Six thrillers that feature contagions & pandemics

Alice Martin is a writer, reader, and teacher from North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University and works as an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters.

Westward Women is Martin's debut novel.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six novels that are

stories about societies on the edge in the face of contagions, stories made pulse-pounding not only because of the way they demonstrate contagion as a threat but also the way they reveal how contagion can be a catalyst for social change, a reminder of the potential reckless delights in being free of social constraint.

One title on Martin's list:

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

Like [Stephen King's] The Stand, Emily St. John Mandel’s magnificent Station Eleven can be divided into the “before” and “after”: the collapse of society under the weight of a flu pandemic and the rise of something new and uncanny in its aftermath. In the “after,” a group of traveling performers try to find what pleasure there is in life beyond surviving while a terrifying extremist gains influence nearby.

But the opening to Station Eleven might be my favorite opening of any book. It begins with a production of King Lear that serves as a kind of super-spreader event. After witnessing a man die onstage, one man who was present, Jeevan, receives more advanced warning from a doctor friend, leading him to stock up on supplies for the end of the world. This sequence always catches my breath because of how real it feels.

For Jeevan, everything in the world—jobs, responsibilities, weeknight plans—all stop in a second. It is the embodiment of the most famous line from King Lear: “unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bar, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come unbutton here.” Unbuttoning ourselves from the constraints of society may make us animals, but it is freeing, too.

Read about another entry on the list.

Station Eleven is among Rebecca Fallon's five top Shakespeare-inspired novels, Lauren Wilson's eight top books featuring cults, Barnaby Martin's seven titles featuring parents & children at the end of the world, Brittany K. Allen's ten books that get the theatre world right, Jeanette Horn's nine twisted novels about theatrical performers, Isabelle McConville's fifteen books for fans of the post-apocalyptic TV-drama Fallout, Joanna Quinn's six best books set in & around the theatrical world, Carolyn Quimby's 38 best dystopian novels, Tara Sonin's seven books for fans of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, Maggie Stiefvater's five fantasy books about artists & the magic of creativity, Mark Skinner's five top literary dystopias, Claudia Gray's five essential books about plagues and pandemics, K Chess's five top fictional books inside of real books, Rebecca Kauffman's ten top musical novels, Nathan Englander’s ten favorite books, M.L. Rio’s five top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Anne Corlett's five top books with different takes on the apocalypse, Christopher Priest’s five top sci-fi books that make use of music, and Anne Charnock's five favorite books with fictitious works of art.

--Marshal Zeringue

Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.'s "Tore All to Pieces," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Tore All to Pieces by Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.

The entry begins:

Tore All to Pieces is a fragmented novel set in the imaginary town of Mosely, Kentucky. It has no single main character. And I’ll be damned if the first name out of my mouth for the film adaptation isn’t a sophisticated French twink: Timothée Chalamet.

My first casting thought goes to Patrick, and it’s obvious to me I’d choose that Call Me by Your Name pretty boy. Patrick is young, queer, opening up, full of vibrato and hope. He thinks he’s beautiful, despite being conditioned to believe otherwise, and finally realizes he is worth something. Chalamet shows us passion for life in Call Me by Your Name, and he most recently proved to us all in Marty Supreme that he can get into the head of a character and find human DNA in conversational dialogue. I imagine him under a railroad bridge, pulse flying as trains shake the world like thunder. I can see his swaggering, drunken 3:00 a.m. calls for affirmation, swimming nude in a lake surrounded by hills and trees.

There are a lot of older women in Tore All to Pieces because I want to center people whose stories don’t get told. One of my favorites is a lunchroom cook named Wanda. She is no-nonsense, hard-working, and longs to be needed on her terms. Hollywood...[read on]

Visit Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.'s website.

Q&A with Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.

My Book, The Movie: Tore All to Pieces.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five mystery novels set in the aftermath of WWII

Shaina Steinberg is the author of the Bishop & Gallagher Mysteries, as well as a film and television writer who’s worked on Malcolm in the Middle, Everwood, Cold Case, Bionic Woman, and Spartacus. Named to the Young and Hungry List in 2013 and the WriteHer List in 2017, she has developed pitches, pilots and features with companies such as Temple Hill, Endgame Entertainment, Fremantle, eOne, Blondie Girl, Josephson Entertainment and Alcon.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged five mystery books set in the aftermath of World War Two. One title on the list:

A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

Set in post-war Berlin and Vienna, Kerr does an incredible job of making this time period come alive, with all its inherent dangers and double-dealings. Bernie Gunther, the former police man last seen in 1938 in The Pale Criminal, has endured the war, stood up to the SS, gotten captured by the Russians and put into a POW camp. He is now home with his wife, who makes certain sacrifices to keep them fed, while he sews razor blades into his jacket to avoid casually being killed for his watch. The city is a grim, gritty place.

