Caitlin Rother's "Hooked," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Hooked: A Thriller by Caitlin Rother.

The entry begins:

I started writing Hooked almost 20 years ago, when I was younger, and so were the actors and actresses that could be cast to play my two lead characters--investigative reporter Katrina Chopin and surfing homicide detective Ken Goode.

The book opens with the two characters meeting at a bar in La Jolla, being immediately drawn to each other not just because they are both attractive, but because they start talking about trauma and tragedy they both share from their past. Goode gets called away to respond to a death scene before Katrina gets a chance to tell him she's a reporter, so when he sees her again the next morning after the news conference, he is disappointed to find out that she is a reporter covering his suspicious death case, because now it means they can't date. It also means that they will be competing professionally to solve the case from either side of a very bright line that separates reporters and their sources. So when I write my first drafts of this book, I would have cast Ryan Gosling as Ken Goode, because he's good at playing smart and sarcastic, and he's tall and athletic, and he was even cast as Ken in Barbie many years after I thought about him for this part in my movie. So apparently others saw him that way too. However, I think he's a bit too old now to play this character, who is 37, so the closest I could come is Glen Powell, for all the same reasons. Although he usually...[read on]

Visit Caitlin Rother's website.

My Book, The Movie: Hooked.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Marina Evans

From my Q&A with Marina Evans, author of The Cheerleader: A Novel:

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

I believe the title of my book pulls readers directly into the story. The simplicity of it cuts to the chase, and frankly, my publisher anticipated that it would do well with keyword and internet searches. Originally, I named the book Final Score, but apparently there are many books with that same title. The Cheerleader is simple, effective, and I hope…intriguing!

What's in a name?

I always give a great deal of thought to my characters’ names before selecting them. As an author, names have to feel right, capture a character’s essence, and embody a story’s theme. The Cheerleader is set in Texas, so while I was world-building that bold, football-obsessed culture...[read on]

Visit Marina Evans's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Cheerleader.

Q&A with Marina Evans.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Misty L. Heggeness's "Swiftynomics"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy by Misty L. Heggeness.

About the book, from the publisher:

A feminist romp through pop culture that illuminates how women impact and shape the economy.

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé aren’t just pop megastars. They are working women, whose astounding accomplishments defy patriarchal norms. And while not all women can be Rihanna or Dolly Parton or Reese Witherspoon, their successes help us understand the central role of everyday women in today’s economy.

Swiftynomics assesses the complex economic lives of American women. Drawing insights from pathbreakers like Taylor Swift, Misty Heggeness digs into the data revealing women’s hidden contributions and aspirations—the unexamined value they create by following their own ambitions. She confronts misconceptions about the roles women play in today’s economy by highlighting the abundance of productive activity occurring in their daily lives and acknowledging the barriers they still face.

Lighthearted but substantive, Swiftynomics explores critical reforms like paying caregivers for work on behalf of their families and collecting statistical documentation of gendered labor that currently goes unrecognized. Heggeness also offers advice for women so they can thrive in an economy that was not built for them.

Visit Misty L. Heggeness's website.

The Page 99 Test: Swiftynomics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top depictions of AI in fiction

Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and a speculative fiction writer. He is the author of the debut novel The Hospital at the End of the World and the story collection The World Wasn’t Ready for You. His stories have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Lightspeed, and on Tor.com. He received a BA in biology from Stanford University and completed his residency in psychiatry at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

At Lit Hub Key tagged nine favorite depictions of AI in fiction, including:

Murderbot (Martha Wells, All Systems Red)

What happens when a machine designed to protect humans by any-means-necessary hacks itself to independence? Many tales and movies explore this nightmare scenario (SkyNet, anyone?), but the self-named ‘Murderbot’ would rather binge TV shows than conquer humanity. I love speculative fiction because of its ability to give insights about our world from the outside looking in. Murderbot is a prime example of that, making what’s supposed to be alien into something endearing and relatable.

Read about another entry on the list.

All Systems Red also appears among Debbie Urbanski's nine books that center asexuality, Lorna Wallace's ten best novels about Artificial Intelligence, Deana Whitney's five amusing AI characters who should all definitely hang out, Andrew Skinner's five top stories about the lives of artificial objects, Annalee Newitz's list of seven books about remaking the world, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rivqa Rafael's five top books that give voice to artificial intelligence, T.W. O'Brien's five recent books that explore the secret lives of robots, Sam Reader's top six science fiction novels for fans of Westworld, and Nicole Hill's six robots too smart for their own good.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Verlin Darrow reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Verlin Darrow, author of The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow.

His entry begins:

At the moment, I’m oscillating between several genres. (Can you oscillate between more than two things? I’m too lazy to look this up). I like humor mixed into what I read, so I seek out comic crime, quirky science fiction, and offbeat mystery novels. (I did manage to look up synonyms for humor).

Here are the three I’m currently (and concurrently) reading:

Fortunate Son by Caimh McDonell

This is the ninth and latest book in The Dublin Trilogy (Go figure.) I’m not a laugh out loud kind of guy, but in this case…. All the books in the series feature Bunny McGarry, an Irish policeman with a distinctly alternative perspective from any cop you’ve ever read about. The plots are wonderfully convoluted—more like mysteries than most crime novels. I...[read on]

About The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow, from the publisher:

Kade Tobin needs every bit of his wisdom as the leader of a rural spiritual community to remain true to his core values as murders pile up around him. Drawn into helping to solve the mystery by a sheriff's detective, Kade sorts through the array of quirky seekers on the community's land, only to end up as the defendant in a suspense-filled trial. He struggles to maintain a stance of kindness while he endures bullies in the jail, a vengeful DA, and the pending judgment of twelve strangers. As the prosecution parades witness after witness, the mounting evidence against Kade becomes alarmingly damning. If he were a juror, Kade believes he might vote to convict himself at this stage of his trial. But he also trusts the universe. Kade remains confident that a force greater than himself--and the justice system--has other plans for him. Or does it?

Visit Verlin Darrow's website.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (May 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (April 2024).

My Book, The Movie: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

My Book, The Movie: The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow.

Q&A with Verlin Darrow.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sherry Rankin's "The Dark Below"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Dark Below by Sherry Rankin.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Not all secrets stay buried. Not all deaths are what they seem.

When Chase Loudermilk, a troubled veteran, is found dead, everyone assumes it’s suicide.

Everyone except his criminology professor, Teddy Drummond. A former cop haunted by painful memories, Teddy suspects Chase has been murdered, and that the answers lie hidden in his shadowy past.

Drawn reluctantly into the case, Teddy teams up with Detective Raina Bragg―a woman with every reason to hate her. As the two dig into the town’s buried secrets, what they uncover is more than a motive. It’s a chain reaction of choices, each darker than the last.

Then another body turns up.

Now, in a place where everyone’s lives are tangled and few are truly innocent, Teddy and Raina find themselves in a race against time to stop a killer and expose the truth: that some consequences take years to surface―and the most dangerous secrets are the ones nobody sees coming…

Visit Sherry Rankin's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Killing Plains.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Plains.

Q&A with Sherry Rankin.

My Book, The Movie: The Dark Below.

The Page 69 Test: The Dark Below.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter D. McDonald's "The Impossible Reversal"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play by Peter D. McDonald.

About the book, from the publisher:

Tracing the cultural history of play―from Fluxus to SimCity

Games and gamified activities have become ubiquitous in many adults’ lives, and play is widely valued for fostering creativity, community, growth, and empathy. But how did we come to our current understanding of what it means to play? The Impossible Reversal charts the transformation of notions of playfulness beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, when a legion of artists, academics, and engineers developed new ways of theorizing, structuring, and designing ludic activity.

Through examples ranging from experimental Fluxus games to corporate role-playing exercises and from the Easy Bake Oven to Tetris, The Impossible Reversal presents four styles of playfulness characteristic of the “era of designed play”: the impossible reversal, which puts a player in a seemingly hopeless scenario they must upend with a tiny gesture; expending the secret, which involves silly rules that gain an obscure power and require players to embrace failure; simulated freedom, a satiric criticism of the ordinary world; and oblique repetition, a way of playing that stumbles toward unimaginable outcomes through simple, meaningless, and endlessly iterated acts.

A unique genealogical account of play as both concept and practice, The Impossible Reversal illuminates how playfulness became essential for understanding cultural, technical, and economic production in the United States.

