Six books with actually realistic sex

Brodie Crellin lives in London and is an editor at Granta Magazine.

A Sense of Occasion is their first novel.

At Lit Hub the author tagged six books by "writers whose depictions of sex had most closely held my attention." One title on the list:

Vox by Nicholson Baker

Abby and Jim meet on the phone. They’ve both signed up to an erotic hotline, and the novel follows the shape of their conversation. This couple is horny, open minded, and capable of locating the weird and crooked details that give a sexual encounter its charge. I read Vox on the train, in the space of a few hours, submitting completely to the back and forth between two unruly, associative minds. But the images that linger aren’t explicitly sexual. Baker notices everything—objects, textures and packaging matter in this novel. When I think about this book, what I remember most is the description of the blanket tossed across Jim and his coworker as they masturbate together, I think about the plaid pattern and the way it tents and collapses on top of them. People on Reddit have described Vox as prose porn, which feels unfair. Porn favors universality, simple stories that allow for projection, but in this book, it is the detail, how closely Baker pays attention, that makes the climaxes and connections sexy.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Roy A. Meals's "Ligaments"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us by Roy A. Meals.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively tour through the biology, health, human performance, and popular culture of our bodies' essential connective tissue.

Ligaments are the quiet workhorses of the human body. They anchor our bones, guide our movements, and protect our joints—yet they remain largely unseen and misunderstood. In Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands that Bind Us, orthopedic surgeon and acclaimed science writer Roy A. Meals explores anatomy, biology, history, health, human performance, and popular culture to unlock the mysteries of ligaments. Completing a trilogy that began with Bones and Muscle, this richly illustrated volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the anatomy, history, injuries, and cultural relevance of ligaments.

These bone-to-bone connectors are the critical linking mechanisms that allow our muscles to produce purposeful movement. Dr. Meals explains how ligaments stabilize the skeleton like hinge pins on a door, resist the forces of gravity in the face and breasts, and contribute to feats of athleticism, contortion, and childbirth. Readers will learn how ligaments are stronger than steel, how they recover from injury (or fail to), and how they can be stretched, stiffened, or surgically replaced. He also clarifies the differences among ligaments, tendons, and fascia, and why some people are "double-jointed" and others are not. Covering current and emerging treatments for ligament injuries, including artificial and engineered ligaments, the book provides practical insights into maintaining joint stability and flexibility across the lifetime.

Whether examining career-ending sports injuries, congenital laxity, or the elasticity of the vocal cords, Dr. Meals builds a case for why ligaments deserve center stage in our understanding of movement and health.

Visit Roy A. Meals's website.

The Page 99 Test: Ligaments.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ilona Bannister reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ilona Bannister, author of Five: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I love learning from other writers. Reading a wide range of authors and genres while I’m writing is part research, part search for inspiration, and part coaching session in craft. To write Five, I drew from fiction and non-fiction to inform my characters’ lives and to keep suspense-building at the forefront of my mind. I have learned that the stories and facts I take from books to fill up my subconscious may seem unrelated at the time that I read them, but they always work themselves into my fiction in unexpected ways. One of the best non-fiction books I have ever read for research was Unnatural Causes by Dr. Richard Shepherd. He is the UK’s most distinguished forensic pathologist, and this book is as much a memoir of an extraordinary career as it is a fascinating, factual examination of the social importance of this little understood but absolutely vital work. I have no medical background and I’m not a scientifically oriented person, which made this book doubly intriguing and unputdownable because it taught me about a profession I knew nothing about, but which we should all be very...[read on]

About Five, from the publisher:

Five lives. Five stories. Four will live—one will die. Who it will be? In this slow-burn masterpiece of psychological fiction, the choice is all yours.

Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s Five introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning we know that one of them is going to die soon. Very soon. In five minutes the next train to London will arrive, killing one of them. But before this happens you will learn their stories.

None of these people are saints. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who must surely be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

These are the candidates for this morning’s misfortune. But they don’t know it. Only you know. And you, our complicit reader, will not be able to resist deciding who deserves to walk away, and who deserves only five more minutes to live.

An incredibly original novel that breaks the fourth wall and asks the reader to be judge, jury, and executioner, Five looks at some of the most complicated issues of contemporary life: motherhood, disability, addiction. Every stranger has a story. And in Ilona Bannister’s skillful hands, five people’s stories come together to create an unforgettable novel.

Visit Ilona Bannister's website.

Q&A with Ilona Bannister.

The Page 69 Test: When I Ran Away.

