the past decade, This Vast Enterprise offers a novel take on the expedition: a gripping narrative that draws on lost documents, stunning analysis, and Native perspectives. Craig Fehrman spent five years visiting more than thirty archives, interviewing more than a hundred sources, and collecting oral history passed down over centuries. He came to see that the success of Lewis and Clark depended on much more than just Lewis and Clark. We all know Sacajawea, and some of us know York, the Black man Clark enslaved. But here we meet John Ordway, a working-class soldier who fought grizzlies and towed the captains’ hulking barge. We hear from Wolf Calf, a Blackfoot teenager who watched his friend die in a battle with Lewis and his men.

Each chapter moves to a different person’s point of view, describing their desires and contradictions. We see Thomas Jefferson operating in an age of bitter partisan unrest—his secret political maneuvers to fund the expedition, revealed here for the first time, are a case study in presidential power. We witness the strategy and strength of Black Buffalo, completely upending our understanding of Lakota-American diplomacy. York, in his chapters, finds ways to wield power and make choices in an era that didn’t allow him much of either. Clark is not a folksy Kentuckian but a student of the Enlightenment. (Fehrman discovered his college notebook; no previous biographer even realized that he went to college.) Lewis is someone willing to sacrifice everything for his country and his mentor, Jefferson.

In the end, the captains are men who needed help—from Sacajawea, from the Corps, and from each other. Mile after mile, the expedition pushes on through hailstorms and flash floods, frostbite and infections, rattlesnakes and rabid wolves, with the Spanish cavalry in fierce pursuit. Fehrman balances the story’s adventure with the humanity of its protagonists. The result is a thrilling reminder that even the most familiar moments in history can still surprise us.

Visit Craig Fehrman's website.

The Page 99 Test: This Vast Enterprise.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Michael O'Donnell reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Michael O'Donnell, author of Concert Black.

His entry begins:

I always seem to be reading too many books, evenly divided between fiction and non-fiction. I’m thoroughly enjoying Michael Crummey’s The Adversary, a wonderful novel about a pair of nemesis siblings—a crude, violent brother and a brilliant, amoral sister—living on a remote coast of Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century. I recently found myself traveling without a book to read and its brilliant cover design and sparkling first page jumped out at me in a local bookstore. It reminds me a good deal of Ian McGuire’s The North Water, a remarkable novel from 2016 about physical and spiritual warfare on a whaler during...[read on]

About Concert Black, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Above the Fire comes Concert Black, a hauntingly elegant novel that unspools a tale of music, obsession, and the fragile architecture of legacy.

Ellen Wroe, a celebrated biographer known for her piercing insight, sets her sights on Cecil Woodbridge, the legendary conductor whose name reverberates through concert halls and conservatories. But Woodbridge, imperious and elusive, rebuffs her approach and conspires to thwart her efforts. Undeterred, Wroe embarks on a relentless pursuit, trailing the maestro across continents—through the archives of his correspondence, into the confidences of his colleagues, and deeper still into the long shadow of his past.

Maestro, cellist, king of the baton—Woodbridge is a man enshrined in myth and bristling with contradictions. Beneath the grandeur lies a hidden lattice of ambition, betrayal, and sorrow. As Wroe attempts to chart his ascent, she uncovers not only the cost of genius but the wreckage it often leaves behind.

With lyrical precision and atmospheric sweep, Concert Black echoes the psychological depth of Ian McEwan’s Atonement and the philosophical resonance of Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time. From the frostbitten avenues of postwar London to the symphonic stages of Boston and Chicago, biographer and subject circle each other in an elegiac dance—until they collide in a reckoning neither can escape.

A novel of ambition and artistry, Concert Black is a symphony of human complexity: piercing, poised, and unforgettable.

Visit Michael O'Donnell's website.

Q&A with Michael O'Donnell.

The Page 69 Test: Above the Fire.

Writers Read: Michael O'Donnell (December 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Concert Black.

Writers Read: Michael O'Donnell.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books featuring self-sabotaging characters

Pardeep Toor is a winner of the PEN America Dau Prize. His writing has appeared in Best Debut Short Stories: The PEN America Dau Prize, Southern Humanities Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, and Longreads. His new short story collection is Hands (Cornerstone Press). Toor grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and now lives in Colorado.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven

stories of characters who can’t get out of their own way. These characters are both the aggressors and victims of their circumstances. They are hard to love, but it’s still painful to read about their collapses. In the end, readers are left feeling queasy, hoping for the best while realizing that the worst is inevitable.