Learn more about The Impossible Reversal at the University of Minnesota Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Impossible Reversal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles featuring cathartic bathhouse scenes

McKenzie Watson-Fore is a writer, artist, and neighbor currently based in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction from Pacific University. She writes about evangelicalism, relationships to people and place, and self-discovery. Watson-Fore serves as the executive editor for sneaker wave magazine and is the founder and host of the Thunderdome Conference. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best American Essays.

At Electric Lit Watson-Fore tagged eight works featuring cathartic bathhouse scenes, including:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Set in Korea and Japan between 1910 and 1989, Pachinko chronicles the daily lives of four generations of Koreans in exile. Forty years apart, two different characters—first, Sunja; later, Ayame—visit the public bathhouse, or sento. In each case, the bathhouse is a utilitarian space used for hygiene and relaxation, and each mention underscores the tensions the characters endure in the midst of their quotidian responsibilities. For Sunja—the woman at the center of the novel’s tessellating history—the sento she visits on her first night in Osaka is a reminder of her alienation from her home country, as well as an adumbration of the nationalist prejudice that will intensify over the years to come. This is the work of a skilled novelist: to take a generic personal obligation—something as simple and routine as bathing—and leverage it to convey both context and interiority. For Ayame, her bathhouse visit precedes her discovery of a clandestine sex grove. Her return visits to the sento are infused with a growing curiosity about the secluded thicket and what happens there. In this way, Lee reflects that a bathhouse is not necessarily a sexual space, but neither does it preclude the erotic dimensions of an embodied life.

Read about another entry on the list.

Pachinko is among Adrienne Westenfeld and Sirena He's twenty-five essential books about the Asian American experience, Daphne Fama's seven top novels set during times of great political upheaval, Mia Barzilay Freund's eighteen best historical fiction books of the last several decades, Courtney Rodgers's best historical fiction of the 21st century so far, Bethanne Patrick's twenty-five best historical fiction books of all time, Asha Thanki seven books about families surviving political unrest, the Amazon Book Review editors' twelve favorite long books, Gina Chen's twelve books for fans of HBO’s Succession, Cindy Fazzi's eight books about the impact of Japanese imperialism during WWII, Eman Quotah's eight books about mothers separated from their daughters, Karolina Waclawiak's six favorite books on loss and longing, Allison Patkai's top six books with strong female voices, Tara Sonin's twenty-one books for fans of HBO’s Succession, and six books Jia Tolentino recommends.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on Otto Friedrich’s "Before The Deluge"

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 Otto Friedrich’s Before The Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s. It begins:

Otto Friedrich distinguishes himself from the typical historians who specialize, compartmentalize and would “mistrust any journalistic attempt to include movie stars and generals and bankers and poets in the same chronicle.” The story he wants to tell, “the story of Berlin in the 1920s permits no other approach.” What Friedrich calls his “journalistic attempt,” however, is precisely what a truly great historian tries to achieve. And that is what Otto Friedrich really was, a great historian, perhaps the greatest American writer of European history in the twentieth century. Like Jacob Burckhardt in his classic The Civilization of the Renaissance In Italy, Friedrich gives more than a chronology of interesting events and biographies of important people; he paints a portrait of a place and time, a work of art that, in a way nothing else can, shows what it was like to live in Berlin, a city that before we have read the first page we know is doomed to destruction, and something more than that in the memory of those who remember what the Third Reich did to the world.

Otto Friedrich was not a professional historian, but he majored in history at Harvard, where his father, Carl Friedrich taught government, and became one of the best read men of his generation, a generation that still took reading seriously. In one of his other works, City of Nets, which tells the story of Hollywood in the 1940s, he read five hundred books before he started to write; he read more than three hundred in preparation for Before The Deluge. This gave him the kind of familiarity with things - the different colors, and the different shades of colors - with which to paint the most vivid picture of Berlin in the 1920s we will ever have. It begins with...[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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven great books about bad moms

M.K. Oliver is a former English teacher and headteacher originally from Liverpool. He long dreamed of becoming a writer and after many years of working in schools, he took the exciting decision to put down the whiteboard marker, take up the keyboard, and give it a go.

Oliver's new novel is A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage.

