What is Molly MacRae reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Molly MacRae, author of There'll Be Shell to Pay.

Her entry begins:

Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s Joe Gray books have been on my radar since the first one, Cat on the Edge, came out in 1996. I finally started reading them this spring and I’m up to book ten, Cat Cross Their Graves. The books are cozy with dashes of police procedure and fantasy. The three main characters are Joe Gray, Dulcie, and Kit, sentient house cats able to understand, speak, and read English. The mysteries are good and twisty and they aren’t told for the laughs one might expect from the set up. Except for their unusual talents, the cats act like cats. They’re also serious and successful amateur sleuths. There’s great situational humor, though. Not laughing at the cats, but at the issues they have using human technology, like computers and cell phones, and their very reasonable reactions to...[read on]

About There'll Be Shell to Pay, from the publisher:

When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick...

Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.

Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.

But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .

Visit Molly MacRae's website.

My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels.

My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels.

The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual.

The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide.

Q&A with Molly MacRae.

Writers Read: Molly MacRae (July 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Come Shell or High Water.

My Book, The Movie: Come Shell or High Water.

Writers Read: Molly MacRae.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Simon Toyne's "The Black Highway"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Black Highway by Simon Toyne.

About the book, from the publisher:

Laughton Rees is back in the latest novel from the bestselling author of the Sanctus trilogy—this time, with a case that hits uncomfortably close to home and threatens the thing Laughton values most: her daughter.

Forensic specialist Laughton Rees is not ashamed of her checkered past—after all, her youthful indiscretions led to the birth of her daughter Gracie, the person she loves most in the world—but when Gracie’s father unexpectedly turns up in their lives again, Laughton is automatically wary.

Shelby Facer is a dangerous man, formerly imprisoned for his involvement in an international drug trafficking ring, and no matter what Laughton once felt for him, she doesn’t want him anywhere near Gracie. But when Shelby claims that he has information about an especially difficult murder case she is working, she can’t turn him down.

A body with no head or hands has recently turned up in the river Thames, and the police are at a loss until Shelby identifies the man. The victim was part of a highly secretive smuggling ring Shelby was involved with during his and Laughton’s youth—which Laughton’s father, former commissioner for the Metropolitan police, was investigating before he died.

Laughton throws herself into her father’s old files to try to trace the connections between past and present, but as she and DCI Tannahill Khan circle closer to the truth, the case becomes dangerously personal. When another body turns up, mutilated just like the first, the victim is no stranger to Laughton. She’ll have to face the darkest parts of her past to find the man behind the murders—before he takes away everything she loves.

Visit Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, Twitter perch, and Instagram page.

My Book, The Movie: Sanctus.

The Page 69 Test: Sanctus.

The Page 69 Test: The Tower.

My Book, The Movie: The Tower.

My Book, The Movie: The Searcher.

Writers Read: Simon Toyne (October 2015).

The Page 69 Test: The Searcher.

The Page 69 Test: The Clearing.

My Book, The Movie: The Clearing.

Q&A with Simon Toyne.

The Page 69 Test: The Black Highway.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jennifer Crane's "'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: 'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 by Jennifer Crane.

About the book, from the publisher:

The idea that a child is intellectually 'gifted' has a social and cultural history. This book analyses that social history at multiple scales, and makes the 'voices' of the 'gifted' young themselves central through examination of their poetry, letters, and life-writing. In daily encounters, those labelled 'gifted' sometimes loved this label, and felt special in comparison to peers at school and siblings at home.

For others, 'gifted' was a silly or embarrassing label, and many questioned the idea of separating off young people in terms of intelligence, as well as the specific forms of testing being used. Ideas of the 'gifted' child also reshaped family lives -- parents dedicated time to providing special leisure spaces for those thought of as 'gifted', running them in their own homes and taking their children significant distances to spend time with others that were also 'gifted'.

Voluntary organisations were critical here, as the network through which young people and adults encountered the term, 'gifted', and lived and created it relationally, through interactions with one another. Voluntary organisations, looking to gain attention and visibility, also critically shaped the idea that the 'gifted' young were elites of 'the future', central to answering challenges of economic decline, global warfare, or humanitarian aid. The hopes placed on 'gifted' children between the 1960s and the 1990s were often sky high -- yet many 'gifted' young still felt that the community 'wasted' their talents, and did not support them. This book, then, provides new perspectives on the tensions between elitism and equality in modern Britain. It also offers vivid stories of optimism, hope, disappointment, and criticism, in which young people themselves play a central role.