Writers Read: Ilona Bannister.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books where the dog doesn't die

Camille Perri is the author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy. She has worked as a books editor for Cosmopolitan and Esquire. She has also been a ghostwriter of young adult novels and a reference librarian. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from New York University, where she majored in English and gender and sexuality studies, and a masters of library science degree from Queens College. She splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley with her wife and their Brussels Griffon named Pip.

Perri's new novel is Social Animals.

At People magazine the author tagged twelve books, shows, and movies where the dog survives. One book on the list:

The Stray Dog from Dogs of Venice by Steven Rowley

Unlike Rowley’s earlier novel, Lily and the Octopus, which will likely make you cry, this short, gentle novella is a safe bet for dog lovers who can’t bear to see an animal suffer.

Human heartbreak is the subject here as Paul is blindsided by his husband, Darren, who asks for a divorce on the eve of their planned Venice vacation. However, even this is treated in an ultimately uplifting way, and the unnamed dog remains a source of inspiration.

Read about another book on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Steven Rowley & Tilda Swinton.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tom French's "The Gap Years"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Gap Years: Climbing, Skiing, and the Journey Back by Tom French.

About the book, from the publisher:

An inspiring story of adventure and endurance in a quest to rediscover the passions of youth.

At the end of 2019, Tom French retired from a four-decade career in business, determined to return to interests that had defined his youth and see what meaning they still held. One of these interests was mountaineering. Another was adventure travel, with a particular focus on Nepal. A third was cross-country ski racing. Having taken “gap years” between school and university, and again before he started work, he decided to take a gap year before settling into the expectations of retirement. One year turned into three as he rebuilt his athletic strength, competed in cross-country ski marathons, and climbed some of the world’s highest mountains, including two expeditions to Mount Everest. On the first Everest climb, a cyclone forced him to turn around high on the mountain and descend the treacherous Lhotse Face in a blizzard. On the second, he approached the mountain through the remote Makalu Barun region, the first climber ever to do so, and climbed to the summit on a moonlit night.

But this is a book about much more than Everest. It is about beauty and joy found in wild places, about cross-country ski racing and mountaineering more broadly, and—most of all—about a journey to find meaning in life and reconnect with the passions of youth.

Visit Tom French's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Gap Years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Kerri Hakoda

From my Q&A with Kerri Hakoda, author of Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller.

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

I believe that title and cover design play a huge role, especially for a fairly new (but chronologically old) author like myself! My publisher and I labored over the title to Too Deep to Cross, far more so than for the first book. Since my first novel was titled Cold to the Touch, and Too Deep to Cross is a sequel, I think initially we were both stuck on the “Cold” theme. Considering that most of the action of the second book takes place in the summer, we ultimately thought a “Cold” title would be a stretch. I think that I came up with Too Deep to Cross early in the process and it made the cut each time. After much discussion, we agreed that it seemed like a “conversation” between the titles of the first and the second books. Since much of the book takes place on the Yukon River in Alaska, and there are themes of alienation and irreconcilable differences throughout, I think...[read on]

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

Writers Read: Kerri Hakoda.

Q&A with Kerri Hakoda.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top YA thrillers about friendship

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged six thrillers about friendship, including:

Looking for Smoke by K. A. Cobell

When Loren includes her in a Blackfeet Giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks maybe she’ll start to make friends with the other teens on the Blackfeet reservation. Instead, another Giveaway participant, Samantha White Tail, is found dead, and the four remaining participants, Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli, find themselves swept up in the investigation of her death. Each of the four has their own complicated connection to Samantha and their own perspective to lend to the story, which is told from multiple points of view.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

J.P. Lacrampe's "Valet," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Valet: A Novel by J.P. Lacrampe.

The entry begins:

Charles Grodin! To me, he was the funniest actor ever. He could weather the absurdity of the world (and even participate within it) in such a good-natured, witty, and ultimately insightful way. I would love him to play Cy, the android who narrates Valet, who must likewise good-naturedly weather the absurdities of the humans who surround him. Peter Sellers or Keegan Michael-Key would be awesome choices as well. Both are so great at telegraphing what they're really thinking about the crazy world around them. Much of the comedy in Valet comes from the gap between what Cy says and what he actually thinks.

In terms of Grayson, Cy's wayward human charge...[read on]

Visit J.P. Lacrampe's website.

The Page 69 Test: Valet.

Q&A with J.P. Lacrampe.

My Book, The Movie: Valet.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Samantha Silva reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Samantha Silva, author of Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com.

