Q&A with Jeffrey Archer

From my Q&A with Jeffrey Archer, author of An Eye for an Eye:

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

Titles are very important. They can tempt you to read a book and they can stop you from reading a book. I spend some considerable time thinking about my titles and they rarely come easily. I think Kane and Abel, Only Time Will Tell and Not a Penny More have helped sales, so I will always take the problem of titles very seriously.

What's in a name?

Names are very important, because they set the tone of what the person is like, for example William Warwick is clearly a good and decent person, whereas...[read on]

Visit Jeffrey Archer's website.

Q&A with Jeffrey Archer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elom K. Akoto's "Blindspot in America"

Feature at the Page 69 Test: Blindspot in America by Elom K. Akoto.

About the book, from the publisher:

Blindspot in America gives a provocative depiction of some of the realities immigrants face in the United States—racism and discrimination—but also their hopes and faith in a country that promises freedom and opportunity to all.

Kamao is the son of a prominent Ghanaian academic and incumbent minister of health and is devoted to all that America symbolizes. After immigrating to the United States in pursuit of higher education and the American Dream, he becomes unwittingly entangled with American politics when he meets Lindsey McAdams, the daughter of an influential, anti-immigration senator. As the couple’s feelings grow, so too does the senator’s animosity toward Kamao. Despite support from fellow immigrants Lazo, Ayefumi, and Dania—who follow American Dreams of their own—Kamao soon finds himself drawn into intrigues hidden from the American public that make him question himself and his adopted country. When Kamao is implicated in a murder, Lindsey’s loyalties are tested, Dania must decide if she is willing to risk her own future and security for the sake of justice, and Kamao discovers how far he’ll go to fulfill his American Dream.

Visit Elom Akoto's website.

My Book, The Movie: Blindspot in America.

Q&A with Elom K. Akoto.

The Page 69 Test: Blindspot in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrilling books about getting what you want by taking it

Brendan Gillen is an Emmy-winning writer living in Brooklyn. His fiction has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and appears in Wigleaf, Taco Bell Quarterly, New Delta Review, HAD, X-R-A-Y, South Carolina Review and elsewhere. His debut chapbook is I've Given This a Lot of Thought, and his first novel Static.

At Electric Lit Gillen tagged eight "favorite books [that] deal with stealing in some capacity, or at the very least, getting the things you want by taking them from others." One title on the list:

Breaking & Entering by Joy Williams

It’s right there in the title. Breaking & Entering. Or so you would think. Ostensibly, this book is about a married pair of drifters—Liberty and Willie—who break into the unoccupied beach homes of wealthy families on the Gulf Coast of Florida to escape their meager lives and experience the finer things, their slice of the American Dream. They drink the owners’ booze, wear their clothes, sleep in their beds, and when danger starts to peek around the corner, they move on.

But like all of Joy Williams’ best work, the novel is difficult to categorize; masterfully off-kilter, unsettling, and beguiling, surreal surfaces hinting at a rotten, Lynchian core. Liberty and Willie have been lovers since they were teens, but as they drift around the palm-studded landscape, they begin to drift apart, and to this reader, the heart of the novel is loneliness and desolation. This is a novel about taking the life you wish you had and then realizing that it’s as cold as death without comfort and companionship. Or, as the softies among us (raises hand) might call it, love.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Robert Swartwood reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Robert Swartwood, author of Enemy of the State.

One title from his entry:

Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda

I've had this one on my Kindle forever. In fact, I think I somehow got a digital ARC. I remember reading the first few pages and immediately deciding to set it aside because the language was so rich that I knew I wanted to come back to it. And I've been reading it on and off for the past year. Not because it's not a good book — it's great in fact — but because it's the kind of book you want to savor. The characters and story are excellent, sure, but it's the language, the...[read on]

About Enemy of the State, from the publisher:

From USA Today bestselling author Robert Swartwood comes Enemy of the State, the propulsive, thrilling, and much anticipated follow-up to The Killing Room ...

The world believed Daniel Burke was dead.

At least, the few people in the government who knew he existed did. Once part of an elite black op team, Burke faked his death so he could avenge his brother. Now that those responsible have been brought to justice, he plans to leave the country and start a new life.

But before Burke can even get on the plane, his old team has tracked him down.

The CIA believes Daniel Burke is a traitor--an enemy of the state--who must answer for his crimes. But others in government simply want him dead.

Knowing he's been set up, Burke is the only one who can track down and expose the real traitor--before it's too late.

