Eight memoirs that explore the damage of purity culture

K. W. Colyard grew up weird in a one-caution-light town in the Appalachian foothills. She now lives in an old textile city with her husband and their clowder of cats.

At Book Riot Colyard tagged "eight memoirs exploring the damage of purity culture." One title on the list:

On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel by Brenda Marie Davies

“My Christianity depended on purity,” writes Brenda Marie Davies. Tracing her twenties in L.A., Davies’s memoir examines whether a Christian life is possible without the threat of sexual contamination. As such, this read is perfect for deconstructing Evangelicals who aren’t ready to leave the faith entirely.

Read about another memoir on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Anna North

From my Q&A with Anna North, author of Bog Queen:

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

I think (or hope) that the title Bog Queen is doing work on a few levels. In the most literal way, it’s letting people know that this book involves a bog and maybe some figure analogous to a queen (the actual woman who ends up buried in the bog isn’t a queen, but she is powerful for her time). I hope it also conjures a mood of eeriness and the supernatural, giving readers a taste of what’s ahead.

The title is also a reference to the Seamus Heaney poem of the same name. It’s actually not my favorite of Heaney’s bog poems (that would be “The Grauballe Man,” from which I took the epigraph for Bog Queen), but the title felt right for my book, and I liked being able to gesture at the long history of...[read on]

Visit Anna North's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Life and Death of Sophie Stark.

The Page 69 Test: Outlawed.

Q&A with Anna North.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Anthony Fletcher and Ruth Larsen's "Mistress"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Mistress: A History of Women and their Country Houses by Anthony Fletcher and Ruth M. Larsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

An insightful, hugely engaging new history of elite women and the country house from the sixteenth to the twentieth century

Grand houses can be found across the countryside of England and Wales. From the Stuart and Georgian periods to the Edwardian and Victorian, these buildings were once home to the aristocratic families of the nation. But what was life like for the mistresses of these great houses? How much power and influence did they really have?

Anthony Fletcher and Ruth M. Larsen explore the lives of country house mistresses. Focusing on eighteen women, and spanning five centuries, they look at the ways in which elite women not only shaped the house, household, and family, but also had an impact on society, culture, and politics within their estates and beyond. We meet Brilliana Harley, who defended her castle at Brampton Bryan; Frances Boscawen, who oversaw the building of Hatchlands; and Lady Mary Elcho, who preserved her secret life as mistress to Arthur Balfour. This is a fascinating account of the country house that puts women’s experiences centre stage.

Learn more about Mistress: A History of Women and their Country Houses at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Mistress: A History of Women and their Country Houses.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten legal thrillers

One title on Tertulia's top ten list of legal thrillers:

The Lincoln Lawyer
Michael Connelly

This blockbuster series stars attorney Mickey Haller as he drives around LA defending gangsters, drug dealers and their ilk. In book one, he's hired to help a Beverly Hills playboy accused of assault, before things quickly take a sinister turn.

Read about another novel on the list.

Also see Sally Smith's five top legal thrillers, Brittany Bunzey's eight best legal thrillers, Chad Zunker's six legal thrillers with powerful social messages, and Jillian Medoff's eight top legal thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Connie Berry reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Connie Berry, author of A Grave Deception: A Kate Hamilton Mystery.

Her entry begins:

Since I’ve finished the latest installments of all my current favorites—Richard Osman, Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, Sarah Pearse, Ruth Ware, Robert Galbraith—I decided to indulge myself by reading—or rereading—crime novels written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (the period between the two world wars). Guided by British crime writer and editor Martin Edwards, current president of the famous London Detection Club, I’ve enjoyed wonderful novels by E. C. R. Lorac (Fire in the Thatch, Death of an Author), Anthony Berkeley (Murder in the Basement), and a lesser-known author, Anthony Rolls (Family Matters). They were recommended by Edwards, who wrote introductions to them for their publication by the British Library Crime Classics. In my opinion, these novels hold up today as true puzzle pieces with plenty of clues, red herrings, and twists. They also provide a fascinating time-travel experience to life in rural England between the wars, which I love. The BLCC collection to date includes more than 130 titles, but I’ve stopped reading them for now so I don’t unconsciously begin imitating their style. I can do that.

Over the Christmas holidays, I’ll reread as I always do The Wind in the Willows and several of...[read on]

About A Grave Deception, from the publisher:

Antiques expert Kate Hamilton dives into the past to solve a fourteenth-century mystery with disturbing similarities to a modern-day murder in the sixth installment of the Kate Hamilton mystery series.

Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a fourteenth-century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try.

Meanwhile, tensions within the archaeological team erupt when the body of the lead archaeologist turns up at the dig site with fake pearls in his mouth and stomach. Then a third body is found in the excavations. Meanwhile, Kate’s husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own.