Her entry begins:

I’m having a glorious time listening to the audiobook of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End (read by Steven Crossley). When my brain hits a wall with the writing (I get up in the wee hours and work till mid-day), I’m hungry to read, but find being read to an absolute tonic, letting a book wash over me and rewire my brain. And because I have a terrible memory, and had forgotten so much of the story, this is like reading it for the first time. Forster is an absolute genius with language. I’d forgotten how utterly funny he can be, how he can send up big and difficult subjects (class, capitalism, imperialism), by making fun of his characters, drawn so distinctly. There’s this brilliant...[read on]

About Sometime This Century, from the publisher:

A riotous rom-com meets a swoon-worthy Regency comedy of manners in this heartfelt time-travel story about sisters, love, identity—and how Jane Austen just might change your life.

Annabel Blake was born in the wrong century. An Austen-loving book nerd, she dreams of being a writer herself, with a just-penned Regency novel to prove it. Her hopes sink when her hot author crush rejects her: The novel reads like she’s never been in love. Ouch.

Annabel sees a chance to rewrite it when her ex-pat boss sends her to England to sort out her family’s “crumbling old pile” of a country house. Tempted by an invitation tucked in an antique writing desk and a “period” coachman at her door, Annabel’s whisked away to a local Regency Society ball—cue candlelight, costumes, dancing—that might be just the inspiration she needs. There’s even the achingly perfect—and wildly out of her league—Henry Leighton D’Evercy.

When Annabel’s audacious influencer sister crashes the party with her super-chill ex-boyfriend, the unlikely trio wake to find themselves trapped in the actual Regency era. No Wi-Fi, lattes, cellphones—just a world where manners, money, and marriage rule.

As Annabel falls deeply for D’Evercy, she must decide: write her perfect love story…or live it.

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

Q&A with Samantha Silva.

The Page 69 Test: Sometime This Century.

Writers Read: Samantha Silva.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven thrillers that mine the depths of confession & revenge

Christine Carbo is a recipient of the Women’s National Book Association Pinckley Prize, the Silver Falchion Award, the High Plains Book Award, and has been a finalist for the Barry Award. She has an MA in English/Linguistics and taught college-level courses for over a decade. She still teaches, in a vastly different realm, as a Pilates instructor. She lives in Montana where she finds inspiration from the wild beauty surrounding her.

Carbo's new novel is The Confession Artist.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven thrillers that let "us imagine someone taking matters into their own hands and then asks what it cost them to do so." One title on the list:

Peter Swanson, The Kind Worth Killing

It’s particularly interesting when confession and revenge collide in a story. The Kind Worth Killing (2015) by Peter Swanson involves a stranger on a plane, à la Patricia Highsmith, who casually agrees that the narrator’s cheating wife probably does deserve to die and offers to help.

What unfolds is part confession booth, part contract negotiation, and entirely about people who treat their darkest urges as logistical problems. Swanson’s gift is making wicked plotting feel like polite conversation.

Read about another thriller on Carbo's list.

The Kind Worth Killing is among Mary Kubica's ten top mysteries set in Maine.

My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing.

The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sally Shuttleworth's "In Quest of a Cure"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: In Quest of a Cure: Literary and Medical Cultures of the Health Resort by Sally Shuttleworth.

About the book, from the publisher:

People have always travelled for health, but as industrial pollution increased in nineteenth-century Britain, doctors started ordering their patients abroad in ever-growing numbers. Self-styled 'English Colonies' sprung up, not in the far-reaches of the Empire, but in health resorts in the heart of Europe. This work explores the intensity and sheer strangeness of life in these colonies, governed by illness, but where patients (before the rise of the sanatorium) could move around freely, and even indulge in winter sports. Focusing on Menton on the Riviera and Davos in the Swiss Alps, from the 1860s to the 1920s, In Quest of a Cure explores the literary and medical cultures of these resorts: the lives, conflicting emotions, and writings of the patients and their carers, and the changing patterns of medical treatment. Many of the patients ordered to winter abroad had tuberculosis, but others were cases of nervous disorders, or sufferers from 'overwork', what we would now call burnout, all hoping to be cured once placed in the right climatic environment.

Blending medical and literary history and analysis, Sally Shuttleworth looks in depth at the lives and writings of literary invalids, including John Addington Symonds, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Katherine Mansfield, leading up to an extended study of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, placed in the medical and literary context of Davos life. Other literary lives and fiction explored include Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle, Olive Schreiner, Vernon Lee, 'new woman' novelist Beatrice Harraden, and Llewelyn Powys. In Quest of a Cure considers the pleasures as well as the pains of medical exile, and the close bonds which often developed between doctor and patient. Medical climatology, as it was called, is a discarded science, but its prescription of fresh air, exercise, and sunshine brought about a revolution in medical practices at the time. In its understanding of the relationship between individual health and surrounding environment, it offers new perspectives for us to think about the challenges of current times.