Visit Robert Swartwood's website.

Q&A with Robert Swartwood.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Room.

Writers Read: Robert Swartwood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six excellent thrillers & horror novels set in hotels

Stephanie Wrobel is an international and USA Today bestselling author. Her debut, Darling Rose Gold, has sold rights in twenty-one countries and was a finalist for the Edgar® Award for Best First Novel.

[The Page 69 Test: Darling Rose Gold; My Book, The Movie: Darling Rose Gold; Q&A with Stephanie Wrobel]

Wrobel's new novel is The Hitchcock Hotel.

At CrimeReads she tagged six excellent thrillers and horror novels set in hotels, including:

Security by Gina Wohlsdorf

Since reading Security four years ago, I have made it my mission to spread the word far and wide about its greatness. The setting is the brand spanking new Manderley Resort in Santa Barbara. The landscaper describes the modern monolith as “a tooth somebody yanked out and stuck on the beach.” The novel’s brilliance lies in its first-person-slash-omniscient point of view—thanks to security cameras placed all over the property—not to mention the humor, plot turns, and unholy terror. Seriously, I had to stop reading the book at night because it was giving me nightmares.

Read about another entry on the list.

Security is among Molly Odintz's eighteen best new and recent horror novels, Christopher Swann's six great novels with mysterious protagonists, and James S. Murray's five books that are pulpy in all the right ways.

The Page 69 Test: Security.

My Book, The Movie: Security.

--Marshal Zeringue

Emma Barry's "Bad Reputation," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Bad Reputation by Emma Barry.

The entry begins:

Cole James’s reputation as Hollywood’s favorite himbo no longer suits him. His fans can’t separate the real man from the character he played on a soapy teen drama decades ago. But that’s going to change with Waverley, the hit streaming historical romance series.

Maggie Niven hates her own notoriety. Fired for directing a divisive play, Maggie takes her fight against censorship public. When Hollywood comes calling, she becomes the new intimacy coordinator for Waverley. But it’s harder than she imagined to focus on the job.

Cole isn’t what she expected—and Maggie is more than he dreamed of. As filming gets underway, the cast’s old traumas lead to real intimacy, and Cole and Maggie struggle with feelings they shouldn’t have. Having an affair on set could destroy his comeback and her new career. Falling in love would ruin everything.

So is there a Hollywood ending in store for them?

(Folks, it’s a romance. You do the math.)

I have to admit that I don’t normally fancast my books, but with Bad Reputation, I had to. It’s a book about making a television show for crying out loud! You better believe I have a cast list ready to go.

Cole has the soul of a Boy Scout or an elementary school crossing guard. Sure, he’s blond, muscular, and hot, but you have to like him, not just lust after him. I’d cast Chris Pine, largely based on the energy he brought to Wonder Woman 1984. That scene when he...[read on]

Visit Emma Barry's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bad Reputation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lee Phillips's "Einstein's Tutor"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Einstein's Tutor: The Story of Emmy Noether and the Invention of Modern Physics by Lee Phillips.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revelatory story of the woman who made foundational contributions to science and mathematics and persevered in the face of discrimination.

Emmy Noether's mathematical genius enabled Einstein to bring his General Theory of Relativity–the basis of our current theory of gravity–to fruition. On a larger scale, what came to be known as “Noether’s Theorem”—called by a Nobel laureate “the single most profound result in all of physics”—supplied the basis for the most accurate theory in the history of physics, the Standard Model, which forms our modern theory of matter.

Noether’s life story is equally important and revelatory in understanding the pernicious nature of sexual prejudice in the sciences, revealing the shocking discrimination against one of the true intellectual giants of the twentieth century, a woman effectively excluded from the opportunities given to her male counterparts. Noether’s personality and optimistic spirit, as Lee Phillips reveals, enabled her unique genius to persevere and arrive at insights that still astonish those who encounter them a century later.

Visit Lee Phillips's website.

The Page 99 Test: Einstein's Tutor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Elom K. Akoto

From my Q&A with Elom K. Akoto, author of Blindspot in America:

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

The final title of my debut novel, Blindspot in America, was not the original title I gave it. I was unhappy when my publisher decided it was best to find a new title for the book because of how cliché In the Dream of America would appear to potential readers. The publisher then included me in the task of finding a new title. After tossing words around, Blindspot in America seemed to fit the story better, as it depicts how prospective immigrants’ conception of America excludes or instead omits some crucial aspects and realities of their future adopted country. Those aspects and realities constitute the spots they didn’t see in their dream of America.