Bernie, feeling especially low, is hired to prove his former co-worker Emil Becker innocent of killing an American soldier. The offer includes a sizeable paycheck and a temporary escape to Vienna. Nothing is as it seems while the Americans and the Russians vie for supremacy in both Austria and the whole of Europe. People with competing agencies and various motives keep Bernie guessing as more and more people die.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas's "When the Good Life Goes Bad"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: When the Good Life Goes Bad: The US and Its Seven Deadly Sins by Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Seven Deadly Sins have become the seven markers of success in America. Lust, pride, greed, sloth, envy, gluttony, wrath―these once-condemned principles now guide people’s pursuit of the good life.

Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas examines how the Seven Deadly Sins have shaped the moral strivings and sociopolitical condition of American society and culture in the twenty-first century. Drawing on a multidimensional approach, Floyd-Thomas uses race, gender, class, and other lenses to break down the moral crises that define the American Dream. Her critique exposes the harm done by individual and collective practices of sexual objectification, capitalist materialism, wealth inequality, and technological hubris before pivoting to the rise of right-wing populism, white Christian nationalism, and the politics of cruelty. But Floyd-Thomas also proposes an ethic that emphasizes truth-telling, community engagement, and values rooted in humility, justice, and mercy―a new path for the US to overcome systemic oppression and create a more just society.

Evocative and ambitious, When the Good Life Goes Bad takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through US life and culture to explain what corrupted the American dream.

Learn more about When the Good Life Goes Bad at the University of Illinois Press website.

The Page 99 Test: When the Good Life Goes Bad.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lyla Lane's "The Best Little Motel in Texas"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Best Little Motel in Texas: A Novel by Lyla Lane.

About the book, from the publisher:

A charming, edgy mystery about a young woman who unexpectedly inherits the best little motel in Texas – replete with a feisty set of golden working girls, a poisoned priest, and a sleepy hometown thrown into chaos.

After a childhood spent combing the dive bars of Sarsaparilla Falls to collect her fun-loving momma, Cordelia West now enjoys a simple, respectable life in Dallas. Then one phone call from the hometown she’s spent years trying to forget throws it into chaos.

Cordelia's great-aunt Penelope has passed away, naming Cordelia the sole heir to the Chickadee Motel. She has no memory of a great-aunt and no interest in hospitality, but the will stipulates that the motel can’t be sold until its residents leave or pass away – so she reluctantly heads back down to Sarsaparilla Falls to figure out who's living in the Chickadee, and how to get them out.

But upon her arrival, Cordelia discovers the Chickadee isn’t a motel—it’s a brothel, housing three women in their sixties known as the Chicks. For decades, Daisy, Arline, and Belinda Sue have entertained the men of Sarsaparilla Falls (with their wives’ blessings)—including the upright Pastor Reed-Smythe, who thunders against the town’s favorite sins when he’s not indulging. Cordelia doesn’t want to be a hotel manager or a madam, but she can’t just sell the only home the Chicks have known—especially not after the pastor is found poisoned in Daisy’s bed.

With the Chicks—and the town—on the verge of a breakdown, Cordelia steps up to mop up the mess. For a small town, there are plenty of suspects: could it be the obsessed nurse with access to arsenic? Developers eager to gobble up the land? The righteously angry town librarian? Things are heating up in Sarsaparilla Falls, and with the Pastor’s obnoxiously attractive son Archer—Cordelia’s childhood nemesis—investigating the Chicks and getting close, straightlaced Cordelia may just have to get a little dirty to make a killer come clean.

Visit Lyla Lane's website.

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

Q&A with Lyla Lane.

The Page 69 Test: The Best Little Motel in Texas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.