Learn more about In Quest of a Cure at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: In Quest of a Cure.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Samantha Silva's "Sometime This Century"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com by Samantha Silva.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riotous rom-com meets a swoon-worthy Regency comedy of manners in this heartfelt time-travel story about sisters, love, identity—and how Jane Austen just might change your life.

Annabel Blake was born in the wrong century. An Austen-loving book nerd, she dreams of being a writer herself, with a just-penned Regency novel to prove it. Her hopes sink when her hot author crush rejects her: The novel reads like she’s never been in love. Ouch.

Annabel sees a chance to rewrite it when her ex-pat boss sends her to England to sort out her family’s “crumbling old pile” of a country house. Tempted by an invitation tucked in an antique writing desk and a “period” coachman at her door, Annabel’s whisked away to a local Regency Society ball—cue candlelight, costumes, dancing—that might be just the inspiration she needs. There’s even the achingly perfect—and wildly out of her league—Henry Leighton D’Evercy.

When Annabel’s audacious influencer sister crashes the party with her super-chill ex-boyfriend, the unlikely trio wake to find themselves trapped in the actual Regency era. No Wi-Fi, lattes, cellphones—just a world where manners, money, and marriage rule.

As Annabel falls deeply for D’Evercy, she must decide: write her perfect love story…or live it.

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

Q&A with Samantha Silva.

The Page 69 Test: Sometime This Century.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books about the thrilling dynamics of girls’ friendship

Sonia Feldman lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She won the PEN America PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Waxwing. She also runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, a popular email newsletter.

Girl’s Girl is her first novel.

At Lit Hub Feldman tagged six "excellent books about girl friendship, all of which invite you into a dynamic, the feeling of being among—a thrilling place to be." One title on the list:

Toni Morrison, Sula

Sula is an epic friendship novel set in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. It follows the relationship between Nel and Sula—bound to each other in fast friendship as children and bound still as adults, even as their choices divide their lives and a true betrayal upends them. As a reading experience, it’s riveting. Perfect sentence after perfect sentence that pull a tide of emotion up in your chest.

Of all the books on this list, I think Sula is the one in which the girls’ mothers play the most meaningful role. They’re characters in the novel as well, so you get to see Nel and Sula, and their friendship, in the context of their daughterhood. This contributes to the sense of understanding between the friends. They are uniquely witness to each other’s lives. The characters have a profound, private channel of communication between them that I recognize from friendships in life and have been told about in fiction, but has rarely ever felt so real to me in a book.

Read about another title on the list.

Sula is among Jessie Rosen's six books featuring superstitions, Nikita Lalwani's top ten platonic friendships in fiction, Lucy Jago's five best female friendships, and John Green's six favorite coming-of-age books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Benjamin Bryce's "Grounds for Exclusion"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Grounds for Exclusion: Race, Health, and Disability in Argentine Immigration Policy, 1876–1932 by Benjamin Bryce.

About the book, from the publisher:

Argentina has been one the most important destinations for international labor migrants in the modern world. But while it was long imagined as a nation of immigrants, a closer look at its history and policies reveals that the country’s doors were only open to certain people. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, officials developed a long list of grounds for exclusion that deterred many people from ever boarding a ship to the country. Travelers who did go to Argentina were frequently barred at ports of entry on account of race, health, or disability.

Tracing the attempts of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern migrants to enter Argentina, Benjamin Bryce shows how the modern state worked to privilege white supremacy and expansion over diversity and magnanimity. As Argentine officials, politicians, and influential thinkers envisioned their country’s future, they tried to define the ideal citizens who would live, work, vote, and reproduce in Argentina—and the characteristics of those who would not. Anyone deemed unhealthy or disabled was labeled unproductive or a potential burden on the state. Race often shaped notions of health and productivity and therefore determined who was welcome. Bryce’s thorough analysis of immigration exclusions reconceptualizes Argentina’s long-accepted reputation as a haven for newcomers.

Visit Benjamin Bryce's website.