With the help of 700-year-old documents and the unpublished research of a deceased historian, Kate must piece together the past before the grave count reaches four.

Visit Connie Berry's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Art of Betrayal.

My Book, The Movie: The Art of Betrayal.

Q&A with Connie Berry.

Writers Read: Connie Berry.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven books about disability as an ethics of care

Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) is a writer and critic who works at the intersections of race, culture, and health equity. She is the author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work.

At Electric Lit Burey tagged eleven books "that in one way or another touch on disability identity." One entry on the list:

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

In Death of the Author, protagonist Zelunjo “Zelu” Onyenezi-Onyedele is unceremoniously fired from her university teaching position and her novel is rejected again. As if her own sense of failure isn’t enough, Zelu’s large Yoraba-Igbo Nigerian family of overachievers judges her every move. Their hovering is also a habituated response to anything Zelu has done in the decades since a childhood accident paralyzed her. Running out of both money and f–s to give, Zelu moves back into her parent’s wheelchair unfriendly home and feverishly writes Rusted Robots, a new sci-fi novel unlike anything she’s written before that catapults her career. Death of the Author is set in a now-ish world where Zelu gets around town with self-driving cars, but Rusted Robots, the book-within-the-book, is a far-future epic tale about an ongoing war between AI and androids. Chapter by chapter, Zelu’s real and imagined worlds begin to blend, presenting an interesting paradox about how technology can (and can’t) help us belong to our own bodies.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Daniel Eastman An's "Fear of God"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism by Daniel Eastman An.

About the book, from the publisher:

n the writings of ancient Christians, the near-ubiquitous references to the "fear of God" have traditionally been seen as a generic placeholder for piety. Focusing on monastic communities in late antiquity across the eastern Mediterranean, this book explores why the language of fear was so prevalent in their writings and how they sought to put it into practice in their daily lives. Drawing on a range of evidence, including sermons, liturgical prayers, and archaeological evidence, Daniel An explores how the languages monastics spoke, the socioeconomic settings they inhabited, and the visual spaces in which they prayed came together to shape their emotional horizons. By investigating emotions as practices embedded in the languages, cultures, and sensorial environments of late antiquity, this book offers new insights into the spiritual world of Christian monasteries.

Learn more about Fear of God at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Fear of God.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cara Black's "Huguette," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Huguette by Cara Black.

The entry begins:

As I wrote Huguette I had no specific actress in mind. In thinking about this now, I'd want an actress who has frizzy hair she's constantly trying to tame, as Huguette does. An actress who can completely change her look, as Huguette does and probably all actresses can do with different make up and wardrobe. And an innocent face.

Director wise I'd like Martin Scorsese to direct Huguette. Granted he's more mob centric but he's also done unusual films like Kundun and The Last Temptation of Christ. Music threads through his films and I definitely feel...[read on]

Visit Cara Black's website and follow her on Instagram and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

My Book, the Movie: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

The Page 69 Test: Murder below Montparnasse.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Pigalle.

My Book, The Movie: Murder in Pigalle.

My Book, The Movie: Murder on the Champ de Mars.

The Page 69 Test: Three Hours in Paris.

The Page 69 Test: Night Flight to Paris.

Writers Read: Cara Black (March 2023).

Writers Read: Cara Black (March 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Murder at la Villette.

My Book, The Movie: Huguette.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christoffer Carlsson's four favorite crime novels

Christoffer Carlsson was born in 1986 in Marbäck, Sweden. He holds a PhD in criminology from Stockholm University and is one of Sweden's leading crime experts. He is the youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, which he has won twice. The New York Times named his debut, Blaze Me a Sun, one of the best crime novels of the year. He lives in Stockholm.

Carlsson's new novel is The Living and the Dead.

At CrimeReads the author tagged four favorite crime novels that he finds himself "returning to again and again, usually late at night," including:

Dennis Lehane, Mystic River

You may not think of the above novels as crime stories, specifically. I understand that, as they’re not typically found on the CRIME/SUSPENSE shelves. That being said, they contain everything a crime novel usually contains: a murder, a killer, a riddle, and a detective whose main reason for being in the story in the first place is to figure it all out. So why aren’t they? Good question.

Mystic River, on the other hand, usually is thought of as a crime novel. Why do I love Mystic River? Because it’s so brave. Because it never flinches. Because it understands trauma so deeply. Because it sees the social and psychological dynamics of crime, the moral ambiguity inherent in the word justice. Because every ethical issue must be gray.

Because guilt, grief, and anger are sometimes impossible to distinguish from one another. Because it’s so rich. Because it’s so funny. Because it’s so beautifully written without ever becoming pretentious. Because life is hard. Because the most important time to venture deeper is when it’s the hardest to endure. Because hearts break. Because love is the only force that’s as strong as death.

Read about another entry on the list.