From my Q&A with Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr., author of Tore All to Pieces:

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

Tore All to Pieces was the first title I gave this novel. Then I worried it wasn’t à la mode, and for a brief moment I renamed it Held by Fire and Flood. That title felt more fashionable. But the original kept resurfacing symbolically in the text as the characters showed me who they were. Tore All to Pieces is a key. It tells the reader, over and over again, in recursive patterns, across many lives, in many time periods, what it means to be whole.

What's in a name?

Last names matter a great deal in eastern Kentucky. I populated...[read on]

Visit Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.'s website.

Q&A with Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Patricia Seed's "Sails and Shadows"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Sails and Shadows: How the Portuguese Opened the Atlantic and Launched the Slave Trade by Patricia Seed.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the early Portuguese Empire facilitated the modern slave trade.

The Portuguese conquered the challenges of sailing the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean, extending their colonial empire along Africa's western shores. With their dedication to developing new sailing techniques and groundbreaking new knowledge of weather patterns and ocean currents, Portuguese mariners set the tone for the Age of Exploration. But their navigational achievements had horrific consequences for the people of western Africa: subjection to the slave trade.

Patricia Seed examines the historical and climatic odds that Portuguese seafarers overcame to be the first Europeans to tame the Atlantic. Using insights from fields ranging from oceanography to ethnography, she recounts how the Portuguese rapidly innovated and achieved profound new understandings of the ocean and sailing. At the same time, she foregrounds the reality that these innovations enabled them to inflict unimaginable cruelty as, against sometimes violent resistance, they forged what became their spoils of empire: the lucrative trade in human cargo that enslaved millions across Africa and beyond. Sails and Shadows is a history of incredible ingenuity outweighed and overshadowed by the horrors it wrought.

Learn more about Sails and Shadows at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Sails and Shadows.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about breaking up with your friend

Sarvat Hasin is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan. She has a masters in creative writing from the University of Oxford. Her first novel, This Wide Night, was published by Penguin Random House India and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her second book, You Can’t Go Home Again, was published in 2018 and featured in Vogue India's and The Hindu's best of the year lists. Her third novel, The Giant Dark, was a runaway critical success, won the Mo Siewcharran Prize, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award. Strange Girls is her US debut. She lives in London.

At Lit Hub Hasin tagged "five novels [that] are a kind of canon for the friendship breakup," including:

Maeve Binchy, Circle of Friends

As the title might suggest, Binchy’s sprawling novel tells the story of a group. Drawn together on the first day of college when they witness an accident together, the young Dubliners begin a journey of being in and out of each other’s lives (and in and out of love). The big friendship break up occurs between Benny and Nan when it transpires that Nan has been sleeping with the former’s boyfriend. What Binchy does so well here is draw out each of these characters’ internal lives and motivations. There’s no heroes or villains in this story. There is skill also in her depiction of the collective: when something ruptures between two people can reverberate through a whole friendship group.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kelsey Day reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kelsey Day, author of The Spiral Key.

Their entry begins:

Right now I’m midway through a book called I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane. It’s a literary speculative novel in which wrongdoers are marked for their crimes with extra shadows. Every character’s interaction(s) with the “justice” system physically marks them with a new shadow, and each shadow further ostracizes them from the privileged class.

The book is about surveillance and the justice system, but even more it’s about grief and motherhood. The narrator’s wife died in childbirth, and their kid was born with two shadows. The reader follows the narrator through spirals of grief and rage, with the tense hum of dystopia in the background.

I love books like this, that place us in a speculative environment while focusing on...[read on]

About The Spiral Key, from the publisher:

For fans of Holly Jackson and Jessica Goodman, this high-stakes thriller is set in a virtual-reality paradise turned hellscape, from a celebrated writer making their YA debut.

At the start of each school year, Madison Pembroke, the most popular girl at Lincoln Academy, sends out invitations to her epic birthday party in the form of custom forged spiral keys. For that one night, a few lucky teens get to enter Ametrine, a virtual paradise that hosts the party of the year—a wild, unforgettable celebration that will secure their social status in the real world. As Madison’s hated ex-BFF, Bree Benson never receives a key.

Until now.

Despite warnings from her boyfriend, Bree sees the invite as an olive branch, the perfect opportunity to rekindle her once-amazing friendship with Madison. But as the party games begin to turn provocative and violent, Bree finds that Ametrine might not be the decadent wonderland she was promised. And that Madison may have let Bree enter Ametrine, but she has no intention of ever letting her leave...