What's in a name?

I was looking for an uncommon name for the protagonist of my novel, and Kamao came to me quickly. Although it...[read on]

Visit Elom Akoto's website.

My Book, The Movie: Blindspot in America.

Q&A with Elom K. Akoto.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven of the best recent vampire books

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged eleven of the greatest recent bloodsucking books. One title on the list:

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

Lydia’s appetite is insatiable and unconventional — she craves delicacies from all over the world, but can only digest blood. A story about living within multiple identities, our relationship to art and food, and the overwhelming need for fulfillment, Woman, Eating is a brilliant take on modern-day vampires.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jen Wheeler's "A Cure for Sorrow"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Cure for Sorrow: A Novel by Jen Wheeler.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of The Light on Farallon Island comes a haunting novel about the power of science, the nature of love, and the enigma of the supernatural.

Convention-flouting Nora Harris is a determined young medical student in Gilded Age Manhattan. A surgeon’s daughter, she always leads with her head―until her father’s latest protégé, Euan Colquhoun, steals her heart. Love and logic bind the newly betrothed couple together, but a tragic accident cuts their bright future short.

Grief-stricken, Nora finds surprising comfort in corresponding with Euan’s older brother, Malcolm. She decides to forsake her ambitions to retreat to the Colquhoun family farm deep in the tangled woods of upstate New York.

There, her longed-for peace is threatened by a suspicion that the whole family harbors haunting secrets. When she starts to see things that science can’t explain, Nora fears for her sanity―and when she gives in to dangerous temptations, she fears for her immortal soul.

Visit Jen Wheeler's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Light on Farallon Island.

The Page 69 Test: A Cure for Sorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten great books with strong tween characters

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents).

The newest book in the Spy School series is Spy School Goes Wild.

[The Page 69 Test: Space Case; The Page 69 Test: Spy Ski School]

At Lit Hub Gibbs tagged ten top books with strong tween characters, including:

Jen Calonita, The Isle of Ever

The only bad thing about this book is that you’ll have to wait a few more months to read it: It doesn’t come out until March 2025. But I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy—and I’m so glad I did. Twelve-year-old Everly “Benny” Benedict finds she’s the heir to a mysterious fortune, but before she can collect it, she has to win a devious game.

Following clues an ancestor somehow knew to leave her, she must locate a mysterious island that hasn’t been seen in two hundred years. There’s great character, mystery, action—and pirates. Do yourself a favor and pre-order it!

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mel Stanfill's "Fandom Is Ugly"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Fandom Is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture by Mel Stanfill.

About the book, from the publisher:

Highlights the importance of considering contemporary public culture through the lens of fan studies

The Gamergate harassment campaign of women in video games, the “Unite the Right” rally where hundreds of Confederate monument supporters cried out racist and antisemitic slurs in Charlottesville, and the targeted racist and sexist harassment of Star Wars’ Asian American actress Kelly Marie Tran all have one thing in common: they demonstrate the collective power and underlying ugliness of fandoms. These fans might feel victimized or betrayed by the content they’ve intertwined with their own identities, or they may simply feel that they’re speaking truth to power. Regardless, by connecting via social media, they can unleash enormous amounts of hate, which often results in severe real-world consequences.

Fandom Is Ugly argues that reactionary politics and media fandoms go hand in hand, and to understand one, we need to understand the other. Mel Stanfill pushes back on two mainstream assumptions: that media and the pleasure of consumption are frivolous and unworthy of study, and that fandoms are inherently progressive. Drawing on a corpus of angry social media posts, Fandom Is Ugly finds that ugly moments happen when deep emotional attachments collide with social structures and situations that have been misunderstood. By holistically examining the forms of ugly fandom in cases that touch upon race, gender, and sexuality, Fandom Is Ugly produces a comprehensive theory of the negative sides of fan attachments.

Visit Mel Stanfill's website.

The Page 99 Test: Fandom Is Ugly.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James R. Benn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James R. Benn, author of The Phantom Patrol (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery.

His entry begins:

The Bug in the Martini Olive and Other True Cases from the Files of Hal Lipset, Private Eye by Patricia Holt

Hal Lipset worked in the Army's Criminal Investigations Division during WWII and returned home to start his own private investigator business. He became a pioneer in electronic surveillance techniques, and Francis Ford Coppola's movie The Conversation was partly based on Lipset. The book, written by a former operative who worked for Lipset, shows how he used a mix of old and new techniques. Long, arduous days of surveillance and verifying detailed background checks, combined with devising and deploying new electronic surveillance devices. Lipset never...[read on]

About The Phantom Patrol, from the publisher:

An investigation into a gang of Nazi-affiliated art thieves leads Billy Boyle and his comrades directly into the line of fire at the catastrophic Battle of the Bulge.

