Ten top books that changed a librarian's life

New Jersey librarian Martha Hickson is a central figure in Kim A. Snyder’s film, The Librarians, a new documentary executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker about librarians fighting back against the rising tide of book bans.

For Vogue Hickson tagged ten "books that have indelibly shaped her life," including:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

As a librarian, I’m often asked, “What’s your favorite book?” For years I struggled to answer. There were just too many. Then came Anthony Doerr’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize–winning historical fiction about a French girl and a German boy caught in the violence of World War II Europe. As the novel unfolds, their separate stories converge in a dramatic struggle for survival. Compelling characters drive an intricate plot across war-torn settings to deliver a powerful message: “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” All the Light We Cannot See reminds us that, in a world where information is controlled, accessing ideas becomes an act of courage. I envy everyone who gets to read this book for the first time.

Read about another entry on the list.

All the Light We Cannot See is among Leah Rachel von Essen's ten top modern classics of historical fiction, Melanie Maure's five top novels about women discovering unimaginable strength through tragedy, Audrey Gale's five top novels about war, Jyoti Patel's top ten books about family secrets, Kimi Cunningham Grant's top six books featuring father-daughter relationships, Liz Boulter's top ten novels about France, Emily Temple's fifty best contemporary novels over 500 pages, Jason Allen's seven top books with family secrets, Whitney Scharer's top ten books about Paris, David Baldacci's six favorite books with an element of mystery, Jason Flemyng's six best books, Sandra Howard's six best books, Caitlin Kleinschmidt's twelve moving novels of the Second World War and Maureen Corrigan's 12 favorite books of 2014.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mark Stevens's "Two Truths and a Lie"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In a taut, haunting follow-up to No Lie Lasts Forever, reporter Flynn Martin gets ensnared in a copycat killer’s game where winning means solving a crime―and losing could cost her everything.

Lambasted for a tragedy caught live on camera, then lauded for her help capturing the elusive PDQ, a serial killer, Flynn Martin’s career has reached new heights. But now, the TV journalist and mother has much further to fall. And someone wants to push her over the edge.

PDQ is behind bars, for life and then some, but someone on the outside has picked up the killer’s mantle. Flynn is neck-deep in an investigation when the copycat emerges, targeting her sources and delivering cryptic messages. It’s clear that Flynn’s stories are getting deadlier. This one proves no exception.

A family of four has gone missing, leaving behind ties to New Hope Church more tangled than they appear. The dangerous web rivals the threat in Flynn’s personal life. And it’s up to her to unravel each knot.

Scandal. Conspiracy. Murder. Flynn hardly knows where to begin―and if her stalker has their way, she might not live to see the end.

Visit Mark Stevens's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Fireballer.

Q&A with Mark Stevens.

My Book, The Movie: The Fireballer.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens (June 2025).

The Page 69 Test: No Lie Lasts Forever.

My Book, The Movie: No Lie Lasts Forever.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens.

The Page 69 Test: Two Truths and a Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five true crime books featuring forgers, fraudsters, and con artists

Born in London, J. R. Thornton graduated from Harvard College in 2014 where he studied history, English, and Chinese. An internationally ranked junior tennis player, he competed for Harvard and on the professional circuit. He was a member of the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars, obtaining an M.A. from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He now lives in Italy, working for AC Milan. Lucien is his second novel.

At CrimeReads Thornton tagged five books "on forgers and conmen—on trauma and personality disorders—on imposters and fantasists." One title on the list:

Jonathan Lopez, The Man Who Made Vermeers

Han van Meegeren is perhaps the most fascinating art forger in history: a mediocre Dutch painter who, stung by critical rejection, spent years perfecting a technique for faking Vermeer, then sold his masterwork to Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. After the war, when he was charged with collaboration for selling a national treasure to the enemy, he revealed the truth—he had fooled Göring with a fake.

The authorities refused to believe him until he sensationally proved his story by painting a new Vermeer in his cell. Widely castigated as a traitor and pariah, the act transformed van Meegeren into a national hero, suddenly adored by the Dutch public for his cunning trickery of the Nazis.

Lopez’s biography is a nuanced, deeply researched account of a man whose story raises genuinely uncomfortable questions about authenticity, taste, and the nature of artistic value. If a forgery is indistinguishable from the real thing, what exactly is the crime?

Read about another entry on Thornton's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jessica Wolfendale's "American Torture and American Terrorism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: American Torture and American Terrorism: The Myth of American Decency by Jessica Wolfendale.