One title on Toor's list:

Oksana, Behave! by Maria Kuznetsova

Oksana is selfish and self-destructive. She sleeps with a married man at her grandmother’s funeral. She drinks a lot and is generally unlikeable. But she’s funny. Is that enough? It is in Oksana, Behave!, which follows a family’s immigration journey to the United States through Oksana’s engaging and brutally honest perspective. She recalls the story of her family moving from Kiev to Florida, and describes her education in middle and high school, college, and then graduate school. The immigrant themes of losing social status, language, and homeland are integrated within this coming-of-age story. Oksana’s comedic charm makes her likeable and hateable at the same time. Ultimately, her hurtful antics induce a guilty laugh—even though she should know better.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Shay Kauwe

From my Q&A with Shay Kauwe, author of The Killing Spell:

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

The original title of The Killing Spell was a reference to a popular ʻŌlelo Noʻeau (Hawaiian proverb) I ka ʻōlelo no ke ola; i ka ʻōlelo no ka make, which roughly translates to “In language there is life; In language there is death.” My publisher let me know that title may be a bit of a mouthful to remember and suggested the The Killing Spell, arguing that it would be catchier.

They were right.

What's in a name?

In Hawaiian culture, names are taken seriously which is why Kea’s holds so much weight. Kealaokaleo literally translates to...[read on]

Visit Shay Kauwe's website.

Q&A with Shay Kauwe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on "The Education of Henry Adams"

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Buffa's latest take in his "Third Reading" series covers The Education of Henry Adams. It begins:

Written in 1905, The Education of Henry Adams was printed in a private edition of one hundred copies, limited, perhaps, to that number because it was thought to be as large an audience as it was likely to command. Adams explains at the very beginning the somewhat unusual ambition he had for the book.

“American literature offers scarcely one working model for high education…. Except in the abandoned sphere of the dead languages, no one has discussed what part of education has, in his personal experience, turned out to be useful, and what not. This volume attempts to discuss it.”

Five hundred pages later, in a chapter entitled, “The Abyss of Ignorance,” Adams tells us what he had hoped his education would teach him and why this was a necessary sequel to something else he had written. The century 1150-1250, expressed in Amiens Cathedral and the Works of Thomas Aquinas, was, he believed, “the unit from which he might measure down to his own time, without assuming anything as true or untrue, except relation.” He had written Mont Saint Michel: a study of thirteenth-century unity so that he could, from that point, “fix a position for himself, which he would label: The Education of Henry Adams: a study of twentieth-century multiplicity. With the help of these two points of relation, he hoped to project his line forward and backward indefinitely, subject to correction from anyone who should know better.” Adams was serious. This was not some generalized scheme of historical movement; he had something quite specific in mind: to trace, to “triangulate,” not just the movement, the “acceleration of movement in politics since the year 1200, as he was trying to fix it in philosophy and physics; in finance and force.”

Born on February 2, 1838, Adams had more than the ordinary chances of acquiring the education he needed. His great-grandfather, John Adams, and his grandfather, John Quincy Adams, had both been President, and his father, Charles Francis Adams, was the American minister to England during the Civil War. Henry Adams, however, was never to have anything like the same kind of career. “As it happened he never got to the point of playing the game at all; he lost himself in the study of it….” It was not because he was a particularly good student. He hated school, “and the prejudice became deeper with years. He always reckoned his school-days from ten to sixteen years old, as time thrown away.” There were, really, only four things he thought he needed to know: Mathematics, French, German, and Spanish. “With these he could master in very short time any special branch of inquiry, and feel at home in any society.” It is a mark of how much has changed in what we mean by education, that Adams added, “Latin and Greek, he could, with the help of the modern languages, learn more completely by the intelligent work of six weeks than in the six years he spent on them at school.”

After the wasted years of ten to sixteen, Adams wasted four more at Harvard. Looking back on it...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius; The Closing of The American Mind; History of Rome; Before The Deluge; Herodotus's Histories; The Education of Henry Adams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five historical fiction books featuring older women

Rachel Brittain is a writer, Day Dreamer, and Amateur Aerialist. Her short fiction has appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, Andromeda Spaceways, and others. She is a contributing editor for Book Riot, where she screams into the void about her love of books. Brittain lives in Northwest Arkansas with a rambunctious rescue pup, a snake, and a houseful of plants (most of which aren’t carnivorous).

At Book Riot she tagged five historical fiction books in which "older women prove that it’s never too late to begin a new adventure." One entry on the list:

The Woman With No Name by Audrey Blake

Based on the life of a remarkable real woman, The Woman With No Name tells the story of Yvonne Rudellat, the first woman recruited by Britain to become a saboteur during WWII. Estranged from her husband and with her adult daughter working in a factory for the war effort, Yvonne is already feeling adrift when her apartment is bombed in the Blitz. She wants to do her part, but no one wants anything from an unassuming, middle-aged woman. That is, until she’s recruited by SOE (Special Operations Executive) to become a sabotage agent. Defying the expectations of all the men who underestimated her, Yvonne takes to spy school with enthusiasm and is soon off to France, where her work will set her against Nazis who will go to any length to uncover the spies in their midst.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eamonn Gearon's "The Arab Bureau"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit by Eamonn Gearon.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the midst of the First World War, an extraordinary intelligence unit operated from Cairo's Savoy Hotel, combining the skills of archaeologists, academics and soldiers to revolutionize how Britain gathered information and shaped events in the Middle East. Overshadowed by Lawrence of Arabia, the Arab Bureau's true significance has remained hidden in plain sight ever since.

This fascinating study uncovers the Bureau's remarkable story through newly discovered Arabic documents and previously overlooked archives. At its heart lies an astonishing find: Thawrat al-Arab, an ambitious Arabic-language book and the longest piece of British propaganda produced during the war. From the Arab Bulletin's secret intelligence reports to sophisticated propaganda campaigns, the Bureau was decades ahead of its time. The team--including archaeologists fresh from desert digs and scholars fluent in local dialects--developed new methods of cultural intelligence that would influence future generations.

Eamonn Gearon's compelling narrative reveals how this unique organization navigated the complexities of Arab politics, tribal rivalries and Ottoman intelligence, while developing techniques that resonate with today's challenges in intelligence-gathering. Essential reading for anyone interested in intelligence history, the Middle East or how innovation occurs in wartime, this book transforms our understanding of a crucial moment in world history.

Visit Eamonn Gearon's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Arab Bureau.

--Marshal Zeringue

April Howells's "The Unforgettable Mailman," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Unforgettable Mailman by April Howells.

The entry begins:

If The Unforgettable Mailman got optioned for a movie, I would cast Harrison Ford as Henry. (Please say yes, Harrison!) I can picture him bringing the humour and determination of Henry to the role, capturing hearts the same way he has in Shrinking and the Indiana Jones franchise.

I’d also cast Morgan Freeman as Stan, Henry’s close friend and confidante. Morgan Freeman was a...[read on]

Visit April Howells's website.

Q&A with April Howells.

My Book, The Movie: The Unforgettable Mailman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that explore the machinery behind celebrity culture

Candice Wuehle is author of Monarch, Fidelitoria: Fixed or Fluxed, Death Industrial Complex, and BOUND. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Her new novel is Ultranatural.

At Lit Hub Wuehle tagged six titles that explore the machinery behind celebrity culture. "Taken together, they suggest that celebrity has always been less about visibility and more about narrative control." One title on the list:

Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde

Joyce Carol Oates’s monumental reimagining of Marilyn Monroe’s life remains one of the grittiest and most disturbing novels ever written about celebrity. I’ve read Blonde three times: once when it came out, again in my twenties, and then years later while I was working out the structure of Ultranatural. Each time hit different, although this last time the machinery of celebrity production Oates highlights stood out. Rather than reproducing Monroe’s public mythology, Oates invents a fictional interior life for Norma Jeane Baker, exploring the psychological cost of becoming a cultural icon. One scene has stayed with me across all three readings: the moment when nude photos are taken for what will later become Monroe’s infamous Playboy spread.