Mystic River is among the top ten novels for National Crime Reading Month (2023), Brian Lebeau's eight top New England psychological thrillers, James Lee Burke's six top books for aspiring novelists, and Tana French's top ten maverick mysteries.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ladelle McWhorter's "Unbecoming Persons"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Unbecoming Persons: The Rise and Demise of the Modern Moral Self by Ladelle McWhorter.

About the book, from the publisher:

A damning genealogy of modern personhood and a bold vision for a new ethics rooted in belonging rather than individuality.

In the face of ecological crisis, economic injustice, and political violence, the moral demands of being a good person are almost too much to bear. In Unbecoming Persons, Ladelle McWhorter argues that this strain is by design. Our ideas about personhood, she shows, emerged to sustain centuries of colonialism, slavery, and environmental destruction. We must look elsewhere to find our way out.

This history raises a hard question: Should we be persons at all, or might we live a good life without the constraints of individualism or the illusion of autonomy? In seeking an answer, McWhorter pushes back on the notion of our own personhood—our obsession with identity, self-improvement, and salvation—in search of a better way to live together in this world. Although she finds no easy answers, McWhorter ultimately proposes a new ethics that rejects both self-interest and self-sacrifice and embraces perpetual dependence, community, and the Earth.

Learn more about Unbecoming Persons at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Unbecoming Persons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tracy Clark's "Edge"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Edge (Detective Harriet Foster) by Tracy Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a tainted drug starts claiming lives across the city, Detective Harriet Foster and her team race to track down the source…before it takes one of their own.

Chicago’s finest are scouring the city for a tainted new opioid making the rounds, but they’re coming up empty. With five people already dead―a college kid, a new mother, and three poker players―all they really know is the drug’s name: Edge. Where it’s coming from is still anyone’s guess.

Detective Harriet Foster doesn’t have time for guessing games. She needs answers. And when the next overdose hits Homicide where it hurts most, Harri is determined to get what she wants. But keeping her eyes squarely on the prize proves harder than expected.

Still reeling from her last case (and the stain of suspicion it left on her career), Harri finds herself at a tipping point. The drug isn’t the only edge she needs to worry about. If she can’t come back from her own, there’s no telling whether this investigation will lead to a satisfying conclusion…or her own demise.

Visit Tracy Clark's website.

Q&A with Tracy Clark.

My Book, The Movie: What You Don’t See.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (July 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Runner.

The Page 69 Test: Hide.

The Page 69 Test: Fall.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (December 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Echo.

Writers Read: Tracy Clark (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with P. J. Nelson

From my Q&A with P. J. Nelson, author of All My Bones: An Old Juniper Bookshop Mystery:

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

The title of this book is part of a quote from a Grimm Brothers story, and in the book a rare first edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen, published in 1812, figures heavily in the plot. But the murder mystery plot begins with the discovery of human bones in the front yard of the quasi-Addams Family Victorian mansion in Enigma, Georgia, that is The Old Juniper Bookshop. So, while the title phrase may not mean much at first glance, it is, in fact, a distillation of the entire novel.

What's in a name?

Well, this is going to sound...[read on]

Read more about All My Bones at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: All My Bones.

The Page 69 Test: All My Bones.

Q&A with P. J. Nelson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Blaxland (ed.), "Mobilising the Australian Army"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Mobilising the Australian Army: Contingencies and Compromises Over More than a Century, edited by John Blaxland.

About the book, from the publisher:

Army has always been faced with the questions of what type of war it should aim to prepare for, and in what context it should prepare. Mobilising the Australian Army explores the rich history of the Australian Army, the challenges of preparing armies for war in uncertain times, and the many possibilities for their continuing strength and future success. Comprising research presented at the 2021 Chief of Army History Conference, this collection examines how contingency and compromise are crucial elements for both the historical and the modern-day Army. Key themes include the mobilisation of resources for war in the first half of the twentieth century, the employment of women in the war effort at a time of rapid force expansion, alliance and concurrency pressures in the Cold War and post–Cold War years, utilisation in crisis and war of the reserve forces, and deployment challenges in the 1990s and beyond. Written by leading Australian and international military historians and practitioners, Mobilising the Australian Army will appeal to both casual history enthusiasts and future Army.

Learn more about Mobilising the Australian Army at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Mobilising the Australian Army.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that celebrate Indigenous resistance

Brittany Penner is an author, practicing family physician and a lecturer with the University of Manitoba Max Rady College of Medicine, and has been a keynote speaker at the University of Manitoba.

Her new books is Children Like Us: A Métis Woman's Memoir of Family, Identity and Walking Herself Home.