Winter 1944: Months after the Liberation of France, ex-Boston cop Billy Boyle finds himself in a Paris reeling from the carnage it has endured but hopeful that an end to war is in sight. When Billy finds a rare piece of artwork after a tense shoot-out in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, he thinks it could be connected to the Syndicat du Renard, a shadowy network of Nazi sympathizers known to be smuggling stolen artwork out of France.

Trailing the Syndicat, Billy discovers that someone with a high level of communications clearance—someone in the Phantom regiment of the British Army—may be using his position to aid the thieves. Billy, determined to stop the abettor, heads up to the frontlines where he experiences a last-ditch battle against overwhelming odds. There, the ruinous Battle of the Bulge unfurls in the Ardennes Forest. Can Billy and his team survive the bracing onslaught and return the stolen artwork to its rightful protectors?

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about women being bad

Arielle Egozi has been featured across major publications for her destigmatizing work. She was Salon’s inaugural sex and love advice columnist, and has spoken on stages around the world. As a writer and creative director, they use their queer, Latine, and neurodivergent perspective to center the stories of stigmatized bodies and identities. She shares a bed with her two perrhijos and partner.

Being Bad: Breaking the Rules and Becoming Everything You're Not Supposed to Be is her first book.

At Electric Lit Egozi tagged eight books that are "not only achingly well-written, but infused with the particular perspective of those who know what it is to be on the outside—even if they pretend not to be." One title on their list:

The Guest by Emma Cline

A summer in the Hamptons with a self-destructive sugar baby. Need I say more? Okay, okay, I will. Alex fucks up at a fancy dinner party and gets dumped by her rich older “boyfriend” and put on a train back to Brooklyn. Except, she doesn’t get on it and instead spends a week pretending to be totally fine—with no money, no phone, and nowhere to sleep, conning and causing destruction along the way. All she needs is to get through the week until her ex’s Labor Day party where she can win him back. I won’t spoil the ending. A story of excess, addiction, and dark comedy, somehow you’ll find yourself rooting for this antiheroine.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Timothy Jay Smith's "Istanbul Crossing"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Istanbul Crossing by Timothy Jay Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this coming-of-age literary thriller, Ahdaf, a gay Syrian refugee, after watching his cousin executed by ISIS for being homosexual, flees to Istanbul for safety.

He becomes a smuggler of refugees to Greece and develops such a good reputation that he’s approached by both the CIA and ISIS to smuggle high-profile individuals in both directions between Turkey and Greece.

In the process of juggling their two operations, he falls in love with, and must decide between, two men who offer different futures.

Visit Timothy Jay Smith's website.

Writers Read: Timothy Jay Smith.

My Book, The Movie: The Fourth Courier.

The Page 69 Test: The Fourth Courier.

Q&A with Timothy Jay Smith.

The Page 69 Test: Fire on the Island.

The Page 69 Test: Istanbul Crossing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Tess Callahan

From my Q&A with Tess Callahan, author of Dawnland: A Novel:

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

During a weeklong family reunion on Cape Cod, a stretch of beach the characters refer to as Dawnland, two brothers convene at their father’s house with their wives, teenage children, and deeply held secrets in tow. Dawnland is the Wampanoag and Wabanaki name for the northeastern seaboard, the place of the first sunrise, a symbol of hope and renewal. The father figure in Dawnland, Hal, finds this indigenous name more fitting than Cape Cod, especially now that most of the cod have been fished out. Like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the title establishes the setting as central to the story while also acting as a metaphor. The primal forces of nature collide with the unresolved past of the characters and, kaboom! In Dawnland the natural world is a reckoning force. Hope is born of hard-won realizations. ‘Dusk Land’ would be...[read on]

Learn more about the novel and author at Tess Callahan's website.

The Page 69 Test: April and Oliver.

The Page 69 Test: Dawnland.

My Book, The Movie: Dawnland.

Q&A with Tess Callahan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on The American Constitution

D.W. Buffa's newest novel to be released is Evangeline, a courtroom drama about the murder trial of captain who is one of the few to survive the sinking of his ship.