About the book, from the publisher:

For most Americans the terms 'torture' and 'terrorism' evoke barbaric regimes and savage enemies, not liberal democracies dedicated to human rights and freedom, as the United States claims to be. American Torture and American Terrorism demonstrates the falsity of the claim that America is a nation fundamentally opposed to torture and terrorism. Drawing on and developing victim-centred definitions of torture and terrorism, Wolfendale reveals how these forms of violence have been embedded within American institutions since the country's founding. From the earliest days of colonization to today's prison conditions, high rates of police violence, and drone warfare, torture and terrorism have been used to dominate, attack, threaten, and control groups and individuals-primarily people of color-viewed as dangerous to white political and social domination. But this reality has been ignored and distorted, if not completely forgotten. By recognizing and naming the violence inflicted on victims of American torture and terrorism, Wolfendale provides a crucial corrective against this national amnesia.

Learn more about American Torture and American Terrorism at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: American Torture and American Terrorism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Dana Mele

From my Q&A with Dana Mele, author of The Beast You Let In:

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

A little known fun fact is that I have never chosen my own book title. My proposed title for The Beast You Let In was Veronica, after a character whose vengeful spirit may be possessing one of the main characters! The Beast You Let In is a neat title, and I think it speaks more broadly to the themes of repressed anger, buried secrets, and how much we allow the people who surround us to influence us against our better judgment.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not terribly! It’s a story about...[read on]

Visit Dana Mele's website.

Q&A with Dana Mele.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best dark academia books

Melissa D’Agnese is a senior editor at FIRST for Women, Woman’s World, and various a360media special interest publications.

At Woman’s World she tagged seven of the best dark academia books, including:

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

Deeply gripping and atmospheric, this dark academia thriller centers on Bodie Kane, a film professor and podcaster determined to leave her troubled past behind. But when she’s invited to guest teach at her former New Hampshire boarding school—the site of her roommate’s long-ago murder—unanswered questions slowly begin to resurface. As Bodie digs into the old case, she’s pulled into a chilling search for the truth that refuses to stay buried.

Read about another entry on the list.

I Have Some Questions For You is among Allie Tagle-Dokus's eight titles that reckon with the impacts of cancel culture, Jo Firestone's five top laugh-out-loud mysteries, Jacqueline Faber's seven top thrillers about the role of the witness, Kat Davis's top ten feminist crime novels subverting the Dead Girl trope, Elise Juska’s eight best campus novels ever written, Nicole Hackett's six top mysteries about motherhood and crime, Brittany Bunzey's ten books that take you inside their characters’ heads, Anne Burt's four top recent titles with social justice themes, and Heather Darwent's nine best campus thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Garrett Curbow's "Whispers of Ink and Starlight," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Whispers of Ink and Starlight: A Novel by Garrett Curbow.

The entry begins:

We have made it to the future and Whispers of Ink and Starlight is being adapted into a film! Yay! In this fictitious reality, I, the author, get total executive control over who will direct this adaptation and which actors will star in it.

Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a coming-of-age, literary romance with a heavy dash of magical realism. It follows Nelle, a young woman written into life, and her relationship with James, a young man from a small town in Georgia, as they juggle the independence of adulthood and Nelle’s magical drawbacks.

For the director, I would hire Greta Gerwig. Coming off the tails of Barbie (2023), Little Women (2019), and the upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, I want her directorial vision more than anyone else’s. Whispers of Ink and Starlight is a dangerous novel to adapt because it travels fluidly between genres. If someone tries to make a romantic drama out of it, or if they ignore the romance in favor of the magic system, they will lose the heart of...[read on]

Visit Garrett Curbow's website.

Q&A with Garrett Curbow.

Writers Read: Garrett Curbow.

The Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

My Book, The Movie: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark Stevens reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mark Stevens, author of Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller.

His entry begins:

The collaborative writing team of Linda Keir (Keir Graff and Linda Joffe Hull) have a new heart-pounding thriller out called I Did Not Kill My Husband. Think of the old television show The Fugitive (or the movie of the same name starring Harrison Ford) but with a female lead and all the modern-day trappings of social media. One big chase, start to finish.

More of a slow burn but with atmosphere in abundance, The Lost House by Melissa Larsen. Set in Iceland...[read on]

About Two Truths and a Lie, from the publisher:

In a taut, haunting follow-up to No Lie Lasts Forever, reporter Flynn Martin gets ensnared in a copycat killer’s game where winning means solving a crime―and losing could cost her everything.

Lambasted for a tragedy caught live on camera, then lauded for her help capturing the elusive PDQ, a serial killer, Flynn Martin’s career has reached new heights. But now, the TV journalist and mother has much further to fall. And someone wants to push her over the edge.