At Oprah Daily Penner shared "her essential reading list for Native American Heritage Month, including three seminal memoirs, a YA murder mystery, and a picture book packed with wisdom." One title on the list:

Medicine River, by Mary Annette Pember

While the national conversation about the legacy of residential schools—which forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families and culture for generations—has been ongoing in Canada for many years, it is only just beginning in the United States, where President Biden issued a formal apology in 2024.

Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember explores America’s reluctance to reckon with its history of violence against Indigenous people, as she details the effects on her childhood and family after her mother was forced to attend one of these schools. Through both historical and personal accounts, Pember highlights the intergenerational trauma that continues to weave itself through communities still processing the impact of these schools and the legacy of government-sponsored cultural genocide. The timing of this book is all the more powerful as certain leaders wish to, again, erase parts of our collective history. In combining her family history with the wider history of these schools, Pember forces us to confront an age-old question that has only grown more timely in this political moment: How might we know where we wish to go when we do not first reckon with the past?

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paula Munier's "The Snow Lies Deep," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Snow Lies Deep: A Mercy Carr Mystery by Paula Munier.

The entry begins:

The Snow Lies Deep, the seventh book in my Mercy Carr mystery series from Minotaur, takes place during the countdown to Christmas in the picture-perfect Vermont village of Northshire. Everyone is in the holiday spirit—local artisans and shopkeepers, kids and parents and grandparents, church choral singers and Druid drummers alike. But when the town Santa is found murdered, it’s up to Mercy and her husband Troy and their smart-as-heck working dogs to find the Yuletide Killer before he kills again—and ruins Christmas in Northshire forever.

So we’re talking Love Actually meets Die Hard, in New England. I think it would be great to have famed Barbie director Greta Gerwig write the screenplay and direct because, well, Barbie! Mercy is the anti-Barbie, and it would be fun to see...[read on]

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

Q&A with Paula Munier.

My Book, The Movie: The Wedding Plot.

The Page 69 Test: The Wedding Plot.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (July 2022).

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Home at Night.

The Page 69 Test: Home at Night.

My Book, The Movie: The Night Woods.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Woods.

Writers Read: Paula Munier (October 2024).

My Book, The Movie: The Snow Lies Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top Christmas thrillers & crime novels

Carolina Ciucci is a teacher, writer and reviewer based in the south of Argentina. She hoards books like they’re going out of style. In case of emergency, you can summon her by talking about Ireland, fictional witches, and the Brontë family. At Book Riot she tagged "eight wonderful Christmas thrillers and crime novels (yes, cozy mysteries included) to add a bit of Sherlockian flair to [her] festivities." One title on the list:

Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger

Madeline Martin does not want to deal with Harley Granger. She can think of many other things she’d like better than to re-live the worst time of her life with a true crime podcaster, especially one known for his unethical practices. But Granger wants to know what happened the night Madeline was left for dead by Evan Handy, and she, well, she needs to know what’s been happening since.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stephen M. Koeth's "Crabgrass Catholicism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Crabgrass Catholicism: How Suburbanization Transformed Faith and Politics in Postwar America by Stephen M. Koeth.

About the book, from the publisher:

How suburbanization was a crucial catalyst for reforms in the Catholic Church.

The 1960s in America were a time of revolt against the stifling conformism embodied in the sprawling, uniform suburbs of the 1950s. Typically, the reforms of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, which aimed to make the Church more modern and accessible, are seen as one result of that broader cultural liberalization. Yet in Crabgrass Catholicism, Stephen M. Koeth demonstrates that the liberalization of the Church was instead the product of the mass suburbanization that began some fifteen years earlier. Koeth argues that postwar suburbanization revolutionized the Catholic parish, the relationship between clergy and laity, conceptions of parochial education, and Catholic participation in US politics, and thereby was a significant factor in the religious disaffiliation that only accelerated in subsequent decades.

A novel exploration of the role of Catholics in postwar suburbanization, Crabgrass Catholicism will be of particular interest to urban historians, scholars of American Catholicism and religious studies, and Catholic clergy and laity.

Visit the Crabgrass Catholicism website.

The Page 99 Test: Crabgrass Catholicism.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Elena Taylor reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Elena Taylor, author of The Haunting of Emily Grace.

Her entry begins:

Currently I'm reading Jennifer K. Breedlove's debut novel, Murder Will Out, which launches on Feb 17, 2026. I do a lot of work with the International Thriller Writers' Debut Author program, and try to read as many debut books as I can. It also often gives me access to Advanced Reader Copies. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm totally hooked. Jennifer has a wonderful, almost literary voice, and the mix of mystery and paranormal is perfect for the dark days of autumn.

Then I'm going to be listening to...[read on]

About The Haunting of Emily Grace, from the publisher:

An eerie suspense novel, in which a grieving woman takes a job at an isolated mansion only to become wrapped up in the curse that seems to have befallen its eccentric owner.

Emily Grace has endured the worst loss imaginable. But can she survive a remote manor haunted by more than just memories . . .?