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 is on the American Constitution. It begins:

Alexander Hamilton wanted a monarchy; Benjamin Franklin wanted everyone to pray. Everyone wanted a government that would protect the rights of individuals; no one thought democracy anything but the greatest threat to liberty the country could face. Everyone in the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 had a different idea of what the new government should look like; everyone agreed that George Washington was the only proper choice to preside over their deliberations. Proving their decision right, he “lamented his want of better qualifications,” and “claimed the indulgence of the House towards the involuntary errors which his inexperience might occasion.”

During the nearly four months the Convention deliberated, Washington spoke only once, but ruled the Convention with a steady hand and an even gaze. The rules themselves were quite clear. When someone rose to speak they addressed Washington directly. While someone was speaking, no one was allowed to talk or read. When it was time to adjourn, everyone was to stand in their place “until the President shall pass him.” One rule was more important than all the others: everyone was sworn to absolute secrecy about the proceedings: “That nothing spoken in the House shall be printed, or otherwise published or communicated without leave.”

By agreeing to keep secret what was said in the Convention, no one had to worry what the public might think about what they said or how they voted. This did not mean that they did not want a permanent record of what they had done. They knew what they were doing and how it might change the world. James Madison determined “to preserve as far as I could an exact account of what might pass in the Convention.” He was not “unaware of the value of such a contribution to the fund of materials for the History of the Constitution on which would be staked the happiness of a people great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of Liberty throughout the world.”

Six days a week for nearly four months, never absent even a single day and seldom absent for more than a fraction of an hour, Madison wrote down everything that was said, and did it at the same time he was taking a leading part in the very debate he was transcribing. It was, at the end, a perfect record, the most thorough report of its kind ever written. And no one...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Third reading: The Great Gatsby. 

Third reading: Brave New World.

Third reading: Lord Jim.

Third reading: Death in the Afternoon.

Third Reading: Parade's End.

Third Reading: The Idiot.

Third Reading: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Third Reading: The Scarlet Letter.

Third Reading: Justine.

Third Reading: Patriotic Gore.

Third reading: Anna Karenina.

Third reading: The Charterhouse of Parma.

Third Reading: Emile.

Third Reading: War and Peace.

Third Reading: The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Third Reading: Bread and Wine.

Third Reading: “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities.

Third reading: Eugene Onegin.

Third Reading: The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Third Reading: The Europeans.

Third Reading: The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction.

Third Reading: Doctor Faustus.

Third Reading: the reading list of John F. Kennedy.

Third Reading: Jorge Luis Borges.

Third Reading: History of the Peloponnesian War.

Third Reading: Mansfield Park.

Third Reading: To Each His Own.

Third Reading: A Passage To India.

Third Reading: Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Third Reading: The Letters of T.E. Lawrence.

Third Reading: All The King’s Men.

Third Reading: The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.

Third Reading: Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt.

Third Reading: Main Street.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II.

Third Reading: Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Third Reading: Fiction's Failure.

Third Reading: Hermann Hesse's Demian.

Third Reading: Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July.

Third Reading: Caesar’s Ghost.

Third reading: The American Constitution.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen books every environmentalist should read

At The Revelator John R. Platt tagged fifteen random books that every environmentalist should read. One title on the list:

Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis by Michael E. Mann

OK, I had to squeeze one explicitly environmental book into this column, and it’s a good one. Mann, the climate scientist who originated the famed “hockey stick” graph, has a right to be completely pessimistic about the future, but the fact that he leans into optimism gives me strength. I’ve come back to this one a few times as I look for inspiration to reach people with powerful messages about the struggles we’ll face over the coming years.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Vicki Delany's "A Slay Ride Together With You"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You by Vicki Delany.

About the book, from the publisher:

The slay bells are ringing in this festive seventh installment of national bestselling author Vicki Delany’s Year-Round Christmas mystery series, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Donna Andrews.

Rudolph, New York, shop owner Merry Wilkinson’s best friend Vicky Casey is newly engaged to Chef Mark Grosse and is moving into the historic Cole House–a home surrounded by drama, intrigue, and a possible haunting that is in desperate need of renovation. The wedding is just three weeks away, but all is not bliss for the newly engaged couple as estranged relatives of the late owner fight over her will. Then, late one night, Vicky and Merry come across a dead body in the garden of Cole House–and Mark is the one standing over the corpse.

As Detective Diane Simmonds focuses on Mark as the prime suspect, Vicky asks for Merry’s help to clear her fiancé’s name in time for the wedding. As they dig deeper into the connection between the house, Cole relatives, and town residents, past and present, it becomes clear that plenty of people wanted the victim dead.

