Five novels about running away from one’s problems to join a space pirate crew

R.E. Stearns's new novel is Barbary Station. One of her five favorite books about running away from one’s problems to join a space pirate crew, as shared at Tor.com:

According to United States law, fan favorite and disabled hero Miles Vorkosigan gets his start at being a pirate in The Warrior’s Apprentice (Lois McMaster Bujold, 1986). Extend all of the “aircraft” terminology to “spacecraft,” here. The problem he was running from: flunking out of a military academy during wartime, because he wasn’t physically fit. In what is basically a military-based caste system, that’s a lot to escape from. What he ends up doing instead is creating his very own mercenary fleet, through wartime smuggling and other acts of necessary violence. This story may be chronologically first, but you can jump into the Vorkosigan Saga at any book. They’re all excellent.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Eryk Pruitt's "What We Reckon"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: What We Reckon by Eryk Pruitt.

About the book, from the publisher:

He’s snuck into Lufkin, Texas, in the dead of night with little more than a beat-up Honda, a hollowed-out King James Bible full of cocaine, and enough emotional baggage to sink a steam ship. He’s charming, dedicated, and extremely paranoid.

Summer Ashton, his partner-in-crime. She’s stuck by him through thick and thin, but lately her mind has begun to slip. They’ve told their fair share of lies and she’s having a devil of a time remembering what’s the truth. And recently, she’s been hearing voices. Unfortunately for both of them, she’s the brains of the operation.

Furthermore, they have begun to tire of one another.

For these two career grifters, the sleepy East Texas countryside is but another pit stop on their rampage across the American South.

Will it be their last?

In WHAT WE RECKON, Eryk Pruitt explores themes of identity, loyalty, and purpose with psycho-delic, transgressive, chicken-fried twists that read like Trainspotting cut with a couple grams of Helter Skelter.

Visit Eryk Pruitt's website.

My Book, The Movie: What We Reckon.

The Page 69 Test: What We Reckon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven stories in which women fight, win, and survive in horror

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Elsa Sjunneson-Henry tagged seven horror stories in which women are more than victims, including:

Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Cherie Priest

Eden Moore is the kind of Southern Gothic woman you shouldn’t mess with. She’s never alone, and the three ghosts who watch and warn her of trouble have always been there. Eden’s stories are creepy as hell, and the character never lets up—not when the Civil War comes to her door, nor when her aunt’s life is threatened, nor when the creek rises and her city is under threat. The ghosts of this series are vicious and violent, and have kept me awake at night.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Craig Schaefer's "Cold Spectrum," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Cold Spectrum by Craig Schaefer.

The entry begins:

Casting my own books is a trickier question than it sounds. I rarely envision my characters in terms of specific actors – I see them in a fuzzier, more mutable space – but it’s a fun challenge to try. Of course, when it comes to the Harmony Black series, one character casts herself; specifically, Nadine, one of Harmony’s most dangerous foes. Given that she canonically remodeled her human form to resemble Taylor Swift, that’s one role taken care of (and with it, half the movie’s casting budget, but this is all hypothetical so let’s go big or go home.)

As for Harmony’s other nemesis, the lime-sneaker-clad technophile billionaire Bobby Diehl, one perfect prospect jumps to mind: Tom...[read on]

Visit Craig Schaefer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Spectrum.

Writers Read: Craig Schaefer.

My Book, The Movie: Cold Spectrum.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Amy S. Foster reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Amy S. Foster, author of The Rift Frequency.

Her entry begins:

Okay, here’s the thing, I adore a cozy mystery. I am currently reading Lemon Pies and Little White Lies by Ellery Adams. It has everything I love in a cozy mystery. The protagonist is A) magic. The protagonists in these novels doesn’t always have to be magic but if she isn’t, she creates a homey space that feels magical. B) It takes place in a pie/tea shop. Most of these settings are businesses of this nature: yarn, book, fabric or vintage clothing stores, apothecaries, or they are self employed in some sort of supernatural job. Alternately, they do a lot of estate shopping for some reason? C) The victims are never anyone the protagonist knows very well. They are strangers or they were jerks who sort of deserved it. Either way...[read on]

About The Rift Frequency, from the publisher:

To save her love and unlock the mystery of who she is, a brave young woman must travel between alternate realities in The Rift Frequency, the exciting second book in Amy S. Foster's The Rift Uprising Trilogy.

She didn’t mean to, but...

Teenage super-solider Ryn Whittaker started an uprising.

For three years Ryn was stationed at The Battle Ground Rift site—one of the fourteen mysterious and unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths—and then she met Ezra Massad.

Falling in love and becoming a rebel Citadel wasn’t part of Ryn’s life plan, but with Ezra there asking all the right questions, they began to decode what’s really going on with the Allied Rift Coalition, and what they discovered was enough to start a civil war.

When the base explodes with infighting and Ezra gets caught in the fray, he is accidentally pushed through the Rift, taking a stolen laptop—and the answers it could give Ryn—with him.

Now all Ryn wants is to locate Ezra and get back to her Earth. But that’s not easy when she’s traveling the multiverse with Levi, the painfully guarded Citadel who shoved Ezra through in the first place. And Ryn is quickly learning that inside the multiverse there is no normal—it’s adapt, or die—and the one weapon she really needs to win the war back home is the truth.

Visit Amy Foster's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Rift Frequency.

Writers Read: Amy S. Foster.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten Protestants in fiction

Peter Stanford is the author of Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident. At the Guardian he tagged the top ten Protestants in fiction, including:

Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Mantel has won much acclaim for her rehabilitation of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son who rose to be Earl of Essex and, as Henry VIII’s right-hand man, gave the English version of the Reformation a much more Protestant shape than it might otherwise have taken. But her Cromwell, many historians insist, is a work of fiction, her emphasis on his humanity (his grief for his dead wife and daughters, even his loyalty to his one-time patron Cardinal Wolsey) distorting the reality of religious zeal and ruthless ambition that ultimately saw him meet the same fate on the scaffold as those he had mercilessly sacrificed in his climb to high office.

Read about another entry on the list.

Wolf Hall made Melissa Harrsion's ten top depictions of British rain, the Telegraph's list of the 21 greatest television adaptations of novels, BBC Culture's list of the 21st century’s twelve greatest novels, Ester Bloom's ten list of books for fans of the television series House of Cards, Rachel Cantor's list of the ten worst jobs in books, Kathryn Williams's reading list on pride, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of books on baby-watching in Great Britain, Julie Buntin's top ten list of literary kids with deadbeat and/or absent dads, Hermione Norris's 6 best books list, John Mullan's list of ten of the best cardinals in literature, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on dangerous minds and Lev Grossman's list of the top ten fiction books of 2009, and is one of Geraldine Brooks's favorite works of historical fiction; Matt Beynon Rees called it "[s]imply the best historical novel for many, many years."

Bring Up the Bodies is among Terry Stiastny’s ten top books about Westminster politics and Fiona Barton's ten favorite books centering on marriages that hold dark secrets. The position of Queen, in Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, is among Rachel Cantor's ten worst jobs in books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Carrie Jones's "Enhanced"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Enhanced: Flying Series (Volume 2) by Carrie Jones.

About the book, from the publisher:

The adventures of cheerleader-turned-alien-hunter Mana continue in this sequel to Flying by the New York Times bestselling author of Need, Carrie Jones.

Seventeen-year-old Mana has found and rescued her mother, but her work isn't done yet. Her mother may be out of alien hands, but she's in a coma, unable to tell anyone what she knows.

Mana is ready to take action. The only problem? Nobody will let her. Lyle, her best friend and almost-boyfriend (for a minute there, anyway), seems to want nothing to do with hunting aliens, despite his love of Doctor Who. Bestie Seppie is so desperate to stay out of it, she's actually leaving town. And her mom's hot but arrogant alien-hunting partner, China, is ignoring Mana's texts, cutting her out of the mission entirely.

They all know the alien threat won't stay quiet for long. It's up to Mana to fight her way back in.

Visit Carrie Jones's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Carrie Jones & Tala.

Writers Read: Carrie Jones.

My Book, The Movie: Enhanced.

The Page 69 Test: Enhanced.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Francesco Duina's "Broke and Patriotic"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country by Francesco Duina.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why are poor Americans so patriotic? They have significantly worse social benefits compared to other Western nations, and studies show that the American Dream of upward mobility is, for them, largely a myth. So why do these people love their country? Why have they not risen up to demand more from a system that is failing them?

In Broke and Patriotic, Francesco Duina contends that the best way to answer these questions is to speak directly to America's most impoverished. Spending time in bus stations, laundromats, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, public libraries, and fast food restaurants, Duina conducted over sixty revealing interviews in which his subjects explain how they view themselves and their country. He masterfully weaves their words into three narratives. First, America's poor still see their country as the "last hope" for themselves and the world: America offers its people a sense of dignity, closeness to God, and answers to most of humanity's problems. Second, America is still the "land of milk and honey:" a very rich and generous country where those who work hard can succeed. Third, America is the freest country on earth where self-determination is still possible.

This book offers a stirring portrait of the people left behind by their country and left out of the national conversation. By giving them a voice, Duina sheds new light on a sector of American society that we are only beginning to recognize as a powerful force in shaping the country's future.

Learn more about Broke and Patriotic at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Winning.

The Page 99 Test: Broke and Patriotic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to make you less stupid about the Civil War

"For the past 50 years, some of this country’s most celebrated historians have taken up the task of making Americans less stupid about the Civil War," writes Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic. One title from that effort:

Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee: Elizabeth Pryor’s biography of Lee, through Lee’s own words, helps part with a lot of stupid out there about Lee—chiefly that he was, somehow, “anti-slavery.” It dispenses with the boatload of stupid out there which hails the military genius of Lee while ignoring the world that all of that genius was actually trying to build.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Craig Schaefer reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Craig Schaefer, author of Cold Spectrum.

His entry begins:

On the fiction front, I’ve been digging into Mo Hayder. She’s been writing for years but she’s a delightful new discovery for me, and as typically happens when I find a new author I love, I pretty much have to put everything on hold and devour their catalog from start to finish. Her suspense novels are bitterly dark, gruesome, and chilling to the bone, with zero punches pulled. Check out The Devil of Nanking or Birdman, and...[read on]

About Cold Spectrum, from the publisher:

Criminologist Harmony Black is a witch with a loaded Glock. Her partner, Jessie Temple, is packing fierce lupine heat. Together, they’re part of Vigilant Lock, an elite FBI black ops group dedicated to defeating criminals with supernatural connections. But when they uncover a demonic conspiracy in the highest ranks of the government, it appears that everything Harmony and her friends have worked for, fought for, and risked their lives for might be a lie.
Framed for a casino massacre, Harmony and Jessie are on the run—in the real world and in their own. From the seedy casinos of Atlantic City to the steamy bayous of Louisiana and the imposing facades of Washington, DC, there’s not a soul on earth they can trust.

The only way they can clear their names is to take down the conspiracy from within and uncover the truth behind a secret that both the government and the powers of hell want to keep buried.

Visit Craig Schaefer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Spectrum.

Writers Read: Craig Schaefer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eryk Pruitt's "What We Reckon," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: What We Reckon by Eryk Pruitt.

The entry begins:

Enter Jack Jordan. He’s snuck into Lufkin, Texas, in the dead of night with little more than a beat-up Honda, a hollowed-out King James Bible full of cocaine, and enough emotional baggage to sink a steam ship. He’s charming, dedicated, and extremely paranoid.

Summer Ashton, his partner-in-crime. She’s stuck by him through thick and thin, but lately her mind has begun to slip. They’ve told their fair share of lies and she’s having a devil of a time remembering what’s the truth. And recently, she’s been hearing voices. Unfortunately for both of them, she’s the brains of the operation.

Furthermore, they have begun to tire of one another.

For these two career grifters...[read on]

Visit Eryk Pruitt's website.

My Book, The Movie: What We Reckon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-five of the most terrifying horror books

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged "twenty-five books that might not necessarily be the best horror novels, but are certainly the scariest," including:

Hell House, by Richard Matheson

What Matheson taps into in this classic haunted house story is the universal fear that we are already lost, already broken. Hired to investigate the existence of an afterlife by exploring the notoriously haunted Belasco House, a team moves in and slowly succumbs to the influence of the entity within—an entity that only uses their own weaknesses and secret shames against them. Their descent into the depths of horror is too close for comfort as a result—for everyone reading the book knows all too well that they have weaknesses, and secret shames, as well.

Read about another entry on the list.

Hell House is among Dell Villa's seven best haunted house books in literature and Ashley Brooke Roberts's seven best haunted house books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elizabeth Rosner's "Survivor Café"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory by Elizabeth Rosner.

About the book, from the publisher:

As survivors of many of the twentieth century’s most monumental events—the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Killing Fields—begin to pass away, Survivor Café addresses urgent questions: How do we carry those stories forward? How do we collectively ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten?

Elizabeth Rosner organizes her book around three trips with her father to Buchenwald concentration camp—in 1983, in 1995, and in 2015—each journey an experience in which personal history confronts both commemoration and memorialization. She explores the echoes of similar legacies among descendants of African American slaves, descendants of Cambodian survivors of the Killing Fields, descendants of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the effects of 9/11 on the general population. Examining current brain research, Rosner depicts the efforts to understand the intergenerational inheritance of trauma, as well as the intricacies of remembrance in the aftermath of atrocity. Survivor Café becomes a lens for numerous constructs of memory—from museums and commemorative sites to national reconciliation projects to small-group cross-cultural encounters.

Survivor Café offers a clear-eyed sense of the enormity of our twenty-first-century human inheritance—not only among direct descendants of the Holocaust but also in the shape of our collective responsibility to learn from tragedy, and to keep the ever-changing conversations alive between the past and the present.

Visit Elizabeth Rosner's website.

The Page 69 Test: Electric City.

The Page 99 Test: Survivor Café.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is S.F. Henson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: S.F. Henson, author of Devils Within.

Her entry begins:

I'm typically a monogamous reader, but I'm cheating a little right now and scandalously reading two books at once.

First, I'm currently re-reading 1984, by George Orwell. I hate being without a book, so I keep a couple in my car for emergency reading needs. I found myself alone at lunch one day recently, and without a book. I reached in the seat pocket of my car and was delighted to find 1984 shoved in there. It's been so long since I last read it that I'd forgotten some plot points that seem especially relevant to our current political climate. The particular copy that I'm reading is...[read on]

About Devils Within, from the publisher:

Killing isn’t supposed to be easy. But it is. It’s the after that’s hard to deal with.

Nate was eight the first time he stabbed someone; he was eleven when he earned his red laces—a prize for spilling blood for “the cause.” And he was fourteen when he murdered his father (and the leader of The Fort, a notorious white supremacist compound) in self-defense, landing in a treatment center while the state searched for his next of kin. Now, in the custody of an uncle he never knew existed, who wants nothing to do with him, Nate just wants to disappear.

Visit S.F. Henson's website.

Coffee with a Canine: S.F. Henson & Francie.

My Book, The Movie: Devils Within.

The Page 69 Test: Devils Within.

Writers Read: S.F. Henson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Craig Schaefer's "Cold Spectrum"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Cold Spectrum by Craig Schaefer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Criminologist Harmony Black is a witch with a loaded Glock. Her partner, Jessie Temple, is packing fierce lupine heat. Together, they’re part of Vigilant Lock, an elite FBI black ops group dedicated to defeating criminals with supernatural connections. But when they uncover a demonic conspiracy in the highest ranks of the government, it appears that everything Harmony and her friends have worked for, fought for, and risked their lives for might be a lie.
Framed for a casino massacre, Harmony and Jessie are on the run—in the real world and in their own. From the seedy casinos of Atlantic City to the steamy bayous of Louisiana and the imposing facades of Washington, DC, there’s not a soul on earth they can trust.

The only way they can clear their names is to take down the conspiracy from within and uncover the truth behind a secret that both the government and the powers of hell want to keep buried.

Visit Craig Schaefer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Spectrum.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Ware's six favorite books

Chris Ware's new book is Monograph.

One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy

Humanity's greatest author, famous for his symphonic War and Peace, also composed some of fiction's most practical chamber pieces. Family Happiness, which traces the blooming of young passion through giddy marriage to mature togetherness, is the story I most recommend to 20-somethings. It illuminates what's really happening when that first spark of infatuation begins to wane. Or, in Tolstoy's words, "Each time of life has its own kind of love."

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter Sahlins's "1668: The Year of the Animal in France"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: 1668: The Year of the Animal in France by Peter Sahlins.

About the book, from the publisher:

Peter Sahlins’s brilliant new book reveals the remarkable and understudied “animal moment” in and around 1668 in which authors (including La Fontaine, whose Fables appeared in that year), anatomists, painters, sculptors, and especially the young Louis XIV turned their attention to nonhuman beings. At the center of the Year of the Animal was the Royal Menagerie in the gardens of Versailles, dominated by exotic and graceful birds. In the unfolding of his original and sophisticated argument, Sahlins shows how the animal bodies of the menagerie and others were critical to a dramatic rethinking of governance, nature, and the human.

The animals of 1668 helped to shift an entire worldview in France—what Sahlins calls Renaissance humanimalism toward more modern expressions of classical naturalism and mechanism. In the wake of 1668 came the debasement of animals and the strengthening of human animality, including in Descartes’s animal-machine, highly contested during the Year of the Animal. At the same time, Louis XIV and his intellectual servants used the animals of Versailles to develop and then to transform the symbolic language of French absolutism. Louis XIV came to adopt a model of sovereignty after 1668 in which his absolute authority is represented in manifold ways with the bodies of animals and justified by the bestial nature of his human subjects.

1668 explores and reproduces the king’s animal collections—in printed text, weaving, poetry, and engraving, all seen from a unique interdisciplinary perspective. Sahlins brings the animals of 1668 together and to life as he observes them critically in their native habitats—within the animal palace itself by Louis Le Vau, the paintings and tapestries of Charles Le Brun, the garden installations of André Le Nôtre, the literary work of Charles Perrault and the natural history of his brother Claude, the poetry of Madeleine de Scudéry, the philosophy of René Descartes, the engravings of Sébastien Leclerc, the transfusion experiments of Jean Denis, and others. The author joins the nonhuman and human agents of 1668—panthers and painters, swans and scientists, weasels and weavers—in a learned and sophisticated treatment that will engage scholars and students of early modern France and Europe and readers broadly interested in the subject of animals in human history.

Learn more about 1668: The Year of the Animal in France at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: 1668: The Year of the Animal in France.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Karen Ranney reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Karen Ranney, author of The Texan Duke.

Her entry begins:

Unfortunately, I’ve been immersed in a lot of books on grief lately since I lost my beloved Sheltie, Flash, a few months ago to hemangiosarcoma. One of the best books I’ve read on the subject was: The Loss of a Pet - A Guide to Coping with the Grieving Process When a Pet Dies by Wallace Sife, Ph.D.

I’ve learned a great deal about the bonds we form with our pets from Dr. Sife. The process of grieving for a pet is as complicated and multi-faceted as the grief we feel for humans. My life is different without my constant companion by my side. He was a great writer’s dog, always keeping...[read on]

About The Texan Duke, from the publisher:

New York Times bestselling author Karen Ranney’s third book in her Duke series spins the tale of a reluctant duke who must choose between his life in America—and the Scottish woman he’s destined to love…

As the ward to the late Duke of Lothian, Elsbeth Carew resides at the ancestral estate of Bealadair. Fiercely attached to the manor, she loves it more than anyone else. When Connor McCraight—the new Duke of Lothian—arrives, Elsbeth does not quite know what to make of the American who has inherited the title but has never even set foot on Scottish soil. The tall, ruggedly handsome Texan sweeps through Bealadair with an air of authority Elsbeth has never encountered.

Connor has no intention of making Scotland his home and hopes to sell the estate as soon as possible. But his plan is jeopardized when he meets Elsbeth. A sweet, gray-eyed beauty, she tempts him in ways no other woman has. As word spreads of Connor’s intention to sell Bealadair, his life is threatened—and the only woman who can save him may be the one he has hopelessly lost his heart to.

Visit Karen Ranney's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Texan Duke.

Writers Read: Karen Ranney.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carrie Jones's "Enhanced," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Enhanced: Flying Series (Volume 2) by Carrie Jones.

The entry begins:

I almost always see scenes unfold in my head like movies or dreams when I write, but often I experience it from the main character’s point of view, more like I’m inhabiting that character especially when writing in the first person.

For Flying and Enhanced, I envision the character of Mana as mixed race and looking a bit like Maja Salvador or Kim Chiu. The film itself I see as a quirky mash-up between Captain America in terms of action and that buddy-flick feel combined with the ensemble teen aspects of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with some bizarre...[read on]

Visit Carrie Jones's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Carrie Jones & Tala.

Writers Read: Carrie Jones.

My Book, The Movie: Enhanced.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five YA novels featuring asexual protagonists

At the BN Teen blog, Nita Tyndall tagged five YA novels that feature protagonists who identify as asexual ("but what’s more important is the books don’t center around that fact"), including:

Tash Hearts Tolstoy, by Kathryn Ormsbee

This was honestly one of my favorite books to be published this year, and for good reason. If you like geeky, kinda-complicated romances with asexual protagonists, then this one is the perfect fit for you, too. Natasha “Tash” Zelenka is fine with the fact her web series based on Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina isn’t well-known—she just wants to make the best series possible with her friends (and crush). But when a shoutout from a famous YouTuber launches them into Internet fame, Tash gets way more than she bargained for. Now she’s having to deal with the ups and downs of fame, and she still has to figure out how to tell her crush she’s asexual.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: S.F. Henson's "Devils Within"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Devils Within by S.F. Henson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Killing isn’t supposed to be easy. But it is. It’s the after that’s hard to deal with.

Nate was eight the first time he stabbed someone; he was eleven when he earned his red laces—a prize for spilling blood for “the cause.” And he was fourteen when he murdered his father (and the leader of The Fort, a notorious white supremacist compound) in self-defense, landing in a treatment center while the state searched for his next of kin. Now, in the custody of an uncle he never knew existed, who wants nothing to do with him, Nate just wants to disappear.

Visit S.F. Henson's website.

Coffee with a Canine: S.F. Henson & Francie.

My Book, The Movie: Devils Within.

The Page 69 Test: Devils Within.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top lesser-known horror books

At The Week magazine Matthew Walther tagged ten terrifying horror books you may have never read, including:

The Ritual by Adam Nevill

I read this in one sitting last Saturday. The somewhat tired premise — four old college friends getting together for one last reunion in, uhhh, the uncharted wilderness of northwestern Sweden — is in many ways the least interesting thing about it. Nevill is successful precisely because he never works at being profound, does not attempt to "write," and keeps us turning the pages of the best story about the woods since Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo," to which it is a kind of spiritual sequel. The last quarter or so of the book departs radically from what has happened so far in a way that will tempt you to chuck it across the room. Do not give in. Nevill is a careful writer, and the ending — a real one that does not really arrive until the final sentence — is perfect.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Laura Engelstein's "Russia in Flames"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914-1921 by Laura Engelstein.

About the book, from the publisher:

October 1917, heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution, remains a defining moment in world history. Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state, debate continues over whether, as historian E. H. Carr put it decades ago, these earth-shaking days were a "landmark in the emancipation of mankind from past oppression" or "a crime and a disaster." Some things are clear. After the implosion of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty as a result of the First World War, Russia was in crisis-one interim government replaced another in the vacuum left by imperial collapse.

In this monumental and sweeping new account, Laura Engelstein delves into the seven years of chaos surrounding 1917 --the war, the revolutionary upheaval, and the civil strife it provoked. These were years of breakdown and brutal violence on all sides, punctuated by the decisive turning points of February and October. As Engelstein proves definitively, the struggle for power engaged not only civil society and party leaders, but the broad masses of the population and every corner of the far-reaching empire, well beyond Moscow and Petrograd.

Yet in addition to the bloodshed they unleashed, the revolution and civil war revealed democratic yearnings, even if ideas of what constituted "democracy" differed dramatically. Into that vacuum left by the Romanov collapse rushed long-suppressed hopes and dreams about social justice and equality. But any possible experiment in self-rule was cut short by the October Revolution. Under the banner of true democracy, and against all odds, the Bolshevik triumph resulted in the ruthless repression of all opposition. The Bolsheviks managed to harness the social breakdown caused by the war and institutionalize violence as a method of state-building, creating a new society and a new form of power.

Russia in Flames offers a compelling narrative of heroic effort and brutal disappointment, revealing that what happened during these seven years was both a landmark in the emancipation of Russia from past oppression and a world-shattering disaster. As regimes fall and rise, as civil wars erupt, as state violence targets civilian populations, it is a story that remains profoundly and enduringly relevant.

Learn more about Russia in Flames at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Russia in Flames.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five YA books featuring rebels with a cause

At the BN Teen blog, Jenny Kawecki tagged five YA novels featuring rebels with a cause, including:

North of Happy, by Adi Alsaid

Dual-citizen Carlos and his free-spirited brother Felix both love food. So when a night spent eating their way across Mexico City ends in a tragedy that leaves Felix dead and Carlos grieving, the only thing to do is drop everything and head to a restaurant in Washington state where Felix dreamed of eating. What starts as a desperate adventure turns into the chance at a new life when Carlos somehow lands a job at the restaurant—something his parents would hate, but Felix would love. Suddenly life seems good again, until Carlos is faced with choosing between his passion for cooking and a chance at a relationship. North of Happy is a smart, engaging read that’ll leave you mouthwateringly hungry and eager to try all the recipes Alsaid has thoughtfully included.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Margaret Duffy reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Margaret Duffy, author of Murders.com.

Her entry begins:

I haven’t read any fiction for a while as the following are wonderful books in which it would be criminal not to to immerse oneself.  I have been reading Peter Ackroyd’s The History of England. Right now I am on Volume Four, Revolution. This deals with events from the end of the reign of James the Second to the abdication of Napoleon. At the time, and having fled to France following the invasion of William of Orange, James didn’t think it was all over for him but it was. He had been what childrens’ history books would call A Bad King.

Of particular interest to U.S. readers would be the section on...[read on]

About Murders.com, from the publisher:

Patrick has a new desk job and seems to be out of harm's way ... but not for long.

Patrick has a new role, much to Ingrid Langley's relief. It seems like a safe desk job, but when the head of the Metropolitan Police's Commander Rolt is found barely alive, Patrick is pulled into frontline action. And when further, discoveries are made, Patrick and Ingrid are in danger yet again, hunting one of the Met's most-wanted criminals.

Visit Margaret Duffy's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murders.com.

My Book, The Movie: Murders.com.

Writers Read: Margaret Duffy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books featuring psychological hauntings

Sarah Porter is the author of the Lost Voices Trilogy (Lost Voices, Waking Storms, The Twice Lost) in addition to Vassa in the Night—all for the teen audience.

Her new novel is When I Cast Your Shadow.

One of Porter's five favorite books featuring psychological hauntings, as shared at Tor.com:

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Ghosts as repressed memory.

Ghosts often express a trauma that circles back, that insists on making itself known to the living—but that trauma usually belongs to the ghosts themselves, and not to those they haunt. In a striking shift, the ghosts of We Were Liars, while hardly content with their fate, have accepted the horror that killed them with surprising grace and resignation. It is their surviving friend, Cadence Sinclair, who has repressed all memory of the trauma she unleashed. The ghosts, with a decidedly unghostly gentleness, lead her to a confrontation with the past they all share.

Read about another entry on the list.

We Were Liars is among S. Jae-Jones's five top YA thrillers with a supernatural twist, Jeff Somers's six novels in which nothing is as it seems, Avery Hastings's five favorite books featuring unreliable narrators, Darren Croucher's five favorite YA novels featuring liars, Michael Waters's six must-read YA books for Mr. Robot fans, Lindsey Lewis Smithson's top seven sob-inducing books that deserve to be made into movies, Ruth Ware's top ten psychological thrillers, and Meredith Moore's five favorite YA thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg, 69: Amy S. Foster's "The Rift Frequency"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Rift Frequency by Amy S. Foster.

About the book, from the publisher:

To save her love and unlock the mystery of who she is, a brave young woman must travel between alternate realities in The Rift Frequency, the exciting second book in Amy S. Foster's The Rift Uprising Trilogy.

She didn’t mean to, but...

Teenage super-solider Ryn Whittaker started an uprising.

For three years Ryn was stationed at The Battle Ground Rift site—one of the fourteen mysterious and unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths—and then she met Ezra Massad.

Falling in love and becoming a rebel Citadel wasn’t part of Ryn’s life plan, but with Ezra there asking all the right questions, they began to decode what’s really going on with the Allied Rift Coalition, and what they discovered was enough to start a civil war.

When the base explodes with infighting and Ezra gets caught in the fray, he is accidentally pushed through the Rift, taking a stolen laptop—and the answers it could give Ryn—with him.

Now all Ryn wants is to locate Ezra and get back to her Earth. But that’s not easy when she’s traveling the multiverse with Levi, the painfully guarded Citadel who shoved Ezra through in the first place. And Ryn is quickly learning that inside the multiverse there is no normal—it’s adapt, or die—and the one weapon she really needs to win the war back home is the truth.

Visit Amy Foster's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Rift Frequency.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Linda Gordon's "The Second Coming of the KKK"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon.

About the book, from the publisher:

By legitimizing bigotry and redefining so-called American values, a revived Klan in the 1920s left a toxic legacy that demands reexamination today.

A new Ku Klux Klan arose in the early 1920s, a less violent but equally virulent descendant of the relatively small, terrorist Klan of the 1870s. Unknown to most Americans today, this "second Klan" largely flourished above the Mason-Dixon Line—its army of four-to-six-million members spanning the continent from New Jersey to Oregon, its ideology of intolerance shaping the course of mainstream national politics throughout the twentieth century.

As prize-winning historian Linda Gordon demonstrates, the second Klan’s enemies included Catholics and Jews as well as African Americans. Its bigotry differed in intensity but not in kind from that of millions of other WASP Americans. Its membership, limited to white Protestant native-born citizens, was entirely respectable, drawn from small businesspeople, farmers, craftsmen, and professionals, and including about 1.5 million women. For many Klanspeople, membership simultaneously reflected a protest against an increasingly urban society and provided an entrée into the new middle class.

Never secret, this Klan recruited openly, through newspaper ads, in churches, and through extravagant mass "Americanism" pageants, often held on Independence Day. These "Klonvocations" drew tens of thousands and featured fireworks, airplane stunts, children’s games, and women’s bake-offs—and, of course, cross-burnings. The Klan even controlled about one hundred and fifty newspapers, as well as the Cavalier Motion Picture Company, dedicated to countering Hollywood’s "immoral"—and Jewish—influence. The Klan became a major political force, electing thousands to state offices and over one hundred to national offices, while successfully lobbying for the anti-immigration Reed-Johnson Act of 1924.

As Gordon shows, the themes of 1920s Klan ideology were not aberrant, but an indelible part of American history: its "100% Americanism" and fake news, broadcast by charismatic speakers, preachers, and columnists, became part of the national fabric. Its spokespeople vilified big-city liberals, "money-grubbing Jews," "Pope-worshipping Irish," and intellectuals for promoting jazz, drinking, and cars (because they provided the young with sexual privacy).

The Klan’s collapse in 1926 was no less flamboyant, done in by its leaders’ financial and sexual corruption, culminating in the conviction of Grand Dragon David Stephenson for raping and murdering his secretary, and chewing up parts of her body. Yet the Klan’s brilliant melding of Christian values with racial bigotry lasted long after the organization’s decline, intensifying a fear of diversity that has long been a dominant undercurrent of American history.

Documenting what became the largest social movement of the first half of the twentieth century, The Second Coming of the Ku Klux Klan exposes the ancestry and helps explain the dangerous appeal of today’s welter of intolerance.

Visit Linda Gordon's website.

Writers Read: Linda Gordon.

The Page 99 Test: The Second Coming of the KKK.

--Marshal Zeringue

John Keyse-Walker's "Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed by John Keyse-Walker.

The entry begins:

Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed is the second book in the Teddy Creque mystery series. Like the first, it takes place in the British Virgin Islands, specifically on the islands of Anegada and Virgin Gorda. And, as with Sun, Sand, Murder, the location is almost a character in and of itself, so when I think of the books being turned into movies, the principle requirement in my mind is that the film be shot on location in those islands. Who knows, it might be easier to cast the film with quality actors when they know they will be working in a tropical paradise.

Denzel Washington would play main character Teddy Creque, a now older-but-wiser part-time cop, part-time fishing guide. He is the person I think of when I write the character.

Vanessa Williams seems fitting for the role of Jeanne Trengrouse, mother of child-witness Jemmy Trengrouse and Teddy’s...[read on]

Visit John Keyse-Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sun, Sand, Murder.

My Book, The Movie: Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about pastoral life

Rosamund Young is the author of The Secret Life of Cows.

One of her top ten books about pastoral life, as shared at the Guardian:

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

There’s no need for me to recount this novel’s tragic plot, which personifies the rape of the land and the negative side of mechanisation: reckless agricultural change that continues in environmental degradation and food crises. Hardy contrasts the “fatness and warm ferments” of the pastoral vale where Tess finds happiness, with the “blank agricultural brownness” of ploughed croplands where her life begins to unravel. In the vale with its “Great Dairies”, the cows Dumpling and Old Pretty prefer Tess’s soft hands to those of other dairymaids – a telling reminder, not only that dairy farmers in the past recognised their cows as individuals, but also that the cows in turn recognised people as individuals.

Read about another entry on the list.

Tess of the D’urbervilles is among Lisa Drakeford's top ten teen YA books about teen pregnancy and Joanna Biggs's top ten books about working life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Karen Ranney's "The Texan Duke"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Texan Duke by Karen Ranney.

About the book, from the publisher:

New York Times bestselling author Karen Ranney’s third book in her Duke series spins the tale of a reluctant duke who must choose between his life in America—and the Scottish woman he’s destined to love…

As the ward to the late Duke of Lothian, Elsbeth Carew resides at the ancestral estate of Bealadair. Fiercely attached to the manor, she loves it more than anyone else. When Connor McCraight—the new Duke of Lothian—arrives, Elsbeth does not quite know what to make of the American who has inherited the title but has never even set foot on Scottish soil. The tall, ruggedly handsome Texan sweeps through Bealadair with an air of authority Elsbeth has never encountered.

Connor has no intention of making Scotland his home and hopes to sell the estate as soon as possible. But his plan is jeopardized when he meets Elsbeth. A sweet, gray-eyed beauty, she tempts him in ways no other woman has. As word spreads of Connor’s intention to sell Bealadair, his life is threatened—and the only woman who can save him may be the one he has hopelessly lost his heart to.

Visit Karen Ranney's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Texan Duke.

--Marshal Zeringue