PDQ is behind bars, for life and then some, but someone on the outside has picked up the killer’s mantle. Flynn is neck-deep in an investigation when the copycat emerges, targeting her sources and delivering cryptic messages. It’s clear that Flynn’s stories are getting deadlier. This one proves no exception.

A family of four has gone missing, leaving behind ties to New Hope Church more tangled than they appear. The dangerous web rivals the threat in Flynn’s personal life. And it’s up to her to unravel each knot.

Scandal. Conspiracy. Murder. Flynn hardly knows where to begin―and if her stalker has their way, she might not live to see the end.

Visit Mark Stevens's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Fireballer.

Q&A with Mark Stevens.

My Book, The Movie: The Fireballer.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens (June 2025).

The Page 69 Test: No Lie Lasts Forever.

My Book, The Movie: No Lie Lasts Forever.

Writers Read: Mark Stevens.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that blend hilarity & escapism

Victoria Dillon is a former research scientist, current pediatrician and writer with a passion for exploring the intersections of politics and science. She has a unique ability to blend speculative fiction with thought-provoking social commentary, creating prose that speaks both to the heart and the mind. She currently resides in Middle Tennessee.

Ava is her debut novel.

At CrimeReads Dillon tagged five favorite books that blend hilarity and escapism. One title on the list:

David Sedaris, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

This collection of modern animal fables is sharp, absurd, and quietly devastating in the best way. Sedaris uses talking animals to reveal the worst and most tender parts of human behavior, including jealousy, loneliness, cruelty, and the desperate need to be loved. You find yourself laughing and then realizing you have been gently exposed.

I rarely listen to audiobooks, but I always make an exception for Sedaris. His narration ratchets up the humor and adds another layer to the stories. It feels less like listening to a performance and more like being confided in by someone who is letting you in on a deeply awkward secret.

Read about another entry on the list.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is among Whitney Collins's five top books by comedians.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rivka Weinberg's "The Meaning of It All"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time by Rivka Weinberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question―many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when things are not going well, but you're also likely to still ask this question when you've finally received that promotion, achieved a goal, or raised your children―exactly when it seems like the question shouldn't arise.

In The Meaning of It All, Rivka Weinberg argues this is because there are different kinds of meaning, and some of them, sadly, are impossible to achieve. She explains what they are, illuminates which types of meaning are possible, which are impossible, and shows us how we might orient our lives in light of these bittersweet truths. Although we all die in the end, Weinberg explains why death doesn't make life more or less meaningful. Instead, it is time that is necessary for meaning, even as it also undermines it by wearing away the fruits of our efforts and commitments. Weinberg shows that most advice on how to reduce the agony of time's erosions cannot work. However, she also shows how we can tease out some insights from failed attempts to escape time's wounds and thereby make progress toward coping with things as they are. A meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time, accepting suffering, acknowledging our tragic losses and limitations, and making the most of Everyday Meaning.

Visit Rivka Weinberg's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Meaning of It All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Diana Awad's "As Far as She Knew"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: As Far as She Knew by Diana Awad.

About the book, from the publisher:

“A masterful exploration of marriage, secrets, and identity that will leave you questioning how well you really know those closest to you. Diana Awad crafts a thriller that is both heart-stopping and heartbreaking.” ―Mindy Kaling

A devoted wife and mother unravels her late husband’s secret life in an emotional and suspenseful novel about betrayal, lies, love, and loss.

For twenty-three years, Amira Abadi believed she had a strong, loving marriage. But when her husband, Ali, dies suddenly, that certainty shatters with the discovery of a house she never knew existed. As whispers of betrayal spread through their tight-knit Arab American community, Amira refuses to let others define her husband’s legacy―or her path forward.

Diving into an investigation of Ali’s final days, Amira uncovers decades-old secrets that challenge everything she thought she knew. With her children struggling to process their father’s death, Amira must balance protecting her family with pursuing the truth, even as each revelation brings her closer to danger.

As Amira peels back layers of lies, she discovers that the greatest mystery isn’t what her husband was hiding―it’s how far she’ll go to uncover the truth.

Visit Diana Awad's website.

My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew.

The Page 69 Test: As Far as She Knew.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top fiction titles set in Maine

Elise Juska’s latest novel, Reunion, was named one of People Magazine’s “Best Books to Read in May 2024.” Her previous novels include The Blessings, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and If We Had Known. Juska’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her short fiction has been cited by The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. 