With a bakery to run, the busy Easter weekend fast approaching, a house to renovate, and a fiancé to clear of a murder accusation, Vicky’s wedding may end up on the chopping block. It’s up to Merry to put aside the chocolate bunnies and stuffed rabbits and help her best friend save her wedding–and her life.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Brandon Morgan's "Raid and Reconciliation"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Raid and Reconciliation: Pancho Villa, Modernization, and Violence in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands by Brandon Morgan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the formation of the U.S.-Mexico border through the rise of capitalism brought new forms of violence, this time codified in law, land surveys, and capitalist land and resource regimes—the markers of modernity and progress that were the hallmarks of Gilded Age America and Porfirian Mexico. Military units, settlers, and boosters dispossessed Southern Apache peoples of their homelands and attempted to erase the histories of Mexican colonists in the Lower Mimbres Valley region. As a result, people of multiple racial and national identities came together to forge new border communities.

In Raid and Reconciliation Brandon Morgan examines the story of Pancho Villa’s 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico—an event that has been referenced in various histories of the border and the Mexican Revolution but not contextualized on its own—and shows that violence was integral to the modern capitalist development that shaped the border. Raid and Reconciliation provides new insights into the Mexican Revolution and sheds light on the connections between violence and modernization. Lessons from this border story resonate in today’s debates over migration, race, and what it means to be an American.

Learn more about Raid and Reconciliation at the University of Nebraska Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Raid and Reconciliation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elom K. Akoto's "Blindspot in America," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Blindspot in America by Elom K. Akoto.

The entry begins:

Blindspot in America is a political novel that explores the narrative of immigrants' experiences in America in their quest for the American Dream. The novel tells the story of an African immigrant, Kamao, born into a prominent Ghanaian family, his father being the secretary of health, who becomes entangled in American politics. His relationship with Lindsey, the daughter of Brad McAdams, a wealthy, prominent, conservative, and anti-immigrant US senator, triggers a series of troubles for him.

While writing this novel, I enjoyed the story playing in my head as if it were a Hollywood movie. I imagine the book being adapted into a film or a series on Netflix or other platforms featuring some well-known skillful actors and actresses. Because there are so many talented actors who can play each of the novel's three main characters, Kamao, Lindsey, and Brad McAdams, it was challenging to come up with a finalist for each role.

For the role of Kamao, I continue to struggle to choose between three finalists: Algee Smith, Khylin Rhambo, and Malachi Kirby. Kamao is described as an athletic, martial artist, and good-looking fellow who resembles...[read on]

Visit Elom Akoto's website.

My Book, The Movie: Blindspot in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top eerie crime novels

In addition to her eerie psychological thriller, The Therapist’s Daughter, Megan Taylor’s dark novels include We Wait, her take on a traditional haunted house mystery, and she’s also had many short stories published, some of which are included in her collection, The Woman Under the Ground. Taylor lives in Nottingham, UK, where she’s working on her next twisted thriller and a second collection.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven crime novels "steeped in the kind of eerie atmosphere that threatens to unsettle your perceptions and infect your dreams." One title on the list:

J. Robert Lennon, Broken River

With Broken River, we have another house in the middle of nowhere, more brutality and senseless death, and something freakily ‘other’ going on. But in Lennon’s psychological thriller, the eeriness that surrounds a terrible crime and its equally tense aftermath is provided by an unusual and incredibly effective structuring device.

From the opening, in which a double murder is revealed (and rendered all the more horrible for the way it’s mostly presented off-screen through sounds and suggestion), the reader is accompanied by the Observer, an invisible, phantom-like, unexplained presence.

Years after the killings, when new residents Eleanor and her twelve-year-old daughter, Irena, become dangerously obsessed with the unsolved crime, the Observer sometimes seems to represent their morbid curiosity. And as the novel’s ominous action ramps up, it isn’t just the characters’ fascination that the Observer might reflect; this watching presence raises uneasy questions about complicity that possibly implicate the reader and the author too. But Broken River provides no easy answers, and perhaps it is that, as much as the gripping plot, which gives this book its unsettling power.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jennifer S. Brown's "The Whisper Sister"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Whisper Sister: A Novel by Jennifer S. Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

The author of Modern Girls delivers an atmospheric coming-of-age story set in Prohibition-era New York, tracing one immigrant family’s fortunes and a young girl’s journey from the schoolyard to the speakeasy.