In Oates’s telling, Norma Jeane isn’t thinking about scandal or fame. She is preoccupied with something much smaller—she hopes the bottoms of her feet won’t show in the photographs. That tiny anxiety becomes a devastating microcosm of celebrity itself: the star worries about one vulnerable detail while the image is destined to circulate far beyond her control. When the photographs resurface later and ignite a scandal, the studio forces Monroe into a carefully staged public apology. Reading it now, the scene feels eerily familiar—a rehearsal for the ritual that would play out decades later when Britney Spears was likewise pushed to apologize to the paparazzi and the public for the spectacle built around her own image. In Oates’s hands, the novel exposes the brutal asymmetry at the heart of celebrity culture: the world consumes the image, while the person behind it struggles to survive the narrative imposed upon them.

Read about another entry on Wuehle's list.

Blonde also appears among Jerome Charyn's five best books about the lives of divas, Nathan Smith's seven top Marilyn Monroe books, Rose Tremain's six best books, John O’Farrell's top ten celebrity appearances in fiction, Michel Schneider's top ten books on Marilyn Monroe, Ron Hansen's five best literary tales of real-life crimes, and Janet Fitch's book list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sandrine Bergès's "No Place Like Home"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: No Place Like Home: Women Philosophers' Struggles with Domesticity by Sandrine Bergès.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why should we think about the home? Most would agree that it is central to children's development-a healthy, stable, and hopefully loving environment where they can prepare for adulthood. But for women, the duties and expectations bound up with life at home have historically often meant stunted development, confinement to the home and domestic work, subordination to a man who goes in and out of the home freely. While societal advancements have helped to close this gap for some, these problems endure for many. The writings of women philosophers, some going back many centuries, reveal insights on these challenges that deserve close study.

In No Place Like Home, Sandrine Bergès calls attention to women philosophers' ideas and arguments, starting in antiquity and continuing into the twenty-first century. Through their writings, she examines the concept of the home in all its historical richness and variety, thus reinstating the home as a philosophical problem, worthy of deep inquiry. Bergès examines writings about domesticity from numerous female thinkers and writers across history, including but not limited to, Perictione, Angelina Grimké, Mary Wollstonecraft, Catharine Beecher, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Cavendish, Simone de Beauvoir, and Marie Kondo.

Through their perspectives, she reveals the rich and varied history of philosophical reflections on the home, from which we are given the tools to draw our own conclusions about its place in our modern lives.

Visit Sandrine Bergès's website.

The Page 99 Test: No Place Like Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Helen Benedict's "The Soldier's House"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Soldier's House: A Novel by Helen Benedict.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A bold and compassionate novel about war’s aftermath, The Soldier’s House confronts the uneasy truths of rescue, redemption, and what it means to share a home and future with a former enemy.

In The Soldier’s House, Helen Benedict tells the story of an Iraq War veteran who saves the lives of his assassinated Iraqi interpreter’s widow, child, and mother by bringing them to his upstate New York home. For the soldier, this is a way of making amends, but the widow finds being rescued by the enemy both humiliating and compromising. This is a compassionate tale that examines whether redemption and forgiveness are even possible in the wake of war. In light of the increasing displacement of people all over the world, The Soldier’s House is particularly timely and poignant.

Visit Helen Benedict's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Wolf Season.

Q&A with Helen Benedict.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Deed.

My Book, The Movie: The Soldier's House.

Writers Read: Helen Benedict.

The Page 69 Test: The Soldier's House.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top modern fantasy novels that revitalize fairy tale tropes

Moorea Corrigan holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in English literature from the University of Edinburgh and a master of publishing degree from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. She works at an academic press in Boulder, Colorado. When she is not writing, you can find her singing, spending time with her menagerie of pets, or attending Jane Austen conventions in full Regency regalia.