[The Page 69 Test: Reunion; My Book, The Movie: Reunion]

At Tertulia Juska tagged her favorite fiction set in Maine. One title on the list:

Landslide by Susan Conley

When her husband is hospitalized after a fishing accident, Jill Archer is faced with parenting her two teenage sons—“the wolves”—alone on a small, rugged island in Penobscot Bay. The dynamics in the family—the strain of motherhood, marriage, financial instability—are beautifully rendered and, like life in a struggling fishing village, unsentimentally real.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Karen Robards reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Karen Robards, author of The Moonlight Runner: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Thanks to the movie that just came out, what I’m reading, or re-reading, right now is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, one of my very favorite books of all time. I first read it when I was around ten years old. I’d been sent to stay with my grandparents while my parents traveled. Theirs was a big old house in the country and it seems to me in retrospect that it rained the entire time I was there. Which meant I was trapped indoors with little to do except explore the house, so explore I did, all the way up to the cobweb-festooned attic. In the attic I discovered a trunk filled with old books. I was already an avid reader of Nancy Drew and that type of mostly age-appropriate fiction, but what I found in that trunk was a literary revelation. Gone With The Wind, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, The Hobbit – and, among many others, Wuthering Heights. I loved them all (well, maybe not The Grapes Of Wrath, though I grew to appreciate it later), but Wuthering Heights is the story that lodged in my heart and remains there to this day. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” said by Cathy about Heathcliff, was and is the most...[read on]

About The Moonlight Runner, from the publisher:

In the wake of the Great War, a young woman joins the Irish rebellion and risks everything for her country in this sweeping story of love, bravery and the relentless pursuit of freedom from New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards.

Ireland, 1918. In a world brutalized by the Great War and devastated by the Spanish flu, twenty-two-year-old Rynn Carmichael is suddenly pulled into the war of independence when Donal O’Reilly, the boy she has loved for most of her life, takes up gunrunning in support of the rebellion.

Raised in a small Irish village on the shores of Donegal Bay, Rynn is working as a nurse in a convalescent home for soldiers wounded in the Great War when she overhears a British officer gloating over the trap that has been set for Irish gunrunners bringing a boat full of smuggled arms ashore. Knowing that Donal must be involved, she rushes out at midnight to warn the incoming boat, only to find herself caught up in a terrifying and tragic series of events that take her from the glittering ballrooms of London to the narrow back alleys of Dublin as she and those she loves fight for their lives and their country.

Visit Karen Robards's website.

Writers Read: Karen Robards.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five sci-fi books like "Project Hail Mary"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged five sci-fi titles like Project Hail Mary, including:

Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson

For those who love the first contact theme of Project Hail Mary, this tense new sci-fi by Daniel H. Wilson makes for another great read. As with Hail Mary, you’ll find plenty of high-stakes suspense as well as intriguing astronomical mysteries. As the Voyager probe has just passed by Heliopause, a place on the outskirts of the solar system, we meet a father named Jim living in the Osage Territory of Oklahoma, his daughter Tawny, a NASA engineer, a genius analyzing a curious “Pattern,” and a CIA investigator of strange phenomena.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Liberty Hardy's five books for fans of Project Hail Mary.

The Page 69 Test: Hole in the Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jacques Berlinerblau's "Can We Laugh at That?"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Can We Laugh at That?: Comedy in a Conflicted Age by Jacques Berlinerblau.

About the book, from the publisher:

Did you hear the one about the comedian who was canceled?

Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits, or forced off the airwaves. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable.

With a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow in this darkly witty examination of American comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Shane Gillis, and Sarah Silverman as well as humorists in France, Denmark, Zimbabwe, and Egypt.

Visit Jacques Berlinerblau's website.

The Page 99 Test: Can We Laugh at That?.

--Marshal Zeringue

Diana Awad's "As Far as She Knew," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew by Diana Awad.

The entry begins:

I didn’t have any particular actors in mind when I wrote As Far as She Knew but would love to dreamcast my novel. Because representation absolutely matters, I’d want the majority of Arab American characters in the novel to be played by actors of Arab descent. Unfortunately, there are so few Arab Americans working in American TV and film that it would be difficult to come up with a comprehensive list, but I do have some thoughts.

A younger version of the Palestinian-American actor Waleed Zuaiter would be perfect in the role of Ali, husband of the lead character, Amira. Ali dies off page in the first scene but features prominently in flashbacks throughout the novel. Zuaiter, who I last saw in the miniseries The Girlfriend with Robin Wright, could effectively capture Ali’s quiet strength, kindness and empathy. 

For Ayla, Amira and Ali’s college-age daughter, I’d turn to...[read on]

Visit Diana Awad's website.

My Book, The Movie: As Far as She Knew.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top mysteries featuring mother-daughter sleuth duos

Stacy Hackney lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and four sons. She graduated from Wake Forest University and University of Virginia School of Law—after her legal briefs started bordering on a little too dramatic, she started writing fiction and never stopped. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her out on the water, watching romantic comedies, online shopping for beautiful shoes, or making an enormous mess in the kitchen.