The streets of New York in 1920 are most certainly not paved with gold, as Minnie Soffer learns when she arrives at Ellis Island. Her father, who left Ukraine when Minnie was a toddler, feels like a stranger. She sleeps on a mattress on the kitchen floor. She understands nothing at school. They came to America for this?

As her family adjusts to this new life, Minnie and her brother work hard to learn English and make friends. When her father, Ike, opens his own soda shop, stability and citizenship seem within reach. But the soda shop is not what it seems; it’s a front for Ike’s real moneymaker: a speakeasy.

When tragedy strikes the Soffers, Minnie has no choice but to take over the bar. She’s determined to make the speakeasy a success despite the risks it brings to herself, her family, and her freedom. At what price does the American dream come true? Minnie won’t stop until she finds out.

Visit Jennifer S. Brown's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Whisper Sister.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Mansi Shah

From my Q&A with Mansi Shah, author of A Good Indian Girl: A Novel:

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

A Good Indian Girl is the perfect title for this novel and really sets the tone for the story. Coupled with the cover, which features an Indian woman with a smirk, the reader can intuit that this is going to be a story that challenges the stereotypes of what is expected of a “good Indian girl.” The story starts off with Jyoti, who is a 42-year-old woman who finds herself divorced and estranged from her parents after she was unable to conceive the child that her husband so desperately wanted. She’d given up her chef career to focus on having children, so she approaches the second half of her life having lost everything that she thought she was supposed to have at that stage of her life. With no obligations, she spends the summer in Italy with her best friend, Karishma, a fellow social outcast from their conservative Gujarati community. Through the experiences of Jyoti and Karishma—and a lot of pasta and Chianti—the story changes the narrative of what type of life a good Indian girl should have, and is grounded in the universal themes of reinventing ourselves after loss, learning to...[read on]

Visit Mansi Shah's website.

Q&A with Mansi Shah.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven mysterious & unsettling novels set on campuses

Caroline Wolff is a writer and editor. She holds an MFA in Fiction from New York University, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. She lives in downtown Manhattan.

Wolff's new novel The Wayside

takes place at Paloma College, a (fictional) liberal arts school in Northern California. The novel opens with a pair of hikers discovering the body of Jake Cleary, a student at Paloma, at the bottom of a cliff. Local police deem Jake’s death a suicide. But as Jake’s mother Kate uncovers the secrets of his life on campus, she becomes convinced that something even more sinister might have pushed Jake over the edge.

[Q&A with Caroline Wolff]

At Electric Lit Wolff tagged seven more mysterious and unsettling novels set on campuses, including:

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Pessl’s debut novel is ambitious, eclectic, scrappy, and wildly unique—probably why it garnered such extremes of praise and scorn when it was released in 2006. It’s very much a “black licorice” novel, but it appeals to my tastes. This follows Blue van Meer, a precocious teenager who enters a new private school and is soon drawn into the “Bluebloods,” a clique of rich and popular students. The group’s mentor, Hannah, is a cool film studies teacher who takes a special liking to Blue. When Hannah is found dead, Blue takes it upon herself to solve the case. This reads less as a mystery per se than a coming-of-age story that happens to include a murder, but I think its genre-bending, formally inventive nature is what makes it so compelling.

Read about another entry on the list.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is among Erin Mayer's eleven disturbing cliques in literature, Kiley Reid’s five top novels with incredible child caregivers and Brian Boone's fifty essential high school stories.

The Page 69 Test: Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark Walker's "Hitler's Atomic Bomb"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hitler's Atomic Bomb: History, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima by Mark Walker.

About the book, from the publisher:

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'. The global impacts of this project were cataclysmic. Credible reports of German developments spurred the American Manhattan Project, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in turn the Soviet efforts. After the war these scientists' work was overshadowed by the twin shocks of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Hitler's Atomic Bomb sheds light on the postwar criticism and subsequent rehabilitation of the German scientists, including the controversial legend of Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's visit to occupied Copenhagen in 1941. This scientifically accurate but non-technical history examines the impact of German efforts to harness nuclear fission, and the surrounding debates and legends.

Learn more about Hitler's Atomic Bomb at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hitler's Atomic Bomb.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Julie Czerneda reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Julie E. Czerneda, author of A Change of Place.