At People magazine the author tagged "a few great books in which mothers range from a little bit selfish to completely, dreadfully awful!" One title on the list:

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

This one concerns a soul-searching mother whose self-interest (or loss of self) sometimes gets the better of her maternal instinct. This is a wise, thought-provoking read while also being a wonderful delight. Bernadette isn’t so much a bad mother as a mother who has lost herself after the birth of her daughter to such an extent that she seems to want to erase herself completely.

This is about the conflict between the maternal instincts and the creative urge to be a unique individual who wants to find their voice again. What is great about the "bad mother" here is she’s not really bad at all, she’s just honest about the emotionally demanding and difficult aspects of motherhood.

Read about another entry on the list.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is among Tom Ryan's six adult novels featuring young sleuths, Kate McIntyre's seven top novels about only children, Francesca Segal's seven best books to prepare for motherhood, Kelly Simmons's six books to read with your teen or twentyish daughter, Jeff Somers's top five novels whose main characters are shut-ins and five books that use cultural anthropology to brilliant effect and top five novels featuring runaway parents, Heidi Fiedler's thirty-three books to read with your mother, the Star-Tribune's eight top funny books for dire times, Chrissie Gruebel's seven great books for people who love Modern Family, Charlotte Runcie's ten best bad mothers in literature, Joel Cunningham's seven notable epistolary novels and Chrissie Gruebel's five top books for readers inspired by Nora Ephron.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Angela Simms's "Fighting for a Foothold"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia by Angela Simms.

About the book, from the publisher:

Prince George’s County, Maryland, is a suburban jurisdiction in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and is home to the highest concentration of Black middle-class residents in the United States. As such, it is well positioned to overcome White domination and anti-Black racism and their social and economic consequences. Yet Prince George’s does not raise tax revenue sufficient to provide consistent high-quality public goods and services. In Fighting for a Foothold, sociologist Angela Simms examines the factors contributing to Prince George’s financial troubles.

Simms draws on two years of observations of Prince George’s County’s budget and policy development processes, interviews with nearly 60 Prince George’s leaders and residents, and budget and policy analysis for Prince George’s County and its two Whiter, wealthier neighbors, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia. She argues legacy and ongoing government policies and business practices—such as federal mortgage insurance policy prior to 1968, local government reliance on property taxes, and private investment patterns—have resulted in disparities in wealth accumulation between Black and White Americans, not only for individuals and families but local jurisdictions as well. Prince George’s County has a lower cost of living than its Whiter, wealthier neighbors. As the most affordable county bordering D.C., it attracts a disproportionate share of the region’s core middle-class, lower middle-class, working class, and low-income residents, resulting in greater budget pressure.

Prince George’s uses the same strategies as majority-White jurisdictions to increase revenue, such as taxing at similar rates and vying for development opportunities but does not attain the same financial returns. Ultimately, Simms contends Prince George’s endures “relative regional burden” and that the county effectively subsidizes Whiter counties’ wealth accumulation. She offers policy recommendations for removing the constraints Prince George’s County and other majority-Black jurisdictions navigate, including increased federal and state taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, which will enhance the capacity for government to distribute and redistribute resources equitably; increased state-level funding of public goods and services, which would decrease local jurisdictions’ reliance on locally-generated tax revenue; and the creation of equity funds to remediate harms inflicted upon Black Americans.

Fighting for a Foothold is an in-depth analysis of the fiscal challenges experienced by Prince George’s County and by the suburban Black middle-class and majority-Black jurisdictions, more broadly. The book reveals how race, class, and local jurisdiction boundaries in metropolitan areas interact to create different material living conditions for Americans.

Visit Angela Simms's website.

The Page 99 Test: Fighting for a Foothold.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Verlin Darrow

From my Q&A with Verlin Darrow, author of The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow:

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

First of all, I need to confess that I stole my title—The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow—from Carl Jung. I paraphrased the actual quote (not on purpose) because I remembered it incorrectly. Then I realized my version was more appropriate for the book.

In psychological terms, it means that the more rational we are in our conscious minds, the stronger the activity of our subconscious. In literary terms, I hope it implies the two sides of a character that might pertain to a murder mystery. Which part of us drives criminal behavior? I’m guessing that the title will only fully make sense to the reader at the resolution stage of the twisty plot.

Also, I just thought my title...[read on]

Visit Verlin Darrow's website.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (May 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: Murder for Liar.