Drowning in grief, Emily Grace has lost everything: her home, her friends, her career. Only one lifeline remains―a job working for an eccentric millionaire. Along with his wife, he’s been building a mansion on a secluded island surrounded by a harsh and unforgiving sea. But when she disappears under mysterious circumstances, Emily Grace is hired to finish the project.

Locals believe the house is cursed, but their warnings go unheeded as Emily Grace works to rebuild her life. After what she's been through, nothing can scare her―except perhaps the attention of a handsome man offering more than friendship. And yet, there's something strange about this solitary fortress. Accidents. Mishaps. Ghostly whispers through the surrounding forest, footsteps when she's completely alone . . .

Is there truly a curse or is the ethereal specter in the window an omen of something more sinister?

This spooky standalone from phenomenal crime author Elena Taylor will have readers sleeping with the light on for weeks! With vibes of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, fans of Riley Sager and thrillers with light horror elements will love The Haunting of Emily Grace!

Visit Elena Taylor's website.

Q&A with Elena Taylor.

The Page 69 Test: A Cold, Cold World.

My Book, The Movie: A Cold, Cold World.

Writers Read: Elena Taylor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: P. J. Nelson's "All My Bones"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: All My Bones: An Old Juniper Bookshop Mystery by P. J. Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman.

Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia, is embarking on her second career, after her first one (acting) founders upon the metaphorical rocks. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend Gloria Coleman, the local Episcopal priest, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the old Victorian that houses the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months.

When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence and, as she quickly finds out, there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. And the very expensive and rare first edition of a particular volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales—ordered by the victim and her sister is somehow tied to the grim death. With the help of her not-quite-boyfriend, a local lawman, and her deceased aunt's best friend, Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer—before she becomes the next victim.

Read more about All My Bones at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: All My Bones.

The Page 69 Test: All My Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tim Seiter's "Wrangling Pelicans"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Wrangling Pelicans: Military Life in Texas Presidios by Tim Seiter.

About the book, from the publisher:

A richly detailed history of daily life for colonial Spanish soldiers surviving on the eighteenth-century Texas Gulf Coast.

In 1775, Spanish King Carlos III ordered the capture of American pelicans for his wildlife park in Madrid. The command went to the only Spanish fort on the Texas coast—Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía in present-day Goliad. But the overworked soldiers stationed at the fort had little interest indulging a king an ocean away. Their days were consumed with guarding their community against powerful Indigenous peoples and managing the demands of frontier life. The royal order went ignored.

Wrangling Pelicans brings to life the world of Presidio La Bahía’s Hispano soldiers, whose duties ranged from heated warfare to high-stakes diplomacy, while their leisure pursuits included courtship, card playing, and cockfighting. It highlights the lives of presidio women and reveals the ways the Spanish legal system was used by and against the soldiers as they continually negotiated their roles within the empire and their community. Although they were agents of the Spanish crown, soldiers at times defied their king and even their captain as they found ways to assert their autonomy. Offering a fresh perspective on colonial Texas, Wrangling Pelicans recreates the complexities of life at the empire’s edge, where survival mattered more than royal decrees.

Visit Tim Seiter's website.

The Page 99 Test: Wrangling Pelicans.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten brilliant books you can read in a weekend

One title from Tertulia's list of ten critically acclaimed books you can read in a weekend:

Audition by Katie Kitamura

“Kitamura’s novels are short, sharp, and deadly. I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today,” declared The Guardian in their roundup of fiction to watch in 2025. In Audition, an accomplished actress and an attractive younger man meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. As the encounter unfolds, competing narratives emerge, questioning the roles we play and the truths we conceal.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Rebecca Armitage

From my Q&A with Rebecca Armitage, author of The Heir Apparent:

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

The title, The Heir Apparent, tells you a lot about what you can expect to find within these pages, but it's also deliberately confusing because female heirs to the British throne are almost never called called 'the heir apparent'. Instead, they're called 'the heir presumptive'. To be the heir apparent means that the crown belongs to you. No one will ever have a better claim to the throne than you. It's almost always a phrase used in reference to men. But to be 'heir presumptive' means you're a woman who has made it to the head of the line because there are no men left. The crown always holds out hope that a boy will come along and supersede her - even if it's physically and legally impossible.

The Heir Apparent is about a wayward British princess called Lexi who is estranged from her royal relatives and living in obscurity in Australia. But a skiing accident kills her brother and father, and makes Lexi the future monarch. Her grandmother, the Queen, decides to dispense with tradition and call Lexi 'the heir apparent' because she's tired of royal women being back-up options when there are no men left to reign. She wants Lexi to know that nothing stands between her and the throne - except for...[read on]

Visit Rebecca Armitage's website.