Her entry begins:

Karin Lowachee’s The Mountain Crown

I love dragons—and have huge respect for Karin Lowachee’s writing (she’s the author of the magnificent Warchild Mosaic). Imagine my joy to find her writing them in her latest, The Mountain Crown. Impressive, wonderful masses of original and fascinating dragons (called suons) permeate the landscapes of her world and if this wasn’t enough to make me hug this book, there’s more. The main character, Méka, is a member of the Suonkang family, a Ba’suon, with the innate ability to reach into nature—and the minds of suons—to create a partnership. When she’s sent into the land of their magic-blind enemies to coax a king dragon from the wild, little does she realize where her path will lead. It reminded me of my favourite moments in McCaffrey’s Dragonriders. I’m...[read on]

About A Change of Place, from the publisher:

Return to the Aurora Award-winning, cozy romantic fantasy Night's Edge series and the rich and atmospheric world of Marrowdell

Spring in Marrowdell is a time to celebrate. Life stirs, the air warms, and Jenn Nalynn and Bannan Larmensu couldn't be happier. But spring is also fraught with change, and nowhere is this truer than the edge, where the Verge, the magical realm of dragons and sei, touches that of snow and roads. The spring equinox marks the final turn before Marrowdell’s sun starts to dominate the sky and Jenn, turn-born and sei, feels the pull to cross to the Verge.

Marrowdell’s river floods, and Jenn knows she is needed at home, but deep within the Verge a perilous force is calling her away from all she loves. For the house toad’s mighty queen has waited for the first equinox with the powers of a turn-born in the edge, and now she is ready to make her move against it.

Caught up in plots they cannot understand, Jenn and Bannan find themselves separated, and to reunite they will have to outsmart the queen herself. But even if they can foil her plan, will Marrowdell still be there when they return?

Visit Julie E. Czerneda's website.

The Page 69 Test: To Guard Against the Dark.

The Page 69 Test: The Gossamer Mage.

The Page 69 Test: Mirage.

Q&A with Julie E. Czerneda.

The Page 69 Test: To Each This World.

My Book, The Movie: To Each This World.

My Book, The Movie: A Change of Place.

The Page 69 Test: A Change of Place.

Writers Read: Julie E. Czerneda.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top mysteries featuring librarian sleuths

New York Times bestselling author, Sofie Kelly, writes the Magical Cats mysteries, set in the small town of Mayville Heights, Minnesota. As Sofie Ryan, she is the author of the popular bestselling Second Chance Cat mysteries that feature repurpose shop owner, Sarah Grayson, a group of senior sleuths and the world's oldest computer hacker.

Kelly has been a late night disk jockey—which explains her love of coffee--and taught absolutely terrified adults how to swim. Like Kathleen Paulson in the Magical Cats books, she practices Wu style Tai Chi. Kelly is also a mixed-media artist and likes to prowl thrift shops looking for things to re-purpose in her art.

Her new novel is Furever After.

[My Book, The Movie: Curiosity Thrilled the Cat; The Page 69 Test: Faux Pas; Writers Read: Sofie Kelly (August 2024); My Book, The Movie: Furever After]

At CrimeReads Kelly tagged seven mysteries featuring bookish sleuths, including:

Minnie Hamilton in the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries by Laurie Cass

Minnie and her rescue cat, Eddie, travel around Chilson, Michigan in the bookmobile. (A job I wanted for a while when I was a kid.) Minnie cares about the people in her community and it makes sense that she’d get involved when something bad happens. She’s also clever and perceptive. And Eddie makes a great sidekick.

Start with Lending a Paw.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James R. Benn's "The Phantom Patrol"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery) by James R. Benn.

About the book, from the publisher:

An investigation into a gang of Nazi-affiliated art thieves leads Billy Boyle and his comrades directly into the line of fire at the catastrophic Battle of the Bulge.

Winter 1944: Months after the Liberation of France, ex-Boston cop Billy Boyle finds himself in a Paris reeling from the carnage it has endured but hopeful that an end to war is in sight. When Billy finds a rare piece of artwork after a tense shoot-out in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, he thinks it could be connected to the Syndicat du Renard, a shadowy network of Nazi sympathizers known to be smuggling stolen artwork out of France.

Trailing the Syndicat, Billy discovers that someone with a high level of communications clearance—someone in the Phantom regiment of the British Army—may be using his position to aid the thieves. Billy, determined to stop the abettor, heads up to the frontlines where he experiences a last-ditch battle against overwhelming odds. There, the ruinous Battle of the Bulge unfurls in the Ardennes Forest. Can Billy and his team survive the bracing onslaught and return the stolen artwork to its rightful protectors?

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

--Marshal Zeringue