Learn more about 'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: 'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top novels on smart, quirky women facing personal struggles

Ruth F. Stevens likes to create stories that will make readers laugh and cry. A former public relations executive in New York and Los Angeles, she is a produced playwright and author of the novels Stage Seven, My Year of Casual Acquaintances, and The Unexpected Guests. Stevens is a proud member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association and the Dramatists Guild of America and serves as a volunteer and acquisitions editor for AlzAuthors. She lives in Torrance, California, with her husband. In her spare time, she enjoys travel, hiking, hip-hop and fitness classes, yoga, Broadway musicals, wine tasting, leading a book club, and visiting her grandsons in NYC.

At Shepherd Stevens tagged five of the best novels on smart, quirky women facing personal struggles. One title on the list:

I Thought You Said This Would Work by Ann Garvin

I love stories in which the characters are thrust into unusual and unexpected circumstances. This was the case for Samantha Arias, who had to carry a heavier load than most middle-aged moms. Early widowhood, a chronic sleep disorder, a serious lack of self-esteem, and a close friend gravely ill with cancer were just a few of her challenges that made me empathize with her plight.

When Samantha and a third estranged friend embarked on a mission to rescue their sick friend’s dog, they took us on a long road trip that was both comical and action-packed. I laughed and cried as Samantha slowly opened herself up to embracing both new love and old friendship.

Read about another entry on Stevens's list.

Coffee with a Canine: Ann Garvin & Peanut.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Miriam Gershow

From my Q&A with Miriam Gershow, author of Closer:

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

As soon as I typed the last sentence of my first draft, I knew the title of Closer would be Closer. Even if I also know that I was choosing a title that could be read one of two ways. I began saying, almost immediately: “Closer as in opposite of further, not closer as in the last person to close down the bar at night.” So why choose this title? It’s similar to when I knew in my first trimester that my son would be Eli. When you know, you know. The idea of closer - getting closer, being closer - embodies everything this story is about. This novel is the story of a community, full of people who make heedless mistakes, often at a very high cost, all in service of trying to get closer to those they love, whether that be a child, a lover, a spouse, a friend. They get it wrong more than they get it right, and that’s what interests me. Closer is different than already being close to someone. Closer is aspirational; a...[read on]

Visit Miriam Gershow's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Local News.

Q&A with Miriam Gershow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elizabeth Eva Leach & Jonathan Morton's "Performing Desire"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Performing Desire: Knowledge, Self, and Other in Richard de Fournival's "Bestiaire d'amours" by Elizabeth Eva Leach and Jonathan Morton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Performing Desire examines the intellectual and philosophical complexity of a monument of medieval literature: the mid-thirteenth-century Bestiaire d'amours of Richard de Fournival. Although the Bestiaire was recognized in its time as significant, as evinced by numerous surviving manuscript copies and its influence on other literary works, modern scholarship has tended to neglect it. Performing Desire remedies this omission by detailing the contributions of the Bestiaire to medieval literature and thought.

Attending to the phenomenology, psychology, and philosophy of Fournival's Bestiaire, Elizabeth Eva Leach and Jonathan Morton reconsider the work as a literary experiment that explores erotic desire and the construction of a self. Leach and Morton further show that the Bestiaire is as much a meditation on sound and performance as it is a study of desire. Synthesizing methods from musicology, literary studies, and manuscript studies, Leach and Morton consider the complex and hybridized workings of text, image, sound, and cues for performance in the surviving manuscripts of the Bestiaire.

Through their analysis, Leach and Morton find that the distinctive aspect of the Bestiaire's philosophical method is its self-conscious status as a performance between the oral and the literary, the voice and the page. It is this aspect, they contend, that left such a mark on the medieval European tradition of philosophical fiction. In Performing Desire, Richard de Fournival's hybrid text emerges as one of the most philosophically sophisticated and important works of medieval literature not only in French but in any language.

Learn more about Performing Desire at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Medieval Sex Lives: The Sounds of Courtly Intimacy on the Francophone Borders by Elizabeth Eva Leach.

The Page 99 Test: Performing Desire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six stellar Greek mythology retellings

John Wiswell is a disabled author who lives where New York keeps all its trees. His fiction has been translated into 10 languages. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Short Story for "Open House on Haunted Hill," and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for "That Story Isn't The Story." He has also been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards.

Wiswell's new novel is Wearing the Lion.

At People magazine he tagged six Greek mythology retellings, including:

Winter Harvest by Ioanna Papadopoulou

This one is for die-hard fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe. Papadopoulou’s novel collects all the major myths and fragments of folklore surrounding Demeter, the Goddess of Harvest. Despite her ability to freeze the world to death, she is relegated to the back row of Olympians in most classic literature, less favored than the likes of Zeus and Athena.

Winter Harvest’s brilliance is filling in the gaps between where Demeter appears in myths: first fighting against her tyrannical parents and later growing up to become a violently protective mother. It envisions a full life of a misunderstood woman and goddess, complete with strength, bitterness, and longing.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Mark Skinner's nineteen top Greek myth retellings and Christine Hume's ten top feminist retellings of mythology, the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Priyanka Taslim's "Always Be My Bibi," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Priyanka Taslim's Always Be My Bibi.

The entry begins:

Since Always Be My Bibi is a little inspired by romcoms from the nineties like Clueless, you would think it would be easy to cast a movie version, but alas, it’s a lot simpler to find your perfect Cher Horowitz in Alicia Silverstone than it is to cast a Bangladeshi American teen fashionista like Bibi Hossian. The reason for this is because there’s still a major lack of South Asian, especially Bangladeshi, actors in Hollywood. If there was ever a movie or show, I’d love for the casting director to seek out fresh new talent and give young Bangladeshi American actors a chance.

However, when I was asked for cover references for Bibi, the following models and actresses came up on my list: Firstly, Bangladeshi-Australian influencer, Mishti Rahman, whose glamorous online life Bibi would probably aspire to. Second, real life Disney princess Charithra Chandran, whose wide eyed, naive beauty on Bridgerton’s second season was a perfect foil for her drop dead gorgeous older sister, played by the ever stunning Simone Ashley. Lastly, actress Megan Suri, who is a style icon in her own right, just like the other two. I think having impeccable taste in fashion would be key to playing Bibi.

Sohel Rahman, Bibi’s love interest, would probably be...[read on]

Visit Priyanka Taslim's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Match.

Q&A with Priyanka Taslim.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Match.

The Page 69 Test: Always Be My Bibi.

Writers Read: Priyanka Taslim.

My Book, The Movie: Always Be My Bibi.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Josée Johnston, Shyon Baumann, Emily Huddart, and Merin Oleschuk's "Happy Meat"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Happy Meat: The Sadness and Joy of a Paradoxical Idea by Josée Johnston, Shyon Baumann, Emily Huddart, and Merin Oleschuk.

About the book, from the publisher:

North Americans love eating meat. Despite the increased awareness of the meat industry's harms–violence against animals, health problems, and associations with environmental degradation–the rate of meat eating hasn't changed significantly in recent years. Instead, what has emerged is an uncomfortable paradox: a need to square one's values with the behaviors that contradict those values. Using a large-scale, multidimensional, and original dataset, Happy Meat explores the thoughts and emotions that underpin our moral decision-making in this meat paradox. Conscientious meat-eaters turn to the notion of "happy meat" to make sense of their behaviors by consuming meat they see as more healthy, ethical, and sustainable. Happy meat might be labeled grass fed, free-range, antibiotic free, naturally raised, or humane. The people who produce and consume it, together, make up the complex landscape of conscientious meat-eating in modern Western societies. The discourse of happy meat ultimately may not be a sufficient response to all the critiques of meat eating, rife as it is with contradictions. However, it offers a powerful case for understanding how moral boundaries and notions of the 'good eater' are constructed through negotiations of values, identity, and status.

Learn more about Happy Meat at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Happy Meat.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles featuring parents & children at the end of the world

Barnaby Martin is a multi-talented storyteller and creator. Besides his writing, he is an award-winning and self-taught composer, video essayist and teacher. His music has been performed widely in the UK and internationally by groups including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North and Westminster Cathedral Choir. His YouTube channel, Listening In, which he began in 2019 and for which he makes videos that explore the cross-section between pop culture and classical music, has garnered over 200,000 subscribers and ten million views. He studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and now teaches in London, where he lives with his husband.

Martin's new novel is The Quiet.

At CrimeReads he tagged seven "novels where a parent, or surrogate parent, just wants to save their child from the end of the world." One title on the list:

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

This is the go-to example. The Road follows the story of a man and his son trying to travel south in a world that has been set on fire by an unknown disaster. There are cannibals and limited ammunition and it’s written in beautiful, poetic prose. I found it surprisingly hopeful considering the setting.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Road appears on Nick Newman's list of five novels that feature the uncanny suspense of a third character's arrival, Linda Rodriguez McRobbie's list of thirty of literature's best parents, Robert Lee Brewer's list of the ten best dystopian novels ever written, Pedro Hoffmeister's list of five titles with lessons to turn a post-apocalyptic novel into a thriller, Malcolm Devlin’s list of eight zombie stories without any zombies, Michael Christie's list of ten novels to reconfigure our conception of nature for the better, Emily Temple's list of the ten books that defined the 2000s, Ceridwen Christensen's list of ten novels that end their apocalypses on a beach, Steph Post's top ten list of classic (and perhaps not so classic) road trip books, a list of five of the best climate change novels, Claire Fuller's top five list of extreme survival stories, Justin Cronin's top ten list of world-ending novels, Rose Tremain's six best books list, Ian McGuire's ten top list of adventure novels, Alastair Bruce's top ten list of books about forgetting, Jeff Somers's lists of five science fiction novels that really should be considered literary classics and eight good, bad, and weird dad/child pairs in science fiction and fantasy, Amelia Gray's ten best dark books list, Weston Williams's top fifteen list of books with memorable dads, ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels, Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Camilla Trinchieri reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Camilla Trinchieri, author of Murder in Pitigliano.

Her entry begins:

I am presently engrossed in two very different novels: The Searcher by the Irish writer Tana French and Jumping the Queue by the deceased English author Mary Wesley.

In The Searcher, Cal Hooper, a retired and divorced American police officer has bought a ramshackle house in a small Irish town. When a young boy asks for his help finding his brother, Cal, at first reluctant, accepts the challenge. French’s depiction of Cal is so well done I want to follow him as he gets in deeper and deeper. Through her incredible talent French brings the setting and the inhabitants so alive I felt I was hearing the rooks, feeling the wind in the trees and smelling the beer. That is...[read on]

About Murder in Pitigliano, from the publisher:

Ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle finds himself unwittingly stepping into the role of a PI to investigate a murder that has torn a young family apart in this rustic mystery set in the beautiful Medieval village of Pitigliano, Italy.

One morning at his favorite café, Nico Doyle notices Cilia, a seven-year-old girl he has never seen before, frolicking with his dog on the floor. He later discovers she has left a note in his collar—Please help my babbo.

With help from the local carabinieri, Nico discovers that Cilia’s father, Saverio, has fled town following an unfortunate incident. His business partner was killed at their electronics store, and Saverio is the hot-headed local carabiniere’s main suspect. Cilia’s mother, Livia, who just moved to Gravigna to get away from Pitigliano’s wagging tongues, asks Nico to find the real killer and hands him a long list of suspects. Against his better judgment, Nico accepts for Cilia’s sake. Since the case is outside of the local carabinieri’s jurisdiction, Nico finds himself on his own as he travels back and forth to Pitigliano. He goes down Livia’s list of suspects one by one in pursuit of the truth, putting his skills as a retired NYPD detective to work. But will Livia and her little girl be happy with what Nico finds?

Visit Camilla Trinchieri's website.

Q&A with Camilla Trinchieri.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Pitigliano.

Writers Read: Camilla Trinchieri.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Katherine Wood's "Sunburned"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sunburned: A Novel by Katherine Wood.

About the book, from the publisher:

St. Barth’s has a murder rate of zero. But that’s about to change.

When Audrey Collet’s ex Tyson calls, threatening to expose the skeletons in her closet unless she helps him figure out who is blackmailing him, she wants nothing more than to refuse. Though their relationship ended over a decade ago, the scars are deep. And since his tech company made him a billionaire, he’s become more than a little eccentric . . . and paranoid.

But a foot has washed ashore in the Everglades—that’s right, an actual human foot, encased in an Air Jordan—and Tyson is quick to remind Audrey that it’s one whose long-dead owner they both have a connection to. A connection that could prove problematic, if it got out.

Audrey reluctantly agrees to meet Tyson at his home on the swanky Caribbean island of St. Barth’s to help him figure out who in his entourage is extorting him and what they know about the secrets he and Audrey share. Once there, she realizes that each person staying at Tyson’s lavish estate has a reason to wish him harm. Could the culprit be the gorgeous Belgian wife whose wings he’s clipped? The celebrity business partner he’s essentially holding hostage? The older brother who’s always been in his shadow? Or the sexy French butler he seems to trust more than he should?

Audrey has only just scratched the surface of what’s going on behind closed doors when Tyson’s birthday dive turns deadly, and she realizes that one of the seven people trapped on his yacht with her is not just a blackmailer but a murderer. If Audrey can’t catch the killer in time, she might become the next victim.

Visit Katherine Wood's website.

Q&A with Katherine St. John.

The Page 69 Test: The Vicious Circle.

The Page 69 Test: Sunburned.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Niall Docherty's "Healthy Users"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Healthy Users: The Governance of Well-Being on Social Media by Niall Docherty.

About the book, from the publisher:

We are often told that social media well-being is simply the result of individual users making healthy digital choices. All it takes is a little self-discipline. In this book, Niall Docherty looks closely at this belief and exposes the complex relations of power expressed through its articulation and enactment. Docherty creatively and empirically shows how the discourses, designs, and habits of online well-being push user conduct in certain directions, at the expense of others. This is a contingent mode of governance that combines logics of neoliberalism, practices of psychologized person-making, and persuasive capitalist interfaces. By highlighting the damaging effects of this current arrangement, Healthy Users charts a path that will change how we understand and study social media well-being in the future.

Learn more about Healthy Users at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Healthy Users.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen of the best essay collections

At GQ (UK edition) Josiah Gogarty tagged the "best essay collections for proving how amazingly well-read you are." One title on the list:

Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel’s trio of novels about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light, are among the very best fiction of the 21st century. She was supremely accomplished at non-fiction too – and, as the title of this collection indicates, not above a good pun. The pieces, picked from her extensive contributions to the London Review of Books, range in topic from Saudi Arabia to Madonna to witchcraft and much more. As with her most famous work, a lot of attention is paid to kings and queens, notably in “Royal Bodies”, a piercing essay about the objectification of royal women that whipped up media hysteria due to her description of Kate Middleton as a “shop-window mannequin”.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Sarah Strohmeyer

From my Q&A with Sarah Strohmeyer, author of A Mother Always Knows: A Novel:

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

A Mother Always Knows relates to the beginning of the novel – in which the mother is murdered in front of her daughter while trying to flee a Vermont cult – and throughout the rest of the book, all the way to the end. Do mothers always know? Can a mother beyond the grave know? (There’s a supernatural element to the book since it involves a cult of “spiritual dowsers.”) Or, does a mother think she knows, when she really doesn’t? In the end, A Mother Always Knows is about mother/daughter relationships and how a mother’s poor decision(s) can affect her child’s future years later.

What's in a name?

This is a great question for A Mother Always Knows. For example, the protagonist’s common name is...[read on]

Visit Sarah Strohmeyer's website.

The Page 69 Test: This Is My Brain on Boys.

My Book, The Movie: This Is My Brain on Boys.

My Book, The Movie: We Love to Entertain.

Writers Read: Sarah Strohmeyer (April 2023).

The Page 69 Test: We Love to Entertain.

Q&A with Sarah Strohmeyer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eunji Kim's "The American Mirage"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy by Eunji Kim.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the entertainment narrative of upward mobility distorts the harsh economic realities in America

In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, many still view the United States as the land of opportunity. The American Mirage addresses this puzzle by exposing the stark reality of today’s media landscape, revealing how popular entertainment media shapes politics and public opinion in an increasingly news-avoiding nation.

Drawing on an eclectic array of original data, Eunji Kim demonstrates how, amid a dazzling array of media choices, many Americans simply are not consuming the news. Instead, millions flock to entertainment programs that showcase real-life success stories, such as American Idol, Shark Tank, and MasterChef. Kim examines how shows like these leave viewers confoundingly optimistic about the prospects of upward mobility, promoting a false narrative of rugged individualism and meritocracy that contradicts what is being reported in the news.

By taking seriously what people casually watch every day, The American Mirage shows how rags-to-riches programs perpetuate the myth of the American Dream, glorifying the economic winners, fostering tolerance for income inequality, and dampening support for redistributive policies that could improve people’s lives.

Visit Eunji Kim's website.

The Page 99 Test: The American Mirage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six amateur sleuths with offbeat jobs

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.

Her latest novel is There'll Be Shell to Pay.

[My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism; The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism; The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels; My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels; The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual; The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide; Q&A with Molly MacRae; Writers Read: Molly MacRae (July 2024); The Page 69 Test: Come Shell or High Water; My Book, The Movie: Come Shell or High Water]

At CrimeReads MacRae tagged a few favorite amateur sleuths with offbeat jobs, including:

Tempest Raj is a stage magician following in her mother’s footsteps as a master illusionist. She’s Gigi Pandian’s protagonist in the Secret Staircase Mysteries. Tempest has stepped away from her job, headlining huge shows in Las Vegas, after a disastrous accident on stage. She lost her career, and the life she built, and returned to Hidden Creek, her small hometown in California’s Bay Area. She’s returned to her childhood home and bedroom, too. The bedroom is only accessible by a secret staircase activated by a hidden lever. Tempest is now working part-time for Secret Staircase Construction, her father’s home renovation company. They specialize in architectural misdirection—secret staircases, hidden libraries and passages, sliding bookcases, etc. In her spare time, Tempest unravels puzzling crimes. Tempest is twenty-seven, half Indian, half Scottish, and she likes poori masala for breakfast as much as a bowl of porridge. Pandian is rightfully called the modern-day queen of the locked room mystery. To date there are four books in the series. They’re available in print, e-book and audiobook editions.

Read about another entry on MacRae's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Meg Waite Clayton's "Typewriter Beach"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Typewriter Beach: A Novel by Meg Waite Clayton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Hollywood, Typewriter Beach is an unforgettable story of the unlikely friendship between an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress hoping to be Alfred Hitchcock's new star.

1957. Isabella Giori is ten months into a standard seven-year studio contract when she auditions with Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio’s “fixer” in a tiny Carmel cottage, waiting and dreading.

Meanwhile, next door, Léon Chazan is annoyed as hell when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won’t be able to sell, because he’s been blacklisted. Soon, they’re together in his roadster, speeding down the fog-shrouded Big Sur coast.

2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe full of secrets—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was, and whether she can live up to his name.

In graceful prose and with an intimate understanding of human nature, Meg Waite Clayton captures the joys and frustrations of being a writer, being a woman, being a star, and being in love. Typewriter Beach is the story of two women separated by generations—a tale of ideas and ideals, passion and persistence, creativity, politics, and family.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Waite Clayton's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Ms. Bradwells.

The Page 69 Test: The Wednesday Daughters.

The Page 69 Test: Beautiful Exiles.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Train to London.

The Page 69 Test: Typewriter Beach.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jeri Westerson's "The Misplaced Physician," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Misplaced Physician by Jeri Westerson.

The entry begins:

The Misplaced Physician is book #3 in my An Irregular Detective Mystery series, about a former Baker Street Irregular – one of Sherlock Holmes’ hired street urchins, his eyes and ears of London – who aged out of that group and decided to become a detective like the guv. Tim Badger is the one with enough chutzpah to believe he can do it, and when he met a black bloke from the East End named Ben Watson, he deemed it Fate that they should work together, but it wasn’t until Mr. Holmes himself stepped in to sponsor them that they started to succeed. In this book, Doctor Watson has been kidnapped and Holmes is out of the country and can’t be reached. So it’s up to Badger and Watson to save the day! But if they can’t, that’s the end of the Badger & Watson Detecting Agency.

Actually, I’d rather have a television series, preferably a British production perhaps on Masterpiece Mystery or BritBox.

Because I write cinematically – that is, with dialogue that actors love to speak (my audiobook narrator says this is true!), and a sense of place and action, it flows nicely. The books are all easily translated to a script. They’re moody, accessible, and drawn in such a way that readers know exactly what they are “seeing” and experiencing. And because it is a Victorian cozy mystery, there is no bad language and no sex (but there is romancing). This is in keeping with the canon of the Doyle material. I treat it as if they are historical documents and I don’t deviate from them or their sensibilities. Hence, the “swearing” is “bloomin’” this and “ruddy” that. With some “By Joves!” and “Great Heavens!” thrown in as well. Not that the London Badger & Watson travel through isn’t a bit gritty at times. It can be, depending on what they investigate. But for the most part, they stay strictly Victorian and could be seen as an extension of the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes adventures.

Tim Badger is a man of action and guts, but despite his tough childhood, he always has a smile on his face. That’s why I might choose an actor like Callum Woodhouse (Tristan Farnon from All Creatures Great and Small) for him. He has that playful, carefree, and sometimes irresponsible sensibility for Tim Badger. As long as he can go full Cockney.

As for Ben Watson, he’s a little tougher to cast...[read on]

Visit Jeri Westerson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Veil of Lies.

The Page 69 Test: Serpent in the Thorns.

The Page 69 Test: The Demon's Parchment.

My Book, The Movie: The Demon's Parchment.

The Page 69 Test: Troubled Bones.

The Page 69 Test: Blood Lance.

The Page 69 Test: Shadow of the Alchemist.

The Page 69 Test: Cup of Blood.

The Page 69 Test: The Silence of Stones.

The Page 69 Test: A Maiden Weeping.

Q&A with Jeri Westerson.

The Page 69 Test: The Deadliest Sin.

My Book, The Movie: The Misplaced Physician

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top horror books about America

At Book Riot Emily Martin tagged "four horror novels to get you in the mood for the 4th of July this year (…or not)." One title on the list:

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

If you’re angered by the way social media and cable news have dictated contemporary politics in America, then reading this book will make your deepest fears a reality. Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is set in an America possessed by the media it consumes. Once taken over by the media, the American people are compelled to commit terrible acts of violence.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Priyanka Taslim reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Priyanka Taslim, author of Always Be My Bibi.

Her entry begins:

I recently finished Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh. I’ve been a fan of her work in the young adult fantasy space for a long time, so I was very intrigued by the concept of her adult contemporary debut, especially because my own upcoming adult debut also involves the dramatic, sometimes cutthroat lives of an affluent Asian family. For being a completely new genre and age category, I think she...[read on]

About Always Be My Bibi, from the publisher:

Clueless meets Jenna Evans Welch in this young adult rom-com about a spoiled American teenager who faces some major culture shock—and potential romance—when she jets off to Bangladesh for her sister’s wedding.

Bibi Hossain was supposed to get her first kiss this summer.

Too bad her father finds out and grounds her for breaking his most arcane rule: No boys until your sister gets married.

Just when Bibi thinks she’ll be stuck helping him at their popular fried chicken chain until school reopens, her oh-so-perfect older sister Halima drops a bombshell: she’s marrying the heir of a princely estate turned tea garden in Bangladesh. Soon, Bibi is hopping on the next flight to Sylhet for Halima’s Big Fat Bengali Wedding, hoping Abbu might even rethink the dating ban while they’re there.

Unfortunately, the stuffy Rahmans are a nightmare—especially Sohel, the groom’s younger brother. The only thing they can agree on is that their siblings are not a good match. But as the two scheme to break their siblings up, Bibi finds it impossible to stay away from the infuriatingly handsome boy.

Could her own happily ever after be brewing even as she stirs up trouble for her sister’s engagement—or is there more steeping at the tea estate than Bibi knows?

Visit Priyanka Taslim's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Match.

Q&A with Priyanka Taslim.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Match.

The Page 69 Test: Always Be My Bibi.

Writers Read: Priyanka Taslim.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gila Stopler's "Women's Rights in Liberal States"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Women's Rights in Liberal States: Patriarchy, Liberalism, Religion and the Chimera of Rights by Gila Stopler.

About the book, from the publisher:

The rise of religious conservatism and right-wing populism has exposed the fallibility of women's rights in liberal states and has seriously undermined women's ability to trust liberal states to protect their rights against religious and populist attacks. Gila Stopler argues that right-wing populists and religious conservatives successfully attack women's rights in liberal democracies because of the patriarchal foundations of liberalism and liberal societies. Engaging with political theories such as feminism, liberalism and populism, and examining concepts like patriarchy, culture, religion and the public-private distinction, the book uncovers the deep entrenchment of patriarchy in legal structures, social and cultural systems, and mainstream religions within liberal democracies. It analyses global cases and legal frameworks, focusing on liberal democracies and especially the USA, demonstrating how patriarchy fuels right-wing populism, accelerates the erosion of women's rights and threatens the future of liberal democracy.

Visit Gila Stopler's website.

The Page 99 Test: Women's Rights in Liberal States.

--Marsha Zeringue

Eight mysteries and thrillers featuring older sleuths and criminals

Sue Hincenbergs is a former television producer who has worked on multiple award-winning programs. She lives in Toronto with her (very much alive) husband, her scruffy, middle-aged rescue dog, Kramer, and the rooms full of the stuff her three sons left behind when they moved out. The porch light is always on in case one comes by for a visit.

The Retirement Plan is her first novel.

At People magazine Hincenbergs tagged eight mysteries and thrillers "that prove that age really can be just a number — for both those seeking to solve the crime and the ones committing it." One title on the list:

Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

After years as a sidekick, 68-year-old widow Muriel Blossom moves out from the shadows of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series to take on a starring role in her own book. Muriel, a woman of size who's sometimes self-conscious about it has found a lottery ticket and can finally afford her first vacation abroad. But soon she’s embroiled in nefarious doings, making for a charming and cozy European adventure.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Murder Takes a Vacation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Julie Hensley's "Five Oaks," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Five Oaks: A Novel by Julie Hensley.

The entry begins:

It’s fun to think about how Five Oaks might play out on the screen. Olivia Newman would be a great director. She really captures the feel of southern landscapes and generational secrets in her adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing. She would find a way to tease out the slightly gothic elements.

In terms of the current temporal frame, I would cast it this way:

Sylvie Pritchard: Quin Copeland

Wren Pritchard: Ava Phillipe

Georgia (Mamaw) Stone: Sally Field

Byron (Papaw) Stone: Pierce...[read on]

Visit Julie Hensley's website.

Q&A with Julie Hensley.

My Book, The Movie: Five Oaks.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Camilla Trinchieri's "Murder in Pitigliano"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Murder in Pitigliano by Camilla Trinchieri.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle finds himself unwittingly stepping into the role of a PI to investigate a murder that has torn a young family apart in this rustic mystery set in the beautiful Medieval village of Pitigliano, Italy.

One morning at his favorite café, Nico Doyle notices Cilia, a seven-year-old girl he has never seen before, frolicking with his dog on the floor. He later discovers she has left a note in his collar—Please help my babbo.

With help from the local carabinieri, Nico discovers that Cilia’s father, Saverio, has fled town following an unfortunate incident. His business partner was killed at their electronics store, and Saverio is the hot-headed local carabiniere’s main suspect. Cilia’s mother, Livia, who just moved to Gravigna to get away from Pitigliano’s wagging tongues, asks Nico to find the real killer and hands him a long list of suspects. Against his better judgment, Nico accepts for Cilia’s sake. Since the case is outside of the local carabinieri’s jurisdiction, Nico finds himself on his own as he travels back and forth to Pitigliano. He goes down Livia’s list of suspects one by one in pursuit of the truth, putting his skills as a retired NYPD detective to work. But will Livia and her little girl be happy with what Nico finds?

Visit Camilla Trinchieri's website.

Q&A with Camilla Trinchieri.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Pitigliano.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elisabeth Paling Funk's "The Dutch World of Washington Irving"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Dutch World of Washington Irving: Knickerbocker's History of New York and the Hudson Valley Folktales by Elisabeth Paling Funk.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Dutch World of Washington Irving tells an alternative origin story of American literary culture.

In December of 1809, before finding fame with "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. Elisabeth Paling Funk explains that the History of New York and the Hudson Valley folktales that followed were part of an early trend of responding to the national desire for a historical record. Funk argues that these works uniquely describe this part of the American scene in the period of the Early Republic and bring forward the Dutch strain in its history and culture.

Funk explores what the young Irving would have read, heard, and observed during his early life and career in New York City, once part of the former colony of New Netherland, where he was surrounded by Dutch-speaking neighbors and relatives and Dutch literature. Based on these sources, The Dutch World of Washington Irving argues that Irving's Knickerbocker works―not only his History but also his Hudson Valley stories―represent a crucial effort to preserve Dutch life and folk customs in the Hudson Valley in the face of Anglo-Americanization.

Providing the first complete glossary of Irving's Dutch vocabulary and drawing on untranslated Dutch sources, Funk offers cultural historians, scholars of American folklore and literature, and the latest generation of Irving's readers unprecedented access into the Dutch world of Washington Irving and his American contemporaries.

Learn more about The Dutch World of Washington Irving at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Dutch World of Washington Irving.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top London-set historical mysteries

Julia Seales is a novelist and screenwriter. She earned an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, and a BA in English from Vanderbilt University. She is a lifelong Anglophile with a passion for both murder mysteries and Jane Austen. Seales is originally from Kentucky, where she learned about manners (and bourbon).

Her new novel is A Terribly Nasty Business.

At CrimeReads Seales tagged nine "fantastic London-set historical mysteries ... which wonderfully showcase the fictional detectives who populate the City of Mystery." One title on the list:

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord by Celeste Connally

What is it about the Regency era that makes it the perfect setting for murder mysteries? Perhaps there’s something about the seemingly polished time period with all its glittering balls and empire waistlines that makes us yearn to see the dark underbelly. Connally delivers plenty of this in the first of her Lady Petra series: when her friend dies in a questionable manner, Lady Petra takes the investigation into her own hands, leaving no stone unturned as she seeks the truth.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Julie Hensley

From my Q&A with Julie Hensley, author of Five Oaks: A Novel:

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

The title Five Oaks is indicative of how important setting and landscape are to the story. It is the name of the family lake cottage where the current temporal frame of the novel takes place across a summer in 1988. The historical chapters all branch into that space eventually, as well. It is truly a nexus. The working title for this novel was actually The Recklessness of Water, a reference to the REM song “Night Swimming.” I changed the title to Five Oaks at my agent’s urging. I spent about a day worrying over it, but ultimately, I grew to love the new title. Both that lake cottage and the five sprawling oaks for which it is named anchor the lives and secrets of all the women in the Stone/Pritchard lineage.

What's in a name?

I found the name my narrator, Sylvie, in a cemetery. I love to...[read on]

Visit Julie Hensley's website.

Q&A with Julie Hensley.

--Marshal Zeringue