Q&A with Rebecca Armitage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top thrillers featuring toxic friendships in academic settings

Kit Frick is a MacDowell fellow and ITW Thriller Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. She is the author of the adult suspense novels The Split and Friends and Liars, the young adult thrillers Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion, and the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs.

[The Page 69 Test: See All the Stars; Writers Read: Kit Frick (August 2018)]

At CrimeReads Frick tagged "six thrillers set on college campuses, or reuniting a group of college friends." One title on the list:

Kimberly McCreight, Friends Like These

During a weekend trip to a luxe vacation spot in New York’s Catskills, a group of six college friends, now in their early thirties, gather to save one of their own from the clutches of addiction—and run up against the past. It’s been ten years since the shocking suicide of their Vassar College classmate, Alice, but her death still haunts them—and binds them together.

Flash forward to the end of the weekend, and Detective Julia Scutt has been called to investigate a car crash in the woods. One of the friends is dead, another missing, and no one is telling the truth. “Best friends are supposed to stand by you, no matter what,” asserts the unidentified narrator of the novel’s prologue. “But close friends can also let you get away with too much. And what feels like total acceptance, what masquerades as unconditional love, can turn toxic.”

This is one of my favorites of Kimberly McCreight’s, and I’m looking forward to the TV adaptation.

Read about another novel on the list.

Friends Like These is among Leah Konen's six scintillating friends-to-frenemies thrillers and Megan Collins's seven thrillers in which friendships are threatened.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kevin Revier's "Policing Pain"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Policing Pain: The Opioid Crisis, Abolition, and a New Ethic of Care by Kevin Revier.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the medicalization of addiction during the U.S. opioid crisis has driven mass incarceration and mass policing in rural and deindustrialized communities

The nationwide opioid public health emergency has led many advocates and public officials to call for drug policy reforms that reject traditional “law-and-order” approaches. In Policing Pain, Kevin Revier approaches the opioid epidemic from an abolitionist framework that seeks to treat people who use opioids not as so-called criminals, but as people in need of health care. Based on two years of ethnographic research in Upstate New York, a region highly impacted by overdoses, job loss, and deindustrialization, Revier shows that incorporation of treatment within the criminal justice system has ultimately expanded the scope of the drug war, turning individuals into "treatable carceral subjects" who are both medicalized and criminalized.

He argues that the incorporation of medical rhetoric and treatment within the criminal legal system maintains a carceral approach in rural and low-income areas facing high rates of opioid overdose and economic disinvestment, further entrenching the carceral state in the lives of people who use drugs. Ultimately, Policing Pain explores alternative strategies to promote harm reduction from an abolitionist ethic of care that advocates for people who use drugs while seeking to minimize criminal justice involvement in drug-related issues.

Visit Kevin Revier's website.

The Page 99 Test: Policing Pain.

--Marshal Zeringue

P.J. Nelson's "All My Bones," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: All My Bones: An Old Juniper Bookshop Mystery by P. J. Nelson.

The entry begins:

In All My Bones, the second of the Old Juniper Bookshop mystery series, we find Madeline Brimley, owner of the bookshop, and Gloria Coleman, an Episcopal priest and one of Madeline’s best friends, trying to plant azaleas in the shop’s front yard. Their efforts are hindered by rock-hard red Georgia clay and, they soon discover, human bones. The bones turn out to belong to Beatrice Glassie, one of two Glassie sisters, the richest women in the tiny town of Enigma, Georgia. It isn’t long before Bea’s sister Idell accuses Gloria of murdering Bea. Apparently, Bea and Gloria were constantly at odds over church business. Not to mention the fact that the Glassie sisters didn’t cotton to the idea of a female priest at all. And since Idell has lots of money, she also wields an unhealthy degree of influence, which she uses to pressure the local GBI to arrest Gloria for Bea’s murder. Madeline knows Gloria is innocent and sets out to prove it. She soon discovers that nearly everyone in Enigma had some sort of grudge against Beatrice Glassie. The plethora of suspects includes a local handyman whom Beatrice owed money and the owner of the town diner whom Bea tried to force out of business. But nearly everyone in town seems happy that Beatrice is dead. Madeline’s investigations even lead her to an allegedly haunted opera house in Hawkinsville, Georgia, and to wealthy Kelly Brady, Bea’s on-again-off-again beau who worked with Bea to restore the old opera house. Too many suspects and not enough time roil Madeline’s efforts to save her friend Gloria before it’s too late.

Thinking about what actors might play some of these characters is loads of fun. For Madeline Brimley, I like Holly Hunter around the age she was after she made Raising Arizona. Her understanding of southern idiomatic speech would be invaluable, and her demeanor of dogged determination seems just right for Madeline. As to Gloria Coleman...[read on]

Read more about All My Bones at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: All My Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Cindy Jiban reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Cindy Jiban, author of The Probable Son: A Novel:

Her entry begins:

I’m currently drawn to debut novels. The path to publishing is a roller coaster ride, one that’s hard to convey to people not buckled into that terrifying front car. Reading a debut right now feels like making a new friend.