Thistlemarsh is her debut novel.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged ten books that twist fairy "tales in innovative ways that engage with both the original material and the modern day." One title on the list:

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

T. Kingfisher brings a folkloric touch to the story of Sleeping Beauty with this delightful novella. Switched at birth with a Faerie child, our main character a Toadling grows up amongst the Faeries and only returns to grant a gift to her own dangerous replacement. Focusing on finding strength in strangeness and acceptance, this is a stunning take on an old tale. Standalone.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paula Davis Hoffman's "Making the Miami Cubanita"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Making the Miami Cubanita: A Pop Cultural Genealogy by Paula Davis Hoffman.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the end of the nineteenth century, William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal glorified cubanas as “the most feminine and simple women in the world.” Ever since, the stereotype of Cuban femininity as chaste and dutiful has informed Cubans’ racial, social, and ethnic identity in the dominant American imagination, and this gendered and deracialized narrative has taken different forms and served various purposes throughout the Cuban diaspora.

In Making the Miami Cubanita Paula Davis Hoffman examines the cultural precepts and political aims underlying the construction of Cuban femininity in pop culture outlets produced by, for, and about Cuban Americans of the Cuban diaspora. By incorporating academic texts, oral interviews, and elements of popular culture as well as personal accounts of growing up in a first-wave Cuban exile family, Hoffman discusses the historical forces that molded vacillating constructions of Miami Cuban women. Organized by decade, this book traces internal and external articulations of Cuban American culture and examines how Cuban American exceptionalism played into the evolution of the term chonga, originally an insult disciplining young cubanas who performed stigmatized ethnic signifiers that has today become a label some proudly own. Not only does Hoffman fill a gap in academic research surrounding the subculture of Cuban American women, she further demonstrates how migration, race, gender, and sexuality are informed by popular culture and political agenda within the diverse context of South Florida.

Visit Paula Davis Hoffman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Making the Miami Cubanita.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with April Howells

From my Q&A with April Howells, author of The Unforgettable Mailman: A Novel:

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

I like to believe the title sums the whole story up. Not only is it a play on words regarding Henry’s memory loss, but it also lets readers know the story will linger with them after they turn the last page. Henry is sweet and determined and unintentionally funny. He’s the type of character you root for and one you won’t soon forget.

I wrote the story off and on for years, and in the beginning the working title was much different. It wasn’t until I experienced the impacts of memory loss in my family that Henry’s character fully developed and this title came to me. I provided several alts to my publisher, but The Unforgettable Mailman was the clear winner.

What’s in a name?

Whenever I’m choosing names for characters, it’s important to me that...[read on]

Visit April Howells's website.

Q&A with April Howells.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books where romance meets murder

USA Today bestselling author Letizia Lorini is an Italian writer who is passionate about heartwarming books with high cackling potential. Currently based in a Scandinavian country, she lives with her partner and their fluffy Japanese Spitz. She also has a degree in sociology and one in criminology, speaks three languages, and drinks the daily recommended dose of coffee before breakfast.

Lorini's novels include the murder romcom A Killer Kind of Romance.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged ten titles for "readers wanting sparks alongside murder weapons." One title on the list:

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Meddy Chan’s blind date ends very badly. “How do we hide this corpse?” badly. Together with her four aunties, she juggles wedding planning, family chaos, and a body in a cooler. This book is pure chaotic rom‑com energy paired with murder and satire.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Bellamy Rose's seven top books that combine mystery and romance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Caitlin C. Gillespie's "Women and Resistance in the 'Annals' of Tacitus"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Women and Resistance in the Annals of Tacitus by Caitlin C. Gillespie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Women and Resistance in the Annals of Tacitus explores how Tacitus often represents a Roman woman's relationship to the imperial household and its members as one of resistance. Throughout his Annals, women discover ways to resist without relying on traditional forms of power. Women engage in political protests, legal disputes, public processions, and subversive religious rituals. They demonstrate resistance in acts of mourning and commemoration and overturn gender stereotypes by enduring pain and displaying courage in death. Tacitus illustrates how women's public movements, rituals, suicides, and survivals become sites of resistance and opportunities for civic engagement open to women.

Caitlin C. Gillespie situates nonimperial Roman women at the fore, reading them in comparison with Tacitus's narratives of imperial women and hierarchies of power. With this new analytical approach, stereotypes against women are variously confirmed or denied, challenged or evoked as evidence, or employed as a means of attack or defense. Women emerge to claim agency over their bodies, reputations, and actions, and though a vulnerable population, refuse to be passive victims of their circumstances.

Learn more about Women and Resistance in the Annals of Tacitus at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Women and Resistance in the Annals of Tacitus.

--Marshal Zeringue