The Page 69 Test: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

Writers Read: Verlin Darrow (April 2024).

My Book, The Movie: The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth.

My Book, The Movie: The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow.

Q&A with Verlin Darrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Aliya Whiteley's "The Misheard World"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An interrogation of a famed spy by a military agent reveals deeper secrets about the beginnings of the war—and about the world itself—in the latest groundbreaking novel from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated Aliya Whiteley.

Before wars are won, they must be witnessed.

Elize Janview is a soldier, one of the few survivors of an unimaginably terrible weapon, which ended the long détente between the North and the South and plunged them back into all-out war. She enlisted with a dream of finding those responsible, of somehow getting revenge for the deaths of everyone she knew, but was posted to guard the prison at Crag, the fortress of the South, which has never fallen to the enemy.

Janview’s life is transformed when a rough wooden box is delivered to Crag, holding the performer and spy Marius Mondegreen, agent of the North: the Misheard Word, who can read minds, breathe fire, and make objects appear and disappear. Janview is to witness Mondegreen’s interrogation by his captor, the beautiful and cruel Allynx Syld, who promises the end of the war. As recorder – and by degrees participant – in the interrogation, Janview comes to question everything she knew about the war, and the very world she lives in…

Visit Aliya Whiteley's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Arrival of Missives.

The Page 69 Test: Skyward Inn.

The Page 69 Test: Three Eight One.

The Page 69 Test: The Misheard World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Roger Kreuz's "Strikingly Similar"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Strikingly Similar: Plagiarism and Appropriation from Chaucer to Chatbots by Roger Kreuz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Plagiarism and appropriation are hot topics when they appear in the news. A politician copies a section of a speech, a section of music sounds familiar, the plot of a novel follows the same pattern as an older story, a piece of scientific research is attributed to the wrong researcher… The list is endless. Allegations and convictions of such incidents can easily ruin a career and inspire gossip. People report worrying about unconsciously appropriating someone else's work. But why do people plagiarise? How many claims of unconscious plagiarism are truthful? How is plagiarism detected, and what are the outcomes for the perpetrators and victims? Strikingly Similar uncovers the deeper psychology behind this controversial human behavior, as well as a cultural history that is far wider and more interesting than sensationalised news stories.

Visit Roger Kreuz's website.

The Page 99 Test: Strikingly Similar.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight creepy post-apocalyptic novels

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged eight creepy post-apocalyptic novels. One entry on the list:

The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

This is probably my favorite zombie novel. It’s about a young woman named Temple who is searching a monster-infested America in hopes of finding her brother, while a killer is hot on her heels. Temple is also looking for redemption, but mostly she just finds zombies.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Reapers Are the Angels is among Emily Hughes's five deliciously creepy Southern Gothic horror novels, Ceridwen Christensen's six top zombie novels, and Kimberly Turner's ten books every zombie fan must read.

The Page 69 Test: The Reapers Are the Angels.

My Book, the Movie: The Reapers Are the Angels.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Megan Chance reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Megan Chance, author of The Vermilion Sea: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I just finished The Everlasting by Alix Harrow. My bookseller daughter urged me to read it, and since she usually has my reading taste on speed dial, I did. I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was younger, and I still do on occasion, though it’s not really my go-to genre. Why, I don’t know. Truly the best writers work in fantasy, and the themes they explore are often mind-bending and challenging.

This book was no exception. I absolutely loved it. As a writer, I was awed by...[read on]

About The Vermilion Sea, from the publisher:

From the author of Glamorous Notions comes a harrowing tale set aboard a yacht in the 1920s, where luxury borders on lunacy and mysteries of the deep blur the lines between science and the occult.

The Great War may be over, but brilliant scientist Billie McKennan continues the fight to be taken seriously. When a deliberate omission wins her a marine biologist position aboard an expedition funded by a wealthy eccentric, she quickly discovers she’s not the only one keeping secrets.

The opulent Eurybia sets sail for the Gulf of California with a handful of well-to-do passengers and talented scientists on board. To Billie’s surprise, her ex-husband counts among them. The true mission of the voyage comes into question when a mysterious specimen is captured. And then science unexpectedly gives way to wild rumors and superstition.

Soon, a sinister force takes hold of the vessel―and everyone on it. Billie must reconcile her beliefs with the reality of what she encounters in the vermilion sea. But how much is she willing to sacrifice in order to survive?

Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance (January 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Glamorous Notions.

The Page 69 Test: Glamorous Notions.

My Book, The Movie: The Vermilion Sea.

The Page 69 Test: The Vermilion Sea.

Writers Read: Megan Chance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Marina Evans's "The Cheerleader," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Cheerleader: A Novel by Marina Evans.

The entry begins:

Every author dreams of what a “movie” cast for her book would look like, so this is so much fun! First off, The Cheerleader is a campy, splashy whodunit about fame, ambition, and a gameday murder. We meet Jentry Rae Randall in the prologue—the cheer captain of the Dallas Lonestars who is brutally killed in the locker room moments after she dances on the field. She is blonde, gorgeous, spunky, and positive, and I’m picturing Michelle Randolph of Landman fame for the part.

Then, in the book we have Royce Holt, the upcoming quarterback for the Lonestars. He’s fit, charming, and driven, so I think Austin Butler would be amazing. Then there is Nikki Keegan, an ambitious documentarian who conducts her own under-the-radar investigation of the murder. However, on the side, she is also collecting footage for an unauthorized true crime series. She’s no nonsense, natural, and smart, and I believe...[read on]

Visit Marina Evans's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Cheerleader.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Timothy D. Grundmeier's "Lutheranism and American Culture"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Lutheranism and American Culture: The Making of a Distinctive Faith in the Civil War Era by Timothy D. Grundmeier.

About the book, from the publisher:

Timothy D. Grundmeier’s Lutheranism and American Culture examines the transformation of the nation’s third-largest Protestant denomination over the course of the nineteenth century. In the antebellum era, leading voices within the church believed that the best way to become American was by modifying certain historic doctrines deemed too Catholic and cooperating with Anglo-evangelicals in revivalism and social reform. However, by the mid-1870s, most Lutherans had rejected this view. Though they remained proudly American, most embraced a religious identity characterized by a commitment to their church’s confessions, isolation from other Christians, and a conservative outlook on political and social issues.

Grundmeier shows that this transformation did not happen in a vacuum. Throughout the Civil War and early years of Reconstruction, disputes over slavery and politics led to quarrels about theology and church affairs. During the war and immediately after, the Lutheran church in the United States experienced two major schisms, both driven by clashing views on the national conflict. In the postbellum years, Lutherans adopted increasingly conservative positions in theology and politics, mainly in reaction to the perceived “radicalism” of the era. By the final decades of the nineteenth century, Lutherans had established a rigorously conservative and definitively American form of the faith, distinct from their coreligionists in Europe and other Protestants in the United States.

Although Grundmeier focuses on a single religious tradition, his study has implications for several areas of Civil War scholarship. First, it demonstrates how the Lutheran experience diverged from that of other Protestant groups, thereby expanding our understanding of how American Christians responded to the era’s crises, including slavery, sectionalism, and national identity. In addition, his work reinforces and extends many of the findings in other historical fields: the political culture of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, the views of German and Scandinavian immigrants, and the various forms of conservatism among white northerners. Grundmeier’s most significant contribution, however, is examining a previously unexplored subject. In the vast corpus of works on the Civil War era and American religious history, scholars have almost entirely overlooked the views and experiences of Lutherans. Lutheranism and American Culture seeks to remedy that neglect and serve as the starting point for understanding the formative decades of this distinctive faith.

Learn more about Lutheranism and American Culture at the LSU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Lutheranism and American Culture.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers about jealousy and obsession between friends

Jennifer van der Kleut is an award-winning former journalist of both print and digital publications, including the DC affiliate of ABC7 News. A graduate of San Jose State University, she spent most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, where she currently lives with her husband and two sons. For nearly a decade, she was the lead singer of the Bay Area-based band SweetDuration, and performed with artists like Jason Mraz, Big Country, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Stabbing Westward. When she’s not writing, she loves going to the beach with her family, going to concerts with her girlfriends, and getting lost in the pages of a book.

Her debut novel is The Better Mother.

At Electric Lit van der Kleut tagged eight thrillers in which "friendships are questioned and pushed to their limits." One title on the list:

The Other Mother by Carol Goodman

New motherhood, and all the insecurities that come with it, can make for gripping thriller fodder. In this novel, Daphne and Laurel—two mothers who meet by chance at a parenting class and both have daughters named Chloe—seem fated to become best friends and support each other through the emotional minefield that is postpartum life. But their friendship soon moves into dysfunctional territory. Laurel starts dressing like Daphne, telling others Daphne’s stories as if they’re her own. Meanwhile, Daphne starts to think that masquerading as Laurel could be her answer to escaping her husband, whom she is afraid thinks she’s an unfit mother and might try to take her daughter away. Posing as Laurel, Daphne takes a job in an eerie, atmospheric mansion archiving materials for an aging author—and she starts to learn that nothing is as it seems.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Other Mother is among Sarah Zettel's ten books about parents with secrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with N. West Moss

From my Q&A with N. West Moss, author of Birdy:

What's in a name?

Birdy and Mouse are brother and sister. These are their secret nicknames that their mother gave them, but their mother has died after a long illness and now Birdy and Mouse are the only two who know these secret names.

There is great power, I think, in naming ourselves rather than taking the names that others give us. Birdy and Mouse are in control of very little in their lives, but they can define themselves through their chosen names. These nicknames remind them of their mother, and also provide a language that only the two of them know. One of the questions of the book is, who will they invite into their chosen family? We can tell who they are coming to trust because...[read on]

Visit N. West Moss's website.

Writers Read: N. West Moss.

Q&A with N. West Moss.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels that use isolation to create horror

Saratoga Schaefer (they/them) is the USA Today Bestselling and Indie Press Bestselling author of Serial Killer Support Group, Trad Wife, The Last Time We Drowned, and A Thousand Monstrous Forms. Their books have been featured in Variety, People magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, and their writing has appeared in Writer’s Digest, CrimeReads, and more. Originally from Brooklyn, Schaefer now lives upstate with several needy animals and a haunted clown table.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "horror books that thrill in keeping their characters (and story) isolated." One title on Schaefer's list:

Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saints

Three women trapped in a castle under siege contend with divine figures modeled after their saints who infiltrate and twist salvation until it’s something unrecognizable. As the castle descends into madness, cannibalism, and violence, the main characters must fight to survive these false gods while being physically stuck in a location they cannot escape.

Taut, queer as hell, and horrifically enchanting, The Starving Saints traps its characters not only physically but mentally as well. You’ll bite your nails to the quick in this claustrophobic and surreal historical horror.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Daniel R. Langton's "Darwin in the Jewish Imagination"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Darwin in the Jewish Imagination: Jews' Engagement with Evolutionary Theory by Daniel R. Langton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Darwin in the Jewish Imagination provides an overview of Jewish responses to Darwinian evolution, one of the most transformative and challenging ideas of the industrial age. Spanning a century of intellectual and cultural history, it examines how Jewish thinkers-traditionalists, reformers, secularists, mystics, and philosophers-grappled with the profound implications of evolutionary theory for their religious beliefs and cultural identities. The book offers close readings of key figures and debates from Europe to the United States, situating them within the broader contexts of the religion-science controversy, Jewish-Christian interfaith relations, and the intellectual challenges of modernity. A central theme is the pan(en)theistic tendency evident in Jewish thought, reflecting a vision of God as intimately connected with the evolving universe and its natural laws. It explores how Jewish thinkers reinterpreted foundational concepts such as creation, divine action, and human morality in light of Darwin's ideas. This interdisciplinary work not only illuminates how Jewish thought adapted to evolutionary theory but also reveals the broader cultural and theological exchanges shaping modern Judaism. By examining these responses, the book sheds light on how science and Jewish religion have engaged in an enriching dialogue, with profound consequences for modern Jewish thought, belief, and identity.

Learn more about Darwin in the Jewish Imagination at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Darwin in the Jewish Imagination.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sofia Robleda's "The Other Moctezuma Girls"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Other Moctezuma Girls: A Novel by Sofia Robleda.

About the book, from the publisher:

In sixteenth-century Mexico, a fearless young woman strives to uncover the secrets her mother kept as the last Aztec empress in a sweeping historical epic by the author of Daughter of Fire.

Tenochtitlan, 1551. Thirty years after the Spanish Conquest destroyed everything she loved, the last Aztec empress has passed and left behind a pristine yet tenuous legacy for her children. As her last will and testament is read out, her daughter Isabel suspects that another account of her mother’s life may exist, hidden away, chapter by chapter, in the Valley of Mexico. Following each clue, Isabel is determined to find out who her mother really was and to discover the secrets she buried in order to survive.

Joined by her siblings and a handsome young cook named Juan, Isabel embarks on a perilous journey to piece together the past―a journey that will force the party to brave the brutal viceroyal court, face fearsome legends in mystical chinampas, and trek through desert, fire, and snow. As Isabel’s feelings for Juan grow, she confronts everything she thought she knew about her Spanish father, her empress mother, and herself. Facing everything from the tunnels of ancient pyramids to the summit of an active volcano, Isabel will meet every challenge to fulfill an epic quest for the truth.

Visit Sofia Robleda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Daughter of Fire.

The Page 69 Test: The Other Moctezuma Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is N. West Moss reading?

Featured at Writers Read: N. West Moss, author of Birdy.

Her entry begins:

A Sky Full of Song by Susan Lynn Meyer

This is a piece of historical fiction set in 1905 on the North Dakota Prairie, and follows a Jewish family of immigrant pioneers as they struggle to make a go of it in America. I continue to love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books about pioneer life, and this gave me a new angle on that time and place that I found both moving and...[read on]

About Birdy, from the publisher:

After the death of their mother, Birdy and Mouse are forced to start over in this debut novel about discovering where you belong—for fans of Forever This Summer and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise.

Eleven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother, Mouse, have always looked out for each other. They make the perfect team: Birdy is realistic and practical, while Mouse is affable and trusting. After their mother dies of cancer, Birdy and Mouse are forced to move out of the city to the country with relatives they’ve never met. Aunt Mitzie and Uncle Shadow’s house is full of organized chaos, and it takes Birdy time to adjust to having adults around. But the kitchen is always stocked, and both kids are allowed to play outside as often as they want. There’s only one problem: it’s all temporary. Their social worker has promised to find them a permanent home by the next school year, whether they want to leave or not. As the summer unfolds, Mouse starts to feel attached to their new life. But Birdy knows better—adults have never been reliable. When Birdy’s fears get the best of her, she makes a big mistake that could jeopardize their future.

Heartfelt and emotionally resonant, this literary coming-of-age novel explores the unbreakable bond between siblings—and how family can be found in the most unexpected places.

Visit N. West Moss's website.

Writers Read: N. West Moss.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark Sanders's "A Will for the Machine"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Will for the Machine: Computerization, Automation, and the Arts in South Africa by Mark Sanders.

About the book, from the publisher"

This study takes up the relations among computerization, labor, and the arts in South Africa.

There are many books about the history and discourses of computerization in the United States but relatively little about these phenomena anywhere in the Global South. In A Will for the Machine, Mark Sanders outlines South Africa’s entry into the computer age in the 1960s and ’70s and explains how it coincided with the high point of apartheid. South Africa’s government viewed automation and computerization as one way of barring Black Africans from skilled work and reserving it for whites. Sanders unpacks this peculiar history, relates it to early twentieth-century struggles around mechanization in mining and telephony in South Africa, and analyzes responses to it by the writers Miriam Tlali and J. M. Coetzee, the artist William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company. Showing how the arts realize ideas about the ethics and politics of automation, Sanders contributes to debates about locally divergent understandings of computer technology and human-computer interaction.

Learn more about A Will for the Machine at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Learning Zulu.

The Page 99 Test: A Will for the Machine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the ups & downs of friendship

Lillian Li is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.

Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

[Writers Read: Lillian Li (June 2018)]

Li's new novel is Bad Asians.

At Lit Hub the author tagged eight titles about the ups and downs of friendship. One book on the list:

Elizabeth Ames, The Other’s Gold

Complicated characters? A story structured around their worst mistakes? A book spanning college to motherhood? Sign me up! Ames’ character study of four young women—Lainey, Ji Sun, Margaret, and Alice—is a brave and ambitious exploration of how flawed people can find the grace they need in their friends.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Other’s Gold is among Emily Layden's nine top campus novels.

The Page 69 Test: The Other’s Gold.

--Marshal Zeringue