A fast and weird and delightful debut I loved is My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithewaite. You know that feeling when your sister calls to say oops, I did it again – and he’s dead? Yeah, me neither. I tore through this tale in one sitting, completely bemused by the style of storytelling. Sparse and dryly funny, it’s a line drawing that gradually reveals its...[read on]

About The Probable Son, from the publisher:

A mother secretly believes she’s raising the wrong son, mistakenly switched at birth. But secrets unravel in a gripping and affecting novel about parental love, impossible choices, and what it means to truly be there for someone.

For fourteen years, teacher Elsa Vargas has hidden her belief that she’s mothering the wrong child, accidentally switched at birth. Her beloved son Bird is not like the rest of the family. He’s the introvert among extroverts, the optimist among skeptics. But Elsa knows love is more important than truth, and the best way to keep Bird is to leave well enough alone.

Then the odds catch up with her. A student named Thomas in Elsa’s math class is suddenly uncannily familiar, an older version of Bird’s little brother. When she realizes Thomas shares a birthday with Bird, Elsa has a terrible realization: Thomas is probably her long-lost son.

Soon Elsa is on a clumsy journey to get to know Thomas―and to confirm the truth. Testing the bonds of family, friendship, and even community will surely all be worth it if she gains a son. But what if she loses Bird, the boy she has loved and mothered since his first days of life?

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son.

Q&A with Cindy Jiban.

Writers Read: Cindy Jiban.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Helen Fry's "The White Lady"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The White Lady: The Story of Two Key British Secret Service Networks Behind German Lines by Helen Fry.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major new history of the two most important British secret service networks in the First and Second World Wars

Intelligence gathering was essential to both sides in the First and Second World Wars. At the heart of MI6’s efforts were two key networks in Belgium. Agents in The White Lady acted as couriers, radio operators and spies to facilitate the end of German control. And, when war broke out again two decades later, the leaders of the network regrouped and established a successor: The Clarence Service.

Helen Fry charts the history of these pivotal intelligence networks. Drawing on recently declassified information, Fry examines who the agents were, how they were recruited, and how the intelligence they gathered directly impacted the outcome of both wars. Operators in the field sent over eight hundred radio messages to London and delivered more than a thousand reports, including groundbreaking information on Hitler’s secret weapon the V-1. This is a compelling account of the agents who risked their lives and found ingenious ways to smuggle intelligence out of occupied Belgium.

Visit Helen Fry's website.

The Page 99 Test: The London Cage.

The Page 99 Test: The Walls Have Ears.

The Page 99 Test: MI9.

The Page 99 Test: The White Lady.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight wickedly monstrous books like "The Witcher"

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone's love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. His cyberpunk series, The Jayu City Chronicles, is available everywhere books are sold.

His work can also be found in Adelaide Literary Magazine and FEED Lit Mag. You can find him writing more books, poetry, and acting in Kansas City.

At Book Riot Arnone tagged eight "books to bring The Witcher vibes into your reading life." One title on the list:

Witch King by Martha Wells

Morally gray characters? Big magic? Monsters? This book checks all The Witcher boxes. Kai-Enna was murdered. He did get better, but he’s mad about it. His consciousness sleeping, he’s suddenly awakened from his water trap when a lesser mage is trying to take Kai’s vast magic. Kai is the Witch King, after all. Now that Kai is awake, he’s trying to wrap his mind around the vastly changed world. He also wants to know who murdered him.

Read about another entry on the list.

Witch King is among K. Valentin's sven top novels featuring demons & possession.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Brionni Nwosu

From my Q&A with Brionni Nwosu, author of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel:

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

I think The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter does a lot of work right away. It signals that the book is a sweeping, emotional story, centered on one woman’s very long journey. “Wondrous” captures the feeling of seeing the world through Nella’s eyes as she moves through different eras. And “loves” lets readers know this book is not just about time travel—it’s about the relationships that shape her and the people she carries with her.

What’s in a name?

Nella was always her name—that part came baked into the idea. But her full name, Nella May Carter, is...[read on]

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

The Page 69 Test: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

My Book, The Movie: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

Q&A with Brionni Nwosu.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-three enemies-to-lovers books that turn rivalry to romance

Amanda Prahl is a freelance writer, playwright/lyricist, dramaturg, teacher, and copywriter/editor. At PopSugar she tagged twenty-three favorite enemies-to-lovers titles that turn rivalry to romance, including:

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

Diana and Jeremy, the bickering duo at the center of "To Love and to Loathe" by Martha Waters, aren't just enemies — they're enemies with benefits. Diana's much older (and much disliked) husband has died and left her a young widow, while Jeremy has just found out from an ex-mistress that his skills in the bedroom are disappointing. A wager soon turns into an unlikely alliance: they'll embark on a no-strings affair so Jeremy can hone his skills and Diana can signal her availability for a more long-term arrangement with discreet gentlemen. Of course, the spark between them in their banter carries over to the bedroom, and they might find less to hate about each other than they imagined.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Derek S. Burdette's "Miraculous Celebrity"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Miraculous Celebrity: The Christ of Ixmiquilpan and Colonial Piety in Mexico City by Derek S. Burdette.

About the book, from the publisher:

A study of the Christ of Ixmiquilpan, a historically beloved religious icon from sixteenth-century Mexico, and its evolving cultural importance.

The life-sized crucifix known as the Christ of Ixmiquilpan (also the Señor de Santa Teresa) was one of the most important artworks in colonial Mexico. The statue began as an ordinary devotional image, but in 1621 devotees witnessed it undergo a miraculous renovation that gave it a supernatural beauty. Over the next two and half centuries, its perceived power increased until it was surpassed in importance only by the Virgin of Guadalupe. Despite its historical significance, the Christ of Ixmiquilpan’s history has yet to be fully told.

Derek Burdette brings the miraculous crucifix out of the shadows and explores its instrumental role in shaping the devotional culture of New Spain. Following the arc of the statue’s life, he chronicles the story of the statue’s creation, miraculous renovation, and subsequent veneration at the heart of Mexico City. He also reveals how colonial politics were woven into the statue’s life from the very start. Reconstructing the history of a key artwork, Miraculous Celebrity sheds new light on the intersection of art, faith, and politics in the Spanish colonial world.

Learn more about Miraculous Celebrity at the University of Texas Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Miraculous Celebrity.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michael Kardos's "Fun City Heist"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fun City Heist by Michael Kardos.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A washed—up rockstar gets his old band back together for one final gig . . . and one daring robbery! A brilliantly funny, twisty heist caper from Pushcart Prize—winning author Michael Kardos.

Mo Melnick used to be a drummer in rock band Sunshine Apocalypse. He used to be someone. These days he rents beach umbrellas on the Jersey Shore.

The last thing he expects is for Johnny Clay, his old bandmate turned enemy, to ask him a favor. Johnny’s dying, and before he passes he wants Sunshine Apocalypse to reunite for one last gig at Fun City, the beachfront amusement park where their musical journey began.

Mo’s in—reluctantly. But then Johnny reveals his real plan: He doesn’t just want to play at Fun City on the fourth of July. He wants to rob it.

The plan is crazy. It has more holes than a golf course. But Mo’s sick of barely keeping his head above water, so he and his gang of middle—aged has—beens dive into what will be the most outrageous heist New Jersey’s ever seen—if, that is, they can pull it off alive . . .

Packed with astonishing twists and laugh—out—loud moments, Michael Kardos’ unique comedic thriller is perfect for fans of Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake.

Visit Michael Kardos's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Three Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: The Three-Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Bluff.

The Page 69 Test: Fun City Heist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels featuring monstrous men

Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer and editor, originally from South Yorkshire. Her debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You, and the non-fiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism. Parry lives in Glasgow with her partner and their cats, Ernesto and Fidel. Her second novel, Carrion Crow, will be published in 2026.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "books that continue to inspire me for their bold, unflinching ways of looking at the monstrous man, both the real and fictionalized versions of him." One title on the list:

Patrick Süskind, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

The 1980s might have been the decade that Hannibal Lecter was introduced to the world by Thomas Harris, first in Red Dragon and then in The Silence of the Lambs, but on the other side of the Atlantic, German writer Patrick Süskind was dreaming up another killer with sharp senses: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan born in eighteenth-century France, whose preternatural sense of smell leads him first to the business of perfume and then onto somewhere darker.

Just as Lecter spends his time considering the perfect meal, Grenouille is obsessed with harnessing the perfect smell, one that he first smelled on the skin of a young woman, with which he has become dangerously preoccupied. His attempts to distill that essence into a liquid push him down a path of multiple murders as his singular goal overwhelms his respect for life, but despite being caught, he performs a trick at the end of the book which reveals the latent desires within the population in general, showing that he is not alone in having a streak of pure evil in him, bound up in sensory pleasure.

This is a novel that luxuriates in both filth and opulence, and says more about the nature of lust than we would like to admit.

Read about another novel on the list.

Perfume is among Liz Nugent's top ten first lines in fiction, Liz Boulter's ten best novels about France, Glenn Skwerer's top ten real-life monsters in fiction, four books that changed Meg Keneally, four books that changed Katrina Lawrence, Karen Runge's five (damn-near) perfect (dark) novels, and Lara Feigel's top ten smelly books.

--Marshal Zeringue