Kelsey Day’s gripping debut shows that while best friends know each other the best, ex–best friends know how to hurt each other the worst.

Visit Kelsey Day's website.

Q&A with Kelsey Day.

Writers Read: Kelsey Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight historical fiction books about women fighting fascism

Susie Dumond is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is the author of Queerly Beloved, Looking for a Sign, and Bed and Breakup, and she also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore. Dumond lives in Washington, D.C., with her spouse, Mickey, and her cat, Maple. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her baking cupcakes or belting karaoke at the nearest gay bar.

At Book Riot Dumond tagged eight works of historical fiction about women fighting fascism. One title on the list:

My Name is Emilia Del Valle by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is one of today’s most prolific historical fiction writers, and many of her books draw on a tangled history of war, political turmoil, and fascism in her home country, Chile. Her latest book introduces a bold young journalist, Emilia Del Valle, who defies the gendered expectations placed upon her in 1890s San Francisco and demands her writing be taken seriously. When Emilia learns of a civil war breaking out in Chile, the country of her father’s birth, she fights for the chance to travel there and share the true story of the conflict with the world. Joining a long legacy of real journalists fighting fascism with truth, Emilia is a character you won’t forget.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Christopher Cosmos's "Island of Ghosts and Dreams"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Island of Ghosts and Dreams: A Novel by Christopher Cosmos.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman from a small Greek village finds herself swept up in the long and storied history of her island—and its far-reaching impact—in this unforgettable story of love, passion, and resistance.

Chania, Crete; 1941.

When mainland Greece falls to the Germans after incredible and heroic resistance, the Greek government flees south to Crete: an ancient island of Gods and Kings, and Myths and Minotaurs.

Maria is a villager whose husband has been away fighting with the Greek army, and after she finds a British soldier that washes up on a secluded beach near her home, and helps nurse him back to health, the Germans then turn south and invade Crete, too.

Occupation, tragedy, and betrayal follow. The lives of Maria and her family change in an instant and she finds herself in a role she never thought she'd have to play—and one that generations of Cretans have had to assume before her.

Steeped in history and filled with unforgettable characters, Island of Ghosts and Dreams is a profoundly moving and decades-spanning tale of passion, honor, family, the great and enduring sacrifices all generations must make for freedom, and our sacred and immortal obligation to follow the strength and power of our heart, no matter where it might lead us.

Visit Christopher Cosmos's website and follow him on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: Once We Were Here.

Q&A with Christopher Cosmos.

The Page 69 Test: Young Conquerors.

The Page 69 Test: Island of Ghosts and Dreams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: L. Archer Porter's "Homebodies"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Homebodies: Performance and Intimacy in the Age of New Media by L. Archer Porter.

About the book, from the publisher:

Homebodies: Performance and Intimacy in the Age of New Media sheds light on a fascinating yet often overlooked phenomenon: how ordinary people transform their private lives into captivating performances for the digital stage. Focusing on home dance videos shared on Instagram from 2010 to 2020, the book explores the delicate art of "intimaesthetics"—the aestheticization of intimacy through the interplay of body, space, and media—and the paradox of the homebody. These seemingly spontaneous performances reveal how users craft images of closeness and authenticity, drawing audiences into a curated version of their domestic lives. Yet, Porter argues, these intimate portrayals exist within a larger system of platform control, algorithmic surveillance, and the commodification of personal expression.

Porter utilizes hand-drawn illustrations in place of screenshots, which reflects their commitment to critiquing the exploitative dynamics of digital visibility while respecting the personal nature of the media studied. By examining the intersection of personal agency, algorithmic control, and the commodification of authenticity, Homebodies provides a nuanced understanding of how technology redefines intimacy, identity, and creativity in the twenty-first century.

Visit Archer Porter's website.

The Page 99 Test: Homebodies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Garrett Curbow

From my Q&A with Garrett Curbow, author of Whispers of Ink and Starlight: A Novel:

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

I underwent a handful of title changes before reaching Whispers of Ink and Starlight. Because the story spans different themes and hopscotches across genres, I found it difficult to settle on a collection of words that summed up the entire book. How do I convey the magical realism? The romance? The mystery?

I arrived at my title during copyedits. As I was combing through the manuscript with the imagery of whispers and ink and starlight in mind, I knew it was perfect. Historically, I’m not a huge fan of formulaic titles, like Noun of Noun and Noun, but Whispers of Ink and Starlight evoked the exact feeling I had been searching for.

“Whispers” captures the intrigue of Nelle’s magical origin, the softspoken moments between her and James, and the overall quiet nature of the novel. This is a story about people facing human problems, not fantasy kingdoms going to war.

“Ink” is a major plot propellent from beginning to end. It is both the external conflict and the basis of the entire magic system. Having “Ink” in the title felt mandatory.

“Starlight” is pretty, it is romantic, it is hopeful. Throughout the novel, there are countless references to stars and making wishes. Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a novel about dreamers, and every title iteration has focused on that starry-eyed hopefulness.

Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a title that...[read on]

Visit Garrett Curbow's website.

Q&A with Garrett Curbow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top thrillers featuring technofascism

Ani Katz is a writer, photographer, and teacher. She was born and raised on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, and lives in Brooklyn.

Her new novel is Haven, which she calls "a meditation on techno-dystopia masquerading as a locked room mystery."

At CrimeReads Katz tagged five "genre-bending thrillers that employ elements of sci-fi, noir, and horror to explore what happens when the imaginations of the powerful serve the most venal and repressive of goals." One title on the list:

The City & The City by China Miéville

Miéville’s much-lauded police procedural is something special. What seems at first like a straightforward murder investigation of a foreign student quickly becomes more than meets the eye– though actually, in the fictional Eastern European city of Beszél, choosing what does and does not meet your eye is a matter of grave consequence. Beszél has a twin city, Ul Qoma– the two cities are so close that they are intertwined, sharing much of the same geographical space, but the citizens of each metropolis must “unsee” the other. To acknowledge the other city is known as breaching, a violation which brings on the full force of Breach, an inescapable, all-seeing secret police. Breach, and you disappear forever. Inspector Tyador Borlu’s investigation leads him through iron doors and puzzle boxes of bureaucracy in what becomes a search for a rumored third city hiding between Beszél and Ul Qoma. Miéville deftly conjures a sense of surveillance and control so oppressive it feels physically palpable.

Read about another title on the list.

The City and the City is among Jon Bassoff's eight novels set in strange, unsettling towns and Walter Mosley's five favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Yonatan Green's "Rogue Justice"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Rogue Justice: The Rise of Judicial Supremacy in Israel by Yonatan Green.

About the book, from the publisher:

Israel’s Supreme Court is the most powerful in the democratic world. But how did a handful of unelected judges come to hold such sway over a nation’s laws, politics, and future? In Rogue Justice, Israeli-American attorney Yonatan Green recounts the Court’s extraordinary rise - and the bitter controversy it has unleashed. Through close analysis of landmark rulings, novel doctrines, and the structural features of Israel’s legal system, Green traces the Court’s ascent from a modest judicial institution to the central arbiter of Israel’s political and social disputes. Revealing how judicial supremacy came to dominate Israeli governance, the book situates Israel’s constitutional crisis within broader global debates of pressing concern for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike. As Israel faces a new constitutional showdown, Rogue Justice is an urgent and accessible guide to the struggle over law, democracy, and power in the Jewish state.

Visit Yonatan Green's website.

The Page 99 Test: Rogue Justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

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

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

The entry begins:

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

Director

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

Visit Jennifer Murphy's website.

Q&A with Jennifer Murphy.

My Book, The Movie: The Ghost Women.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six essential books about birds

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

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

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

Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk

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

Read about another title on the list.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

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

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

About Pinky Swear, from the publisher:

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

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

But four days before the due date, Mara disappears.

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

Visit Danielle Girard's website.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard (August 2018).

My Book, The Movie: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: Expose.

The Page 69 Test: White Out.

Q&A with Danielle Girard.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard.

The Page 69 Test: Pinky Swear.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Isabel Booth reading?

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

Her entry begins:

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

All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker

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

About Then He Was Gone, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

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

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Then He Was Gone.

Q&A with Isabel Booth.

The Page 69 Test: Then He Was Gone.

Writers Read: Isabel Booth.

--Marshal Zeringue

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

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

About the book, from the publisher:

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

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

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

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

Visit Patti M. Marxsen's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top literary romance books

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

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

Possession by A.S. Byatt

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

Read about another entry on the list.

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

--Marshal Zeringue