Hackney has published two children’s books, Forever Glimmer Creek and The Sisters of Luna Island. The Primrose Murder Society is her first book for adults.

At CrimeReads Hackney tagged six top mystery novels with mother-daughter sleuths. One title on the list:

Kimberly McCreight, Like Mother, Like Daughter

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is a well-paced and engaging mystery-thriller. It begins with daughter, Cleo, arriving late for a dinner with her estranged mother, Kat. Cleo finds food burning in the oven, a house in disarray, a bloody shoe, and no sign of her mother. The longer Kat is missing, the more desperate Cleo is to find her.

Told from Kat’s point of view in the past and Cleo’s point of view in the present, the characters must eliminate threats and uncover past secrets. The ultimate resolution to the mystery is satisfying, but it’s the understanding and respect that Cleo and Kat develop for each other over the course of the novel that makes this one stand out.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Garrett Curbow's "Whispers of Ink and Starlight"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight: A Novel by Garrett Curbow.

About Whispers of Ink and Starlight, from the publisher:

A spellbinding tale of forbidden love and the power of words, where a girl must choose between the life written for her and the future she dares to imagine.

In a small Georgia town, Nelle’s life has been carefully scripted by her creator and captor, the reclusive author Wallace Quill. Born from ink and imagination, every breath she takes is dictated by his pen. But on a star-studded Fourth of July night, she meets James—a young man with dreams as vivid as the fireworks above them—and suddenly, the unwritten becomes possible.

As Nelle and James fall deeply in love, they embark on a breathtaking journey across Europe, each new experience a defiant stroke against the words that bind her. But freedom has a price. With every mile they travel, the ink in Nelle’s veins threatens to rewrite their story. In a world where every moment could be her last, Nelle and James must fight to write their own happily ever after—before the final page turns.

Visit Garrett Curbow's website.

Q&A with Garrett Curbow.

Writers Read: Garrett Curbow.

The Page 69 Test: Whispers of Ink and Starlight.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Megan Kate Nelson's "The Westerners"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:

From award-winning historian Megan Kate Nelson, an epic account of the creation of the American West in the 19th century, shattering the traditional frontier myth that has dominated popular American culture.

The Westerners tells two richly detailed and interwoven stories. The first reveals the captivating lives of women and men moving through the American West—Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants—in the 19th century. The second tracks the attempts of many Americans to erase these westerners from history, through a frontier myth that lionized individualism and conquest and celebrated white settlers traveling west in search of prosperity.

Nelson’s vivid, eye-opening account centers on seven extraordinary individuals whose lives capture the true history of the frontier: Sacajawea, not just Lewis and Clark’s guide but an explorer who forged her own path; Jim Beckwourth, a biracial fur trader whose sharp cultural insight made him indispensable; María Gertrudis Barceló, a Hispana gambling saloon owner who broke every stereotype to become the wealthiest woman in Santa Fe; Ovando Hollister, a gold miner, soldier, and newspaper man who championed Western expansion; Little Wolf, a Northern Cheyenne chief whose courageous leadership secured his people’s future; Canadian immigrant Ella Watson, who strove to become a ranch woman in a male-dominated world; and the defiant Polly Bemis, a Chinese immigrant who carved out a life in Idaho despite federal expulsion efforts.

Nelson roots this bold new history of the American West in the deep research and gripping storytelling that have garnered her critical acclaim. Highlighting the perseverance and ingenuity of the communities that have otherwise been forgotten or erased from history, The Westerners challenges us to reimagine who we are and where we came from.

Visit Megan Kate Nelson's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Three-Cornered War.

The Page 99 Test: The Westerners.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Paulette Kennedy reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Paulette Kennedy, author of The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

The Other Moctezuma Girls by Sofia Robleda

An epic coming-of-age story set in 16th-century Mexico, after the Spanish Conquest, centering Isabel, the daughter of the last Aztec empress. After her mother's death, Isabel embarks on a journey to discover her mother's story, and unveil the intriguing secrets hidden in her past. Robleda transports readers to a time when women used their wiles and intelligence to survive during an era when men colonized and claimed dominion over the countries they invaded, and viewed the women in their lives as political pawns. Isabel, and Tecuichpoch, the proud daughter of the famed Moctezuma--who relays her story through compelling diary entries Isabel finds on her quest--are both formidable, proud women, who inspire with their matriarchal strength and resilience. I especially enjoyed the elements of magical realism, which were so beautifully woven into the body of the story and...[read on]

About The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael, from the publisher:

A young woman, perceived dead, plots to reinvent herself in a gripping historical gothic about secrets, superstition, and murder by the bestselling author of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

South Carolina, 1853. Lillian Carmichael, privileged daughter of a disgraced Charleston family, is due to be hanged for the murder of her sister when fate gives her a second chance at life.

After a catatonic episode on the long walk to the gallows, Lillian is declared dead and entombed in the family mausoleum. She awakens days later, buried alive, and flees to the Lowcountry marshes to survive on her wits and reinvent herself. All the while, a series of exsanguination murders holds the terrorized city in thrall―as do the superstitions that the vanished Lillian is some craven creature, resurrected and out for blood.

Lillian finds sanctuary in a crumbling former plantation and a friend in Kate O’Malley, a charismatic actress adept at fashioning new identities. The two form an intimate and powerful alliance, but as the body count rises, the manhunt for Lillian reaches a fever pitch. It will take both women’s cunning for her to escape the gallows again, and to find her freedom, Lillian must first cross paths with the real killer and confront her own family’s deepest, darkest secret.

Visit Paulette Kennedy's website.

The Page 69 Test: Parting the Veil.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

My Book, The Movie: The Artist of Blackberry Grange.

The Page 69 Test: The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael.

Writers Read: Paulette Kennedy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top fairy tale retellings

Bar Fridman-Tell has a BA in art history and an MA in English literature. (She gleefully wrote her thesis about Victorian vampires.) She has worked as a bartender, a bookseller, a translator, and a library assistant. She is currently studying for a master's in library and information sciences, hoping to stay in a library for good. She lives in Toronto with her professor husband and two very fluffy cats. Honeysuckle is her debut novel.

At Lit Hub Fridman-Tell tagged six books that "take a fairy tale and pull one thread loose, to see what happens next, or tip the story on its side and see what new shape emerges." One title on the list:

T. Kingfisher, A Sorceress Comes to Call

T. Kingfisher is the master of fairy tale retellings, and though I seem to say it about each and every one of her books, A Sorceress Comes to Call really might be my favorite. Starting with the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Goose Girl,” T. Kingfisher unravels the idea of parental expectations in fairy tales—and the ever-present injunction to follow your parents’ commands—sketching an unsettling examination of abuse and power dynamics, with a side of (the best) heroic geese and a demonic, headless horse that really raises the bar for horse-related trauma.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Karen Rose Smith's "If Books Could Kill"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: If Books Could Kill (Tomes & Tea Mystery #3) by Karen Rose Smith.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Daisy Swanson’s daughter Jazzi has moved away to the lakeside town of Belltower Landing, but the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. Much like Daisy, she’s running a tea bar and bookshop––and has a knack for getting into hot water…

Town librarian Mathilda has a troublesome new emplROSEoyee, and after Jazzi spots the two of them arguing at the ice-sculpture festival, Mathilda asks Jazzi if she’d mind discussing her workplace woes over a cup of tea. During the visit, Jazzi also finds out about Mathilda’s top-secret stash of valuable first editions.

Soon afterward, those rare books have vanished—and Mathilda is dead. As the police check out suspects and a lawyer searches for the next of kin, Jazzi learns that the librarian’s life was as mysterious as any crime thriller. She’d left home and changed her name as a teenager, and always seemed a little lonely. Oddly, it’s her new employee who seems the most distraught.

It’s the off-season, so the upstate New York town is free of the usual swarm of tourists—but the quiet doesn’t last long. The press is descending as the murder makes national news, and rumors start circulating. With Belltower Landing steeped in suspicion, Jazzi must figure out whether the first editions were the real motive for sending Mathilda to her final resting place…

Visit Karen Rose Smith's website, Facebook page, and Instagram page.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Rose Smith & Hope and Riley.

The Page 69 Test: Staged to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Murder with Lemon Tea Cakes.

The Page 69 Test: Murder Marks the Page.

The Page 69 Test: Booked for Revenge.

The Page 69 Test: If Books Could Kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top crime novels featuring female duos

Elle Cosimano is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, an International Thriller Writers Award winner, and an Edgar Award nominee. Cosimano’s debut novel for adults, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, kicked off a witty, fast-paced contemporary mystery series, which was a People magazine pick and was named one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021. The third book in the series, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, was an instant New York Times bestseller. A TV show based on the series is now in development by Tina Fey and Lang Fisher for Peacock. In addition to writing novels for teens and adults, her essays have appeared in HuffPost and Time. Cosimano lives with her husband and two sons in Virginia.

[Q&A with Elle Cosimano; My Book, The Movie: Seasons of the Storm]

Her new novel is Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line.

At CrimeReads Cosimano tagged ten favorite crime novels featuring captivating partners in crime. One title on the list:

Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart

A down-on-her-luck country singer sets off with the half-sister she didn’t know she had to uncover their family history and solve a murder while searching for their missing mom.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Charlotte Brooks's "The Moys of New York and Shanghai"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family's Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution by Charlotte Brooks.

About the book, from the publisher:

The most extraordinary family you’ve never heard of.

Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Sophisticated and self-consciously modern, they challenged limitations and stereotypes in the United States and sought new opportunities in China’s tumultuous republic. Sometimes the risks they took paid off, but their occasional recklessness also led to infidelity, divorce, bankruptcy, and worse. Those in China faced pressure to collaborate with Japanese occupiers, making choices that had serious consequences for their siblings in the United States.

Charlotte Brooks’s gripping tale follows the family back and forth across the Pacific and through two world wars, China’s Nationalist and Communist revolutions, and the Cold War—events that the siblings and their spouses helped shape. The Moys’ incredible story offers a kaleidoscopic view of an entire generation’s struggle for acceptance and belonging.

Follow Charlotte Brooks on Instagram.

The Page 99 Test: Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends.

The Page 99 Test: The Moys of New York and Shanghai.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Pamela Steele

From my Q&A with Pamela Steele, author of In The Fields of Fatherless Children: A Novel:

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

I didn’t commit to a title until my gut told me I was in the last few days of writing a complete draft for submission. In thinking about a title, I remembered that an early reader had remarked on how biblical the story is, which brought my mind to biblical references I’d used in the story: Bethel and Thomas, for example. When I got to the point where I knew I needed a title, I ruminated on Solomon, the novel’s primary antagonist and a character I’d actually named for a long-dead ancestor. I picked up a Bible and scanned Song of Solomon for an idea and then found myself backtracking to Proverbs. When I happened upon Chapter 23, verse 10 and read it aloud: Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless . . . I knew I’d found a title that fit one of the novel’s larger themes of family relationships and abandonment: In the Fields of Fatherless Children.

Initially, the editors at Counterpoint thought the title fitting but...[read on]

Follow Pamela Steele on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

My Book, The Movie: In The Fields of Fatherless Children.

Q&A with Pamela Steele.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Albertine Clarke reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Albertine Clarke, author of The Body Builders: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Right now, I’m reading Septology by Jon Fosse. It’s great, very long and very meditative, and tells the story of an ageing Norwegian painter living in a tiny fishing village. I like books that I can tarry with when I’m supposed to be doing other things, and Septology provides that. I also lost it for a couple of days and found it in my bed, so I feel that I’ve absorbed part of it through my skin.

Before that, I read The Hitch by Sara Levine. It was very funny, and I read the whole thing in a couple of days. There’s a...[read on]

About The Body Builders, from the publisher:

For readers of Megan Nolan and Sheila Heti, a mesmerizing Borgesian literary debut about the frayed borders between our bodies and minds.

Ada lives a solitary life. She spends her days in her London apartment building's swimming pool, occasionally visiting with her cousin Francesca and meeting her friends, each of them chatting, drinking, posing invitations Ada ignores. Ada's parents are recently divorced after her father became a bodybuilder: he spends his days at the gym, which is crowded and bright, warm with human proximity, infrequently calling to express minor concerns around his daughter's well-being.

When she meets a man named Atticus by the pool, Ada immediately feels an intimate connection between them: they share a life, in a way she can't explain. Little by little, Ada's estrangement from her familiar surroundings and from reality widens, as though seeing her reflection through a mirror, pieces of it falling away. After her mother entreats Ada to join her on a remote Greek holiday, Ada is jolted out of the physical world and into a new, artificial environment, one that a mysterious and potentially otherworldly force has created and designed for her. As this brilliant first novel pivots with masterful effect into the surreal and speculative, we move through Ada's experiences of life like spokes on a wheel, profoundly surprised by the enduring mystery of our existence, and of our relationships with ourselves and others. When a person's life, in the odd space between mind and body, is inherently one of isolation, are our connections with those around us merely projections of ourselves? And if not, where do they come from?

Albertine Clarke transforms the speculative into an entirely singular experience of deep interiority. The precision, subtlety, and confidence of her writing is nothing short of astonishing. THE BODY BUILDERS is new classic of the speculative fiction genre, landing like a blow, widening a crack that allows us to perceive the world wholly differently than we ever imagined.

Follow Albertine Clarke on Instagram.

Q&A with Albertine Clarke.

My Book, The Movie: The Body Builders.

Writers Read: Albertine Clarke.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top novels about women in the wild

Laura Hulthen Thomas’s deeply human, emotional storytelling explores blue and white collars, lovers and spouses, mothers and children, and the unique Michigan places that shape these relationships. Her novels, stories, and essays reveal the complexities of home, work, and the Midwestern landscape. Thomas is a Teaching Professor in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her first book, States of Motion, was a finalist for a Foreword Reviews Indie Award.

Thomas's new novel is The Meaning of Fear.

At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] tell the stories of women who find themselves battling their own wilds." One title on the list:

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods opens with the epigraph, “How quickly . . . peril could be followed by beauty in the wilderness . . . ” It’s 1975 and teen Barbara Van Laar has disappeared from a summer camp her family owns in the Adirondack woods, exactly 14 years after the mysterious disappearance of her brother, Bear. From there, the narrative dips back in time to show Barbara’s mother, Alice, trapped in an oppressive marriage, drugged during childbirth, forbidden to nurse, and isolated from everything natural about raising her kids. In the present, the search for Barbara in wild places slowly reveals Van Laar family’s secrets that never quite disappeared. Upon arriving to Camp Emerson, girls are taught to “sit down and yell” should they find themselves lost in the forest. The mystery of what happened to Barbara may prove that staying in one place and crying for help is exactly what women determined to survive should never do.

Read about another novel on the list.

The God of the Woods is among Benjamin Bradley's four mystery novels that explore legacy, Sandra Chwialkowska's five titles where bad things happen in beautiful places, Midge Raymond's eight books about women keeping secrets and Molly Odintz's eight thrillers & horror novels set at terrible summer camps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eli Hirsch's "Selves in Doubt"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Selves in Doubt by Eli Hirsch.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Selves in Doubt, Eli Hirsch focuses on the importance of the first-person perspective to a normal human level of rational thought and behavior. Hirsch argues that an "I-blind" being—one who lacks the capacity to employ the first-person pronoun—could not be fully rational; nor could they acquire normal knowledge of physical reality.

The meaning of the first-person pronoun is shown to have a particular bearing on the anomalous context of split-brain patients and generalizations of that context. Hirsch critiques Parfit's suggestion that a better language might eliminate or revise the concept of personal identity and the use of the first-person pronoun, on the grounds that the first-person perspective must remain as it is because the capacity to employ the first-person pronoun is a necessary condition for a language to be suitable for rational beings. Hirsch also contends that, contrary to Lewis and Sider, it may be difficult to find any other necessary condition for a language to be suitable for rational beings.

A bold claim defended later in the book is that it is metaphysically impossible to be sane while doubting the reality of other selves. This claim leads to a discussion of skepticism, and the final chapter consists in reflections on how facing skepticism relates to facing death.

Learn more about Selves in Doubt at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Selves in Doubt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Reid's "The Survivor"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Survivor by Andrew Reid.

About The Survivor, from the publisher:

A hijacked New York subway train, an anonymous killer, and a young man trapped by his hidden past converge in a breathless, breathtaking thriller

Do not turn off your phone
Do not get off the train
I know who you really are

Fired and walked out by security on his first day at his new job in New York City, Ben Cross thought his day couldn't get worse. But he couldn't be more wrong. Getting on the 1 train headed uptown, Ben starts receiving text messages from an anonymous killer, showing that they've already killed someone, then pointedly killing another as they got off the train to prove they aren't bluffing and to ensure Ben follows orders. But Ben wasn't picked at random—he has a history that no one is supposed to know.

At the same time, A NYPD detective, Kelly Hendricks, is on punishment duty with the transit police. The first one on the scene after the first murder, she gets on the train to find out what is really going on.

Switching rapidly between Cross and Hendricks, as the hijacked 1 train heads from South Ferry to 181st, the secret to the killer lies in Ben's own history—why he's been targeted and punished.

Follow Andrew Reid on Instagram and Threads.

Writers Read: Andrew Reid.

The Page 69 Test: The Survivor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top sci-fi novels with ragtag crews

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged four "fun sci-fi escapades featuring motley crews." One entry on the list:

You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo

Retirement takes an unexpected turn in this exciting space opera. All former admiral Niko Larson wanted after retirement was to open a restaurant in a quiet part of the universe—which she has accomplished, starting The Last Chance with the help of her former unit. But when the government interferes and Niko and her crew end up on a combative sentient ship, they’ll have to rely on their old training and each other to get back to the restaurant.

Read about another title on the list.

Q&A with Cat Rambo.

My Book, The Movie: You Sexy Thing.

The Page 69 Test: You Sexy Thing.

--Marshal Zeringue