The Page 99 Test: Grounds for Exclusion.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Samantha Silva

From my Q&A with Samantha Silva, author of Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com:

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

Sometime This Century began life as a screenplay (sold to Universal 25 years ago) called What You Wish For about a young woman transported to Regency England who gets everything she’s ever dreamed of, or does she? It’s hard to give up a title you’ve lived with that long, but my editor thought it didn’t do enough to suggest the time-travel in the book. We brainstormed for weeks to come up with a title that nodded to that or the Regency era or Jane Austen (since my book riffs on hers). Then I stumbled onto a line for my heroine, Annabel Blake, that she utters in an early scene when she’s roundly rejected by her hot literary crush. “Well, it would be nice to be kissed sometime this century!” And there it was...[read on]

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

Q&A with Samantha Silva.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eighteen books that explore the complexity of motherhood

The editors at Oprah Daily featured a list of eighteen books to help explore the complexity of motherhood. One title on the list:

How to Lose Your Mother, by Molly Jong-Fast

When her famous feminist mother, Fear of Flying author Erica Jong, is diagnosed with dementia, Jong-Fast (a superstar podcaster and writer in her own right) must come to terms with both the reality of watching her parent disappear in fragments and the realization that her mother was never truly hers, to begin with. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a story of a singular mother-daughter relationship that will resonate with anyone who grew up playing second fiddle to a parent’s passions.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul Quigley's "The Man Behind the Cane"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War by Paul Quigley.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new perspective on the life of the US politician best known for the infamous assault that paved the bloody road to the Civil War.

In 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks assaulted Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the US Capitol, defending his family's honor and the rights of slaveholders. In beating Sumner unconscious, Brooks fueled a nationwide clash over slavery that ended in civil war.

Southern historian Paul Quigley brings Brooks to life more vividly than ever before, revealing how his personal struggles shaped the fateful decision to attack Sumner. Raised in the slaveholding culture of honor and scarred by missed opportunities for glory in the Mexican-American War, Brooks came to believe in the redemptive power of violence. Blending intimate personal history with wide-ranging analysis of political debates, Quigley uses Brooks's life to examine the deeper currents propelling the United States to the brink of destruction. Brooks's story reveals the increasingly fraught relationship between words and violence: When did words such as "liar" or "coward" justify duels? Did abolitionists' verbal attacks on slaveholders warrant physical retaliation? How did the way Americans talked about violence affect the likelihood that it would occur? With the caning, Brooks sparked an ominous national debate over the righteousness of bloodshed in a polarized nation.

Examining enduring issues of masculinity, honor, and free speech, The Man Behind the Cane shows how words and violent behavior became perilously entangled in the fight over slavery and casts new light on the origins of the Civil War-and the ongoing dangers of political violence in our own time.

Learn more about The Man Behind the Cane at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Man Behind the Cane.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katie Holt's "The Last Page," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Last Page: A Novel by Katie Holt.

The entry begins:

I never dreamcast before I write. I know lots of writers love to make boards on Pinterest for what their characters look like, but they come fully formed in my head. I have to get to learn their personalities, but I see what their hair or nose or eyes look like in my mind and I feel as if I were to be inspired by actors, I’d be too literal with it.

Whenever I try to think about it, though, I have difficulty naming someone for my heroines—probably because I’m so protective of them. If any of my books were to be turned into movies, though, I’d insist that a Peruvian woman be cast. I’d love to find someone who’s not already famous just to bring more Peruvian women to the forefront.

A reader recently tagged me in a fancast that had Leo Woodall as Henry and I totally see the vision. He’s got the kind of broadness that I envision with Henry and...[read on]

Visit Katie Holt's website.

Writers Read: Katie Holt.

Q&A with Katie Holt.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Page.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alan Smale's "Mad Dogs & Englishmen"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Mad Dogs & Englishmen by Alan Smale.

About the novel, from the publisher:

There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky-or unlucky-few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community.

These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, some from other worlds, and others have always been with us-watching us, fearing us, hunting us.

These are the cryptids, and Systema Paradoxa tells their tales.

***

When Lindsey Ambler takes a sabbatical to figure out her life, a quiet town in Yorkshire seems the ideal place to step back and regroup.

That is, until a chance meeting at a local pub becomes a calculated engagement as a petty thug uses Lindsey as a cover to hide from those he's cheated.

Little does she know the mob is the least of her troubles as something infinitely more deadly stalks the moors and it has her scent...

Visit Alan Smale's website.

The Page 69 Test: Clash of Eagles.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle in Exile.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle and Empire.

Writers Read: Alan Smale (May 2017).

The Page 69 Test: Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top thrillers about marriage

At Book Riot Addison Rizer tagged six thrillers about marriage, including:

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier

Paris Peralta, wife to a famous comedian named Jimmy Peralta, wakes up one morning with a razor in her hand and her husband dead in the bathtub. When the police find her, they don’t think twice before arresting Paris for the murder. But as a podcaster reveals a connection between Paris and another murder from over two decades ago with similar circumstances, Paris’s case might not be so clear-cut after all.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Courtney Rodgers's nine chilling thrillers about marriage and L.K. Bowen's top ten marriage-gone-bad thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue