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P UBLISHERS W EEKLY . COM N OVEMBER 1 9 , 2 0 1 8

Volume 265 November 19, Number 47 2018 ISSN 0000-0019

F e a t u r e s 22 Morbid Curiosity Violent crime and the people who commit it continue to fascinate readers. 34 Believe the Women New thrillers take inspiration from issues raised by and relevant to the #MeToo movement. 44 Writing the Impossible Karen Thompson Walker’s second novel, The Dreamers, follows the spread of a mysterious sleeping sickness. 47–68 BookLife Six BookLife Prize judges offer tips for aspiring indie authors.

N e w s 4 Publishing Honors Its Best The 2018 National Book Awards were presented at a gala in Manhattan last week, and a diverse slate of first-time nominees took home medals. 5 Sales Slip in Early November Unit sales of print books fell 5.3% in the week ended November 10 compared to the similar week last year, with all categories except young adult down. 8 Lightning Source Turns 20 The print-on-demand company, which launched in 1998 at an Ingram warehouse in Tennessee, now has overseas operations and offers the latest in digital printing. 10 South Korean Booksellers Face Slump Retailers in the country say book sales have been declining steadily over the past decade, and they’re looking for ways to stem the tide. 12 Deals Nina Simone’s daughter, Lisa Simone, sells her story; HC invests in a Dutch novel; Susan Wiggs re-ups for seven figures at William Morrow; and more.

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WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 1 Contents

D e p a r t m e n t s & C o l u m n s 20 Library News The Cuyahoga County Public Library’s writer-in-residence program shows the library’s increasingly critical role in our literary ecosystem. 96 Soapbox by Harry Bingham An indie author says that reports of fiction’s decline are greatly exaggerated.

B e s t s e l l e r s

● Adult Hardcovers 15 ● Adult Paperbacks 16 ● Children’s 17 ● Apple Books 18 ● International 19

R e v i e w s

Fiction Nonfiction 69 General Fiction 82 General Nonfiction 72 Poetry 87 Lifestyle 74 Mystery/Thriller 79 SF/Fantasy/Horror Children’s 80 Romance/Erotica 90 Picture Books 81 Comics 91 Fiction

83 Q&A with Edward Humes 72 Boxed Review Trust Exercise 92–93 Reviews Roundup Religion for young readers 85 Q&A with Michael Mewshaw

PW Publishers Weekly USPS 763-080 (ISSN 0000-0019) is published weekly, except for the last week in December. Published by PWxyz LLC, 71 West 23rd Street, Suite 1608, New York, NY 10010. George Slowik Jr., President; Cevin Bryerman, Publisher. Circulation records are maintained at ESP, 12444 Victory Boulevard, 4th Floor, North Hollywood, CA 91606. Phone: (800) 278-2991 or +001 (818) 487-2069 from outside the U.S. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Publishers Weekly, P.O. Box 16957, North Hollywood, CA 91615-6957. PW PUBLISHERS WEEKLY copyright 2018 by PWxyz LLC. Rates for one-year subscriptions in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank: U.S. $289.99, Canada: $339.99, all other countries: $439.99. Except for special issues where price changes are indicated, single copies are available for $9.99 US; $16.99 for Announcement issues. Extra postage applied for non-U.S. shipping addresses. Please address all subscription mail to Publishers Weekly, P.O. Box 16957, North Hollywood, CA 91615-6957. PW PUBLISHERS WEEKLY is a (registered) trademark of PWxyz LLC. Canadian Publications Mail Agreement No. 42025028. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: IMS, 3390 Rand Road, South Plainfield, NJ 07080 E-mail: [email protected]. PRINTED IN THE USA.

2 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 ONLINE & ON-AIR

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Retail Association hopes to both liven up the discusses his contribution to Sharing the From the industry and attract retailers with lower annual Wisdom of Time, a collection of stories from Newsletters membership dues and innovative programs. Pope Francis and other elders from around publishersweekly.com/bobmunce the world. Tip Sheet publishersweekly.com/garyjansen Samantha Harvey, author of The Western Podcasts Wind, examines how novelists solve Blogs problems when writing historical fiction. Week Ahead publishersweekly.com/samanthaharvey PW senior writer Andrew Albanese reflects on ShelfTalker Children’s Bookshelf the National Book Awards and how Michelle A book buyer shares how Obama’s blockbuster memoir might jump-start bookstores can go beyond YA author Sarah Dessen has what is expected to be a strong holiday Sherman Alexie when selling moved to HarperCollins. season for bookstores. books by Native American publishersweekly.com/ publishersweekly.com/weekahead authors. sarahdessen publishersweekly.com/ More to Come beyondalexie Global Rights Report Writer Jason Sacks talks about his new book, Erin Morgenstern, author of the 2011 best- American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s, seller The Night Circus, sold North American and about comics in the ’90s, from the Image PW Insider rights to The Starless Sea to Jenny Jackson explosion to “Marvelcution.” He also talks at Doubleday. about running the Comics Bulletin website. This year’s National publishersweekly.com/erinmorgenstern publishersweekly.com/moretocome Book Awards were BookLife Report unique for many LitCast reasons. PW Michelle Argyle at Melissa Williams Design We interview scientist Daniel Botkin about associate news reimagines the cover of Spinning by indie his novel Tsavo, which presents differing author Janine Kovac. perspectives on wildlife conservation. editor John Maher recaps the event, publishersweekly.com/janinekovac publishersweekly.com/danielbotkin and deputy reviews editor Gabe Habash talks about the books. Religion BookLine FaithCast publishersweekly.com/pwinsider10 Bob Munce of the newly formed Christian Gary Jansen, an author at Loyola Press,

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 3 News crampton Publishing Honors Its Best nancy

The 69th National Book Awards were presented at © photos

a gala in Manhattan last week, and a diverse slate nba

of first-time nominees took home medals all

t the 2018 National Book Awards ceremony, held at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan on November 14, much of the political fervor A underpinning the past two ceremonies was again on display. The evening began with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, given to Doron Weber, v-p and program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In his speech, Weber said he Elizabeth Acevedo won the award Jeffrey C. Stewart took home the award was especially proud of his ability to use Sloan funding to for Young People’s Literature. in the nonfiction category. support women writers and writers from marginalized communities. “I don’t have to remind you that, especially today, we need to safeguard creative freedom for writers of every stripe,” he said. “We must defend their rights, or lose them.” The second lifetime achievement award of the evening, the Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters, was awarded to Chilean-American author Isabel Allende, the first Spanish-language author and second not born in the United States to receive the award. Allende, in an emotional speech, accepted the award Isabel Allende was given the Medal for “on behalf of millions of people like myself Sigrid Nunez (r.), fiction winner, with her editor, Sarah Distinguished Contribution to American McGrath of Riverhead Books. Letters. who have come to this country in search of a new life.” She then added, “This is a dark time, my friends. woman, as a Latina, as a person whose accent holds certain It is a time of war in many places and potential war every- neighborhoods, whose body holds certain stories.” where—a time of nationalism and racism. I write to preserve The winner of the first National Book Award in Translated memory against the ocean of oblivion and to bring people Literature was Yoko Tawada for The Emissary, translated together. I believe in the power of stories.” from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani. Tawada could not The five category prizes each went to first-time nominees, be in New York for the ceremony, so a representative of the and all went to writers of color. Elizabeth Acevedo, author of author, writer Monique Truong, read a note from her: “I think The Poet X, won the National Book Award for Young People’s it’s great that the translated literature category for the Literature. “I walk through the world with a chip on my National Book Awards has been resurrected.” (There was, shoulder,” she said in her acceptance speech. “I go into so once, a National Book Award for Translation, which was cut many spaces where I feel like I have to prove that I’m allowed in 1983.) “Translation,” the note continued, “gives a book to be in that space—as a child of immigrants, as a black wings to fly across national borders.”

4 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 News The Weekly Scorecard Unit Sales Dropped 5.3% in Early November Unit sales of print books fell 5.3% in the week ended Nov. 10, 2018, compared to the similar week in 2017, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Sales were down in all major categories except for young adult. The widespread decline is likely due in part to distractions caused by the midterm elections that were held on November 6. Last year at this time, there was no particular blockbuster that drove overall unit gains. The top-selling overall title in the week ended Nov. 11, 2017, was The Getaway (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12) by Jeff Kinney, which sold more than 203,000 copies in its first week. In the week ended Nov. 10, 2018, Whose Boat Is This? by the staff of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was the #1 title, selling about 209,000 copies in its first full week out. That performance was not enough to prevent unit sales in the adult nonfiction seg- Monique Truong (l.) accepted the translated literature award on behalf of ment from falling 4.3% compared to 2017. The segment also Yoko Tawada. With her are translator Margaret Mitsutani and Harold had another strong seller: Homebody by Joanna Gaines, which Augenbraum, past NBA executive director and presenter of the new award. sold nearly 94,000 copies, but sales of other top titles were soft. Unit sales of adult and juvenile fiction both fell 6.7% compared to 2017. The juvenile category was affected by the debut last year of The Getaway. The #1 seller in the category this year was Kinney’s The Meltdown, which sold just under 150,000 copies in its second week. In adult fiction, the #1 seller in the most recent week was Past Tense by Lee Child, which sold almost 70,000 copies. Last year, Child’s The Midnight Line sold close to 77,000 copies. Sales of juvenile nonfiction fell 5.8% compared to 2017.

TOTAL SALES OF PRINT BOOKS (in thousands)

NOV. 11, NOV. 10, CHGE CHGE 2017 2018 WEEK YTD Total 13,128 12,427 -5.3% 1.6% Justin Phillip Reed, winner of the poetry award, with his editor, Erika Stevens of Coffee House Press. UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY CATEGORY (in thousands) NOV. 11, NOV. 10, CHGE CHGE Poetry winner Justin Phillip Reed accepted the award for 2017 2018 WEEK YTD Indecency in honor of his grandfather. “I am standing here Adult Nonfiction 5,138 4,915 -4.3% 4.5% with ancestral hands on my shoulders still not knowing what Adult Fiction 2,427 2,264 -6.7% -4.7 to make of this epithet, ‘winner of the National Book Award Juvenile Nonfiction 1,130 1,064 -5.8% 6.2% for Poetry.’ ” Juvenile Fiction 3,531 3,293 -6.7% 0.5% Jeffrey C. Stewart, the winner of this year’s award in nonfic- Young Adult Fiction 335 337 0.3% -3.7% tion, for The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, said he was Young Adult Nonfiction 33 36 7.3% 8.6% shocked. “I have to say, it’s unbelievable to me that the scholars (in th\sands) and readers chose this book, and that the National Book UNIT SALES OF PRINT BOOKS BY FORMAT NOV. 10, NOV. 11, CHGE CHGE Foundation exists—especially in the times we live in, in which 2017 2018 WEEK YTD many people just don’t read,” Stewart said. Hardcover 4,367 4,141 -5.2% 5.0% The final award, for fiction, went to Sigrid Nunez for her Trade Paperback 6,344 5,932 -6.5% -0.3% book The Friend. “I became a writer not because I was seeking Mass Market Paperback 1,003 918 -8.5% -2.8% community but rather because I thought it was something I Board Books 725 763 5.2% 9.5% could do alone, and hidden, in the privacy of my own room,” Audio 60 40 -33.7% -27.1% she said. “How lovely to realize that writing books made the miraculous possible: to be removed from the world and to be SOURCE: NPD BOOKSCAN AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. NPD’S U.S. CONSUMER MARKET PANEL COV- part of the world at the same time. And tonight, how happy I ERS APPROXIMATELY 80% OF THE PRINT BOOK MARKET AND CONTINUES TO GROW. am to be part of the world.” —John Maher

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 5 Open a new story Discover a new universe

1946 Sailing Through the Storms The Early Years A True Story of Wealth, Extraordinary Success of Seizures A Memoir and Great Tragedy Living with Epilepsy, Recovering from Brain Rachel G. Carrington Diana Gillmor Surgery, and Being a Caregiver When a young girl falls in love with a broken Julie and Monica A real life early 20th Century Gatsby couple Jon Sadler World War II veteran, the unlikely pair Hope Behind the Tears leads a life surrounded by world wars, historic Jon provides hope to others dealing with must overcome struggles and hurdle life’s inventions and famous friends as unthinkable seizure disorders by sharing his experience. In obstacles. A true story of love, dedication, David Allen Smith, M.D. tragedy and ultimate betrayal quietly stalks this book, he provides the perspective of the and God’s providence. their family. child, student, father, and caregiver, who are $18.95 paperback $20.99 paperback living with epilepsy. 978-1-4917-6567-8 978-1-5462-1481-6 $15.99 paperback also available in hardcover, ebook & also available in hardcover & ebook 978-1-9845-3112-4 audio book www.authorhouse.com also available in hardcover & ebook www.iuniverse.com Julie and Monica is the story of two women www.xlibris.com who face a similar crisis: the loss of a baby. When the two meet by chance at a mall, neither realize what this meeting will reveal Light of the Desert The Cartel Walking on a Moonbeam about their own lives and how it will affect Lucette Walters Dennis Charles Aggers And Other Views from the Creek Bank their future—but both can sense they will soon In Light of the Desert, readers follow Noora’s In this vivid portrayal of the criminal Bill McDonald find hope behind the tears. riveting story as villainous injustice engulfs her underworld, author Dennis Charles Aggers Walking on a Moonbeam is Bill McDonald’s first life and she is forced to take a dangerous path weaves an action-packed novel that reveals book. It is a collection of poems written during $20.95 paperback striving one day to prove her innocence and how revenge and envy could come in all his career as an engineer/scientist working in 978-1-9736-0485-3 brings untruth into the light. shapes and sizes. the US space and national defense programs. paperback paperback also available in ebook $26.49 $23.99 $15.99 paperback 978-1-4259-7748-1 978-1-4931-0399-7 978-1-5434-3093-6 www.westbowpress.com also available in hardcover & ebook also available in ebook also available in ebook www.authorhouse.com www.xlibris.com www.xlibris.com

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Sexiful Rose II Perfect Witness Alfred the Monarch Butterfly God Threw Me Back Back with a Vengeance Richard Cody Jerlene Crawford Hales A Child Survives War in Sudan Clara Williams President of the Baltic Peoples Republic, This is a story about the experiences of families Gatluk G. Digiew She is back in court, fully ready to fight to Marshal Jurgis Tievas returns to Gdainys to from different cultures and languages as This memoir of Gatluk G. Digiew charts his bring her sexy man back home, where he find himself besieged by domestic enemies. told through the adventures of the southern story as a little boy when Civil War erupts in belongs. La’Roc soon will be back in Shawn’s Moreover, he lives a secret that may prove monarch butterflies as they migrate to South Sudan. Gatluk is a voice for the battered arms one more time. fatal to him. northern Mexico. children of war. $19.99 paperback $19.99 paperback $24.99 paperback $13.99 paperback 978-1-5434-5444-4 978-1-4415-8240-9 978-1-9845-1766-1 978-1-5462-4245-1 also available in hardcover & ebook also available in hardcover & ebook also available in hardcover & ebook also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com www.xlibris.com www.xlibris.com www.authorhouse.com

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Real Authors, Real Impact Visit us on Facebook & Twitter News AWARD WINNING Lightning Source Turns 20 ohn Ingram, chairman of Ingram would question the difference in qual- MYSTERY Content Group, said his inspira- ity.” But, he noted, as results started Jtion to create what would become coming in and publishers were able to CLASSICS Lightning Source occurred after he keep backlist titles in stock indefi- attended a BookExpo America show nitely while growing their sales, they in the mid 1990s where Xerox was began to embrace POD. Lightning showing off its DocuTech Source printed its one mil- machine, a huge printer lionth book in 2000, and, as that could quickly produce publishers and authors a single copy of a book. started coming aboard at a Back at Ingram’s LaVergne, more rapid clip, it printed Tenn., warehouse, he its 10 millionth book just asked Y.S. Chi, who was three years later. then the company’s CEO, As Lightning Source and “Why in the world are we POD began to be accepted John Ingram wallpapering the ware- in the U.S., Ingram opened house with books? Wouldn’t it be bet- its first overseas operation in the U.K. “My one single favorite book ter to store a digital file and print a book in 2001. Lightning Source now owns of the year.” — Anthony Boucher, when there was demand?” print and distribution centers in Milton Edgar Award-winning critic for The New York Times Book Review Chi took his boss’s suggestion to Keynes, U.K., and Melbourne, Austra- heart and hired Larry Brewster to lia, and is in a joint venture with Trade Paper | 9780486825618 | $14.95 develop a business model. In 1998, Hachette Livre in France. Ingram upped Lightning Source printed its first book: its international presence again in Hanged Man, published by Kensington. 2011 when it launched Global Connect, That first book was printed as a a program in which Lightning Source black-and-white paperback in partners with companies abroad that LaVergne. Twenty years later Lightning offer print-on-demand and distribution Source has plants in Fresno, Calif.; Fair- services. Lightning Source currently field, Ohio; and Breinigsville, Pa., in has deals in place with companies in addition to its LaVergne location. At all eight countries, and under the pro- sites, Lightning Source’s digital plat- gram, a publisher in the U.S. or U.K. can form consists exclusively of HP Page- send a file to a Lightning Source part- Wide HD color and mono presses, said ner, who will print and ship the book in Kelly Gallagher, v-p, content acquisi- its country and conduct the transaction Congratulations to tion for the Ingram Content Group, in local currency. allowing Lightning Source to print color In 2008, the Lightning Source print “A brilliant novel on international John Carreyrou fi nance ... you will have serious trouble and hardcover books. library surpassed the one-million-title putting this book down.” — Forbes Gallagher acknowledged that Light- mark for the first time, and, 10 years Winner of the 2018 Business Book of the Year Award Trade Paper | 9780486828114 | $14.95 ning Source was not an immediate suc- later, the company’s global catalogue cess: “In the first few years, the print-on- exceeds 15 million titles, Gallagher John Carreyrou’s book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley demand concept had a slow ramp-up, said. Lightning Source’s title count has Startup, is the winner of this annual award which recognizes “the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including as publishers tried to wrap their heads grown, in part, because the subsidiary management, fi nance and economics”. www.doverdirect.com/mystery around the idea of new concepts like has evolved its business to keep pace ‘inventory free’ and ‘print to order,’ with industry changes. According to For more information on the winning book and award fi nalists, please visit: along with a belief that the consumer Gallagher, Lightning Source’s clients www.ft.com/bookaward

#BBYA18 8 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 News

come from all publishing segments Lightning Source has also been front But, he added, its new equipment is and include publishers of all sizes— and center in the self-publishing boom. perfectly able to handle print runs into from single-book authors to the world’s Gallagher noted that, though Light- the thousands. largest publisher. “We also support ning Source always worked with small For all of Lightning Source’s success, frontlist bestsellers where the pub- presses and self-published authors, John Ingram believes that most publisher suddenly discovers it is out of the launch five years ago of lishers are only using a fraction of what stock and needs a GAP printing, which IngramSpark, which is aimed at indie POD has to offer. “If I could tell publish- is a backup print/distribution service authors, “has brought our engagement ers one thing, it would be to give us a file for titles that should be physically with independent and self-publishers of every book they have,” he said. “That available but run out of stock due to to a whole new level.” way, when something happens and a demand shocks,” he noted. As Lightning Source has grown and book unexpectedly becomes in Steve Zacharius, who helped facili- changed, one thing that remains the demand, we can quickly fill immediate tate the printing of Hanged Man and is same is its basic functionality: the abil- orders while the publisher develops a now president of Kensington, said ity to print one copy of a book at a time. larger printing plan.” Kensington uses Lightning Source like Asked whether there is such a thing as Ingram said he is excited by the suc- most publishers: “We use it for short an average print run, Gallagher cess of Lightning Source (“It is an impor- runs to cover books temporarily out of observed, “As a print-on-demand tant, serious business for us”) because stock or to keep the book available printer and distributor, Lightning he likes businesses that are incentiv- when there’s not enough demand to do Source is engineered to print efficiently ized to be aligned with its clients’ needs. a full offset printing. We also, of course, to a unit of one, so our average print run “We only do well if our clients do well,” use it for ARCs.” is actually not much more than that.” he added. —Jim Milliot

Congratulations to John Carreyrou

Winner of the 2018 Business Book of the Year Award

John Carreyrou’s book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, is the winner of this annual award which recognizes “the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, ﬁ nance and economics”.

For more information on the winning book and award ﬁ nalists, please visit: www.ft.com/bookaward

#BBYA18 News In South Korea, Booksellers Look for Ways to Compete alking through the front suffered slowing sales for nearly a Kyobo Book Center in doors of Seoul’s Kyobo decade, and the fear is that smaller Seoul, the flagship of the Kyobo chain, is W Book Center, the best- stores will begin to close. Like the U.S., often bustling. But known bookstore in South Korea, the South Korea saw a boom in bookstore Kyobo’s CEO says first thing I see are two 40-foot-long chains in the 1980s. In addition to book sales in South Korea have been in tables, each made of 45,000-year-old Kyobo, Aladdin, Bandi/Lunis, Yes24, steady decline. Kauri wood from New Zealand. On a and YP Books have multiple locations rainy Thursday afternoon in Novem- across the country. Though fixed book ber, there are nearly 100 people price laws have helped bricks-and-mor- seated at the tables reading, working tar stores compete against online the fixed book on computers, and swiping at cell retailers and keep revenue somewhat price law to close phones. stable, booksellers complain that there the discounting With 10 stores across the country, are numerous loopholes that enable loopholes. Other Kyobo is one of the most established rampant discounting. Meanwhile, priorities include bookstore chains in South Korea. The online shopping has become increas- working with pub- flagship Book Center store, in Seoul’s ingly popular, and bookstores are lishers to estab- historic center, is spread across numer- investing heavily in technology to hold lish a consistent ous floors of a skyscraper owned by its on to customers. And Aladdin and discount structure for bookstores that parent company, the Kyobo insurance Yes24 have expanded into sales of does not favor the chains; moderniz- company. The Book Center covers used books. ing book distribution, which remains more than 100,000 sq. ft. of retail To help shore up booksellers’ morale, fractured and inefficient in many parts space and stocks some 210,000 the South Korean government began of the country; and assisting indepen- titles—of which 14,000 are in English sponsoring a national bookstore day dent bookstores in their efforts to and another 10,000 are in Japanese last year; it was held for the second time remodel their stores and make them and other languages. Though the on November 9. “The idea is to help more competitive. store is teeming with activity on my cheer up booksellers and remind them Though the resolutions were met visit, not all is well. how important they are to the country,” with enthusiastic applause, KFBA “Book sales in Korea are steadily in said Deachoon Park, chairman of the seems to be at a point similar to where decline, of 3%–4% a year,” said Han Korea Federation of Bookstore Asso- the American Booksellers Association Woo Lee, CEO of Kyobo, who blamed ciation (KFBA). This year’s event was a decade or more ago, when it was the ubiquity of high-speed internet as included an academic conference on losing members. At the preconference one reason for the decline. the future of bookselling, as well as an academic seminar, in which PW par- That theory was echoed by Julie Han, award ceremony and lunch, at which ticipated, booksellers were looking to professor of media and publishing at more than a dozen booksellers were the Americans and Europeans on how Seoil University. “Koreans have con- honored for their contributions to cul- to revive interest in book buying. stant access to high-speed internet, ture and bestowed with the title “proud Some of the concepts that garnered and if you go into the subway, for exam- bookseller.” Writers were also hon- the best response were the ideas of ple, you will see people are often on ored, with Eun-Young Choi, author of introducing “buy local” campaigns and their phones sending messages, play- the bestselling story collection Shoko’s pushing bookstores into serving as ing games, or watching videos. Reading Smile, named author of the year. community hubs. is not their first choice.” The problem As part of the celebration, KFBA’s has become so pervasive that some Park read a multipart declaration out- Speculating on reunification bookstores put out signs that read, lining the priorities of the organization One opportunity for growth booksellers “Turn on a book, turn off your phone.” for the coming year. The top goal, Park foresee is finding new book buyers in Booksellers across South Korea have said, is to convince politicians to amend North Korea—should reconciliation

10 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 News

lishing industry, but in a way one might ation between the two Koreas, specu- In South Korea, Booksellers Look for Ways to Compete not anticipate: it has turned many lators and investors have driven up publishers into real estate barons. In property prices in Paju, which will nawotka the early 2000s, the South Korean gov- serve as the gateway city for trade ed

by ernment established Paju Book City, a should the border open. Though the

photo special economic enclave for publish- overall complex is owned by the Minis- ers, as a way to shield them from try of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, ten- Seoul’s rising rents and establish a cre- ant publishers paying below-market ative business cluster. Paju is 20 miles rates are looking into subletting their north of Seoul, close to the 38th paral- unused space. lel and the border with North Korea, “The rents there are soaring,” said and, at the time Paju Book City was one publisher who requested ano- established, there were few ameni- nymity. “With the book business the ties. To entice publishers to move way it is, a lot of publishers are joking there, the government offered them that they would be better off being cheap, long-term leases. Today, more landlords than publishers. They are than 150 publishing houses are based hoping for reunification not necessar- there, and some 10,000 people work ily because they think they can sell in the district, which has also become more books but because they might between the two nations ever happen. popular with young families. be able to get rich off their real estate.” German publishing consultant Holger Now, with the potential for reconcili- —Ed Nawotka Eling spoke at the seminar and noted that one thing to keep in mind is that the North Koreans won’t have much money. “What the Germans did was take truckloads of remainders from West Germany and sell them in the east once reunification happened,” he said, referring to the reunification of Germany in 1990. The possibility of reconciliation has also had a positive effect on the pub- Call for Information

Feature: Winter Institute Supplement Issue Date: Jan. 14 Deadline: Dec. 5 For a feature on Winter Institute 14, publishers are asked to send list of the authors they’re bringing to the conference to Judith Rosen ([email protected]). For each author, include title, publisher, pub month, price, and why you’re excited about the book (75 words max direct quote, attributed to a specific editor or publicist), the opening sentence, plus publicity and marketing plans, including size of first printing. For children’s titles, please indicate the category (picture book, middle grade, or YA) and the age group. DEALS By Rachel Deahl MOVIE DEALS DEAL OF THE WEEK ● Samira Ahmed’s Internment ■ Simone’s ‘Child’ Finds a Home at Hachette (Little, Brown, Mar. 2019) has been Lisa Simone, daughter of jazz singer Nina Simone, sold world rights to her optioned by the Gotham Group and memoir, tentatively titled Child in Me, to Krishan Trotman at Hachette Books. Chariot Entertainment. Kim Yau did Simone, a performer in her own right—she has released a the sale for Eric Smith at P.S. Literary. number of CDs and appeared on Broadway in hits such as The agency said the near-future YA Rent and Aida—chronicles her tumultuous childhood and depicts a world where “Muslim relationship with her mother, as well as the path she forged Americans are forced into an intern- to build her own career. Jason Anthony at Massie & photography ment camp, and a 17-year-old must McQuilkin, who represented Simone, said the book will fineart fight against Islamaphobia.” [PW] , chronicle how she “did not experience the privilege and open ● ducap Reed King’s SF novel FKA USA doors one might expect” and how she “carved her own path... philip (Flatiron, June 2019) has been after tumultuous teen years of nomadic existence.” Simone © optioned by Warner Bros. for seven Simone is writing the book with journalist Samantha Marshall. figures. Inkwell Management’s Stephen Barbara, who sold the book ■ Disney Channel Star to Crown in December 2016, pitched it as Skai Jackson, star of such Disney Channel shows as Bunk’d “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Jessie, sold Reach for the Skai to Crown for six figures for the American end of times.” at auction. The middle grade book, subtitled How to Inspire, [Deadline] Empower and Clapback, will, Crown said, explore the author’s “lessons on life and rise to stardom, as well as the INTERNATIONAL negative experiences that sometimes come with living in maxwell DEALS the spotlight.” Samantha Gentry took world rights to the antwon book, slated for fall 2019, from Alyssa Reuben at the Para- ● Marco Balzano’s Resto qui © (I’m Staying Here), published in Jackson digm Talent Agency. Jackson, known as an activist as well Italy in 2018, sold at auction to as an actress, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award Neil Belton at Head of Zeus in the in 2016. U.K. Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, who ■ Dutton Checks Beckman’s “Math” has an eponymous shingle, han- In a North American rights acquisition, Stephen Morrow dled the sale. The agency said the at Dutton bought Milo Beckman’s Math Without Numbers. novel follows the people of the The author is a journalist for FiveThirtyEight and, per village of Curon, who “fought for Dutton, was named one of Harvard’s “Fifteen Most Inter- beckman years against war and devastation esting Seniors” in 2015. Also a crossword puzzle maker for milo

to ensure their beloved land was © the New York Times, Beckman will offer a “conversational not torn apart.” [PW] Beckman guide to the very highest levels of abstract mathematics.” ● James Meek’s nonfiction Jay Mandel at William Morris Endeavor sold the title, which work about Brexit, Dreams of is set for fall 2020. Leaving and Remaining, has been acquired by Leo Hollis at Verso ■ Wasserman Gets “Paid” at Gallery Books in the U.K. The publisher, Claire Wasserman, founder of the organization Ladies Get which took world English rights to Paid, sold a same-titled book to Karyn Marcus at Gallery. the title, called it a “masterly The personal finance title will, the Simon & Schuster imprint portrait of an anxious nation”; it explained, be “an empowering guide that provides women plans to publish in March 2019. real tools and insight to strategically navigate the work- [The Bookseller] Wasserman place, achieve career success, and become leaders at their

12 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 News

organizations.” Marcus preempted North American rights to the book, set for spring 2020, from Alexandra Machinist BEHIND THE DEAL at ICM Partners. The Ladies Get Paid group has, Gallery After a flurry of seven-figure- said, roughly 30,000 members. deal action at Amazon Publishing’s Thomas & Mercer ■ Alexander “Volunteers” for Algonquin unit—it recently re-upped In a world rights acquisition, Betsy Gleick at Algonquin authors Barry Eisler and T.R. Ragan to bought Jerad W. Alexander’s memoir Volunteers at auc- sonders multi-title tion. Alexander is a former U.S. Marine and current NYU deals for douglas graduate student in the school’s literary reportage pro- © seven gram. (He’s set to finish the program in 2020.) The book, figures subtitled A Memoir of War, Manhood, and America, is, each— Gleick said, a “sharply observed coming-of-age narrative Montlake about growing up on military bases in the U.S. and abroad” Romance Alexander is getting and how “the soldier is taken as the enduring ideal of Amer- Bybee in on the ican masculinity.” Alexander was represented by Elias action. Amazon Publishing’s Altman at Massie & McQuilkin. romance imprint has just closed three seven-figure agreements ■ Wiggs Gets Seven Figures at Morrow with some of its biggest authors. Susan Wiggs inked a new three-book, seven-figure, world Catherine Bybee, Melinda rights deal with her current publisher, William Morrow. Leigh, and Kendra Elliot have Rachel Kahan brokered the agreement with Meg Ruley all inked new world rights, and Annelise Robey at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. Wiggs, multi-title deals with the publisher. Bybee, with Montlake a major bestseller, has written more than 60 titles and is since 2012, signed with senior published in 30 countries. She also recently closed a TV editor doupe

development deal for her Lakeshore Chronicles series, with Maria susan

production company the Cartel; this was handled by Lucy photography Gomez to

Wiggs jule Stille at APA. pen five books rebekah

■ HC Nabs Birnbaum’s ‘Dr. B’ © that will Terry Karten at HarperCollins took U.S. rights to Daniel launch a new series. Birnbaum’s Dr. B. The debut Dutch historical novel, which Jane Elisabet Brännström at Bonnier Rights sold, grew out of Elliot Dystel at a discovery the author made in his attic: that of a box of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret letters written by his grandfather. Bonnier explained that handled the world rights deal. key

the letters became the basis for the book, which is “a larger- Editorial director Anh Schluep mac than-life true story of a hitherto unknown WWII drama, bought four titles by Leigh that sara

© played out in the world of book publishing and featuring will be part of a new suspense Birnbaum emigres, spies and diplomates in 1940s Stockholm.” (Elab- series; Leigh was represented by Jill Marsal at Marsal & orating on the publishing element of the story, Bonnier said Lyon. Schluep also closed the that the author’s grandfather, Immanuel Birnbaum, “worked Elliot deal, contracting her to at exile publishing house Behrmeann-Fischer in Sweden write four romantic suspense during the Second World War.”) The book, Bonnier added, titles set to launch a new has drawn comparisons to Lara Prescott’s forthcoming We suspense series; Elliot was Were Never Here (which Knopf bought for seven figures in represented by Meg Ruley at June). It has also sold to publishers in, among other coun- the Jane Rotrosen Agency. tries, Germany, Italy, and the U.K.

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 13 Behind the Bestsellers NOV. 4–10, 2018 By Carolyn Juris No Stranger to the List

Recent First-Week Print Unit Sales for Liane Moriarty Liane Moriarty’s latest, Nine 36,414 Perfect Strangers, is the #7 book 33,726 in the country. Her popularity predates the success of her best- known novel, Big Little Lies, which Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon acquired screen rights to just after its publication. 2013’s The Husband’s Secret, for 10,094 instance, sold 189K print copies before Lies was released. Antici- 4,374 pation for her new books has been building, as first-week 2013 2014 2016 2018 print unit sales show. The Best Words The #1 book in the country is Typecasting Whose Boat Is This Boat?, a parody picture book by the staff of The paperback edition of Tom Hanks’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 2017 short fiction collection, Uncommon It’s “comprised solely of comments Type, pubbed in September spoken by President Donald J. Trump and in the weeks since has in the wake of Hurricane Florence on September 19, 2018, appeared sporadically in New Bern, North Carolina,” according to the flap copy; on our trade paper The Late Show is donating 100% of its proceeds to charity. list. It got a big It’s been a good year for children’s book parodies from late boost this week PORTLAND night talk shows: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a Last from the author’s 55% REST OF THE U.S. Week Tonight with appearance at 45% NEW & NOTABLE John Oliver produc- Oregon’s Portland tion whose proceeds Book Festival; it HOMEBODY also went to charity, returns to our list at Joanna Gaines is the 11th bestsell- #12, with the Portland #2 Hardover Nonfiction, #3 overall ing book of the area accounting for more than Just six months after the publica- year to date. half of the week’s print unit sales. tion of Magnolia Table, the bestselling book of the year to date, Gaines releases her second title of 2018, an interior decorating guide. TOP 10 OVERALL RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT UNITS PAST TENSE Lee Child 1 Whose Boat Is This Boat? The Late Show Simon & Schuster 209,032 #1 Hardcover Fiction, #4 overall 2 The Meltdown (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #13) Jeff Kinney Amulet 149,928 “Child’s spare prose continues to 3 Homebody Joanna Gaines Harper Design 93,828 set a very high bar,” our starred 4 Past Tense Lee Child Delacorte 69,825 review said of the 23rd Jack Reacher 5 The Reckoning John Grisham Doubleday 50,398 novel, which sees the ex–military 6 The Wonky Donkey Smith/Cowley Scholastic 49,267 policeman visiting his late father’s rural 7 Nine Perfect Strangers Liane Moriarty Flatiron 36,414 New Hampshire birthplace, a setup that 8 Girl, Wash Your Face Rachel Hollis Nelson 33,919 lets fans discover “more of this enduring 9 Every Breath Nicholas Sparks Grand Central 27,754 character’s roots.” 10 Dark Sacred Night Michael Connelly Little, Brown 25,828

14 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Information supplied by NPD BookScan. Copyright © 2018 Adult Bestsellers | NOV. 4–10, 2018 The NPD Group. All rights reserved. Hardcover Frontlist Fiction RANK LW TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS

1 – Past Tense Lee Child Delacorte 9780399593512 69,825 2 1 The Reckoning John Grisham Doubleday 9780385544153 50,398 3 – Nine Perfect Strangers Liane Moriarty Flatiron 9781250069825 36,414 4 4 Every Breath Nicholas Sparks Grand Central 9781538728529 27,754 5 3 Dark Sacred Night Michael Connelly Little, Brown 9780316484800 25,828 6 2 Elevation Stephen King Scribner 9781982102319 21,734 7 5 The Next Person You Meet in Heaven Mitch Albom Harper 9780062294449 14,863 8 – The Noel Stranger Richard Paul Evans Simon & Schuster 9781501172052 12,800 9 – You Don’t Own Me Clark/Burke Simon & Schuster 9781501171666 12,758 10 – Sea of Greed Cussler/Brown Putnam 9780735219021 12,728 11 7 Unsheltered Barbara Kingsolver Harper 9780062684561 8,872 12 6 Ambush Patterson/Born Little, Brown 9780316273985 8,673 13 – The Colors of All the Cattle Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon 9781524747800 8,060 14 – Heads You Win Jeffrey Archer St. Martin’s 9781250172501 7,144 15 11 Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens Putnam 9780735219090 6,677 16 8 Holy Ghost John Sandford Putnam 9780735217324 6,651 17 9 A Spark of Light Jodi Picoult Ballantine 9780345544988 6,328 18 10 Alaskan Holiday Debbie Macomber Ballantine 9780399181283 5,492 19 12 Vince Flynn: Red War Kyle Mills Atria 9781501190599 5,016 20 13 Winter in Paradise Elin Hilderbrand Little, Brown 9780316435512 4,259 Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction RANK LW TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS

1 – Whose Boat Is This Boat? The Late Show Simon & Schuster 9781982121082 209,032 2 – Homebody Joanna Gaines Harper Design 9780062801975 93,828 3 2 Girl, Wash Your Face Rachel Hollis Nelson 9781400201655 33,919 4 3 Cook Like a Pro Ina Garten Clarkson Potter 9780804187046 22,101 5 5 Killing the SS O’Reilly/Dugard Holt 9781250165541 20,484 6 10 Magnolia Table Joanna Gaines Morrow 9780062820150 13,517 7 7 Ship of Fools Tucker Carlson Free Press 9781501183669 13,090 8 8 Dare to Lead Brené Brown Random House 9780399592522 12,516 9 1 Medical Medium Liver Rescue Anthony William Hay House 9781401954406 12,493 10 4 Beastie Boys Book Diamond/Horovitz Random/Spiegel & Grau 9780812995541 10,870 11 6 Hindsight Justin Timberlake Harper Design 9780062448309 9,979 12 35 Guinness World Records 2019 – Guinness World Records 9781912286430 8,675 13 12 Fear Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster 9781501175510 7,842 14 22 Leadership Doris Kearns Goodwin Simon & Schuster 9781476795928 7,204 15 15 Whiskey in a Teacup Reese Witherspoon Touchstone 9781501166273 7,082 16 13 Gmorning, Gnight! Miranda/Sun Random House 9781984854278 6,916 17 19 Educated Tara Westover Random House 9780399590504 6,760 18 17 Brief Answers to the Big Questions Stephen Hawking Bantam 9781984819192 6,336 19 33 12 Rules for Life Jordan B. Peterson Random House Canada 9780345816023 5,996 20 9 The Mamba Mentality Kobe Bryant MCD 9780374201234 5,956

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WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 15 Information supplied by NPD BookScan. Copyright © 2018 Adult Bestsellers | NOV. 4–10, 2018 The NPD Group. All rights reserved. Mass Market Frontlist RANK LW TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS

1 – Leopard’s Run Christine Feehan Berkley 9780451490162 14,209 2 1 Wyoming Legend Diana Palmer HQN 9781335041081 10,792 3 5 Instinct Patterson/Roughan Vision 9781478945192 10,080 4 6 First Snow Nora Roberts Silhouette 9781335014955 9,836 5 4 Typhoon Fury Cussler/Morrison Putnam 9780399575594 8,871 6 8 Every Breath You Take Mary Higgins Clark Pocket 9781501171734 8,088 7 9 A Season to Celebrate Fern Michaels Zebra 9781420135749 7,521 8 3 A High Sierra Christmas William W. Johnstone Pinnacle 9780786042135 7,401 9 2 The Gift of Christmas Debbie Macomber Mira 9780778308645 7,269 10 – Tom Clancy: Power and Empire Marc Cameron Berkley 9780735215917 5,730 11 11 Behind the Iron William W. Johnstone Pinnacle 9780786042111 5,549 12 12 Merry and Bright Debbie Macomber Ballantine 9780399181245 5,399 13 7 Fall from Grace Danielle Steel Dell 9781101884027 5,260 14 32 In a Dark, Dark Wood Ruth Ware Pocket 9781501190476 4,961 15 10 Hardcore Twenty-Four Janet Evanovich Putnam 9780399179211 4,915 16 14 All I Want for Christmas Robyn Carr Mira 9780778308638 4,846 17 13 Look for Me Lisa Gardner Dutton 9781524742072 4,728 18 15 Two Kinds of Truth Michael Connelly Grand Central 9781455524167 4,675 19 17 The People vs. Alex Cross James Patterson Grand Central 9781538760642 4,535 20 27 A Stone Creek Christmas Linda Lael Miller Harlequin 9781335150721 4,531 Trade Paperback Frontlist RANK LW TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS

1 1 The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris Harper 9780062797155 13,724 2 – The 17th Suspect Patterson/Paetro Grand Central 9781538760888 9,674 3 – The Complete Diabetes Cookbook – America’s Test Kitchen 9781945256585 9,548 4 2 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman Penguin 9780735220690 8,217 5 4 The Wife Between Us Hendricks/Pekkanen Griffin 9781250130945 7,630 6 3 Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans Kilmeade/Yaeger Sentinel 9780735213241 6,021 7 6 Less Andrew Sean Greer Back Bay 9780316316132 5,296 8 9 The Girl in the Spider’s Web (movie tie-in) David Lagercrantz Black Lizard 9780525564560 5,284 9 8 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari Harper Perennial 9780062316110 5,242 10 5 Sold on a Monday Kristina McMorris Sourcebooks Landmark 9781492663997 4,246 11 – Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell Atria 9781501154652 4,226 12 61 Uncommon Type Tom Hanks Vintage 9781101911945 4,190 13 13 Winter Solstice Elin Hilderbrand Back Bay 9780316435468 4,085 14 11 The Fallen David Baldacci Grand Central 9781538761380 3,745 15 10 Still Me Jojo Moyes Penguin 9780399562464 3,705 16 7 Year One Nora Roberts Griffin 9781250122964 3,683 17 14 Pachinko Min Jin Lee Grand Central 9781455563920 3,341 18 16 Rich People Problems Kevin Kwan Anchor 9780525432371 3,326 19 19 Beautiful Boy (movie tie-in) David Sheff HMH/Dolan 9781328974716 3,174 20 37 The Odd 1s Out James Rallison TarcherPerigee 9780143131809 2,909

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Children’s Frontlist Fiction RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS 1 The Meltdown (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #13) Jeff Kinney Amulet 9781419727436 149,928 2 Lord of the Fleas (Dog Man #5) Dav Pilkey Graphix 9780545935173 22,173 3 Tales from a Not-So-Happy Birthday (Dork Diaries #13) Rachel Renée Russell Aladdin 9781534426382 12,618 4 Flashback (Keeper of the Lost Cities #7) Shannon Messenger Aladdin 9781481497435 12,151 5 Skyward Brandon Sanderson Delacorte 9780399555770 8,013 6 Archenemies (Renegades) Marissa Meyer Feiwel and Friends 9781250078308 6,822 7 The Getaway (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12) Jeff Kinney Amulet 9781419725456 6,699 8 Dog Man and Cat Kid (Dog Man #4) Dav Pilkey Graphix 9780545935180 6,650 9 Dear Evan Hansen Val Emmich et al. Poppy 9780316420235 6,295 10 The Raging Storm (Warriors: A Vision of Shadows #6) Erin Hunter HarperCollins 9780062386571 5,785 11 The Hate U Give (movie tie-in) Angie Thomas HC/Balzer + Bray 9780062871350 4,801 12 A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #4) Ransom Riggs Dutton 9780735232143 4,602 13 Kristy’s Big Day (Baby-Sitters Club #6) Martin/Galligan Graphix 9781338067613 4,389 14 Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass) Sarah J. Maas Bloomsbury 9781619636101 4,031 15 To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (movie tie-in) Jenny Han Simon & Schuster 9781534438378 3,973 16 Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment Patterson/Grabenstein LB/Patterson 9780316523967 3,740 17 Supernova (Amulet #8) Kazu Kibuishi Graphix 9780545828604 3,350 18 Always and Forever, Lara Jean Jenny Han Simon & Schuster 9781481430494 2,907 19 Crush Svetlana Chmakova Yen 9780316363242 2,820 20 Bridge of Clay Markus Zusak Knopf 9781984830159 2,758 21 The Hate U Give (collector’s ed.) Angie Thomas HC/Balzer + Bray 9780062872340 2,729 22 Wrath of the Dragon King Brandon Mull Shadow Mountain 9781629724867 2,705 23 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Rowling/Gill Scholastic/Levine 9781338216790 2,692 24 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Rowling/Selznick Scholastic/Levine 9781338299144 2,675 25 I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967 Lauren Tarshis Scholastic 9780545919821 2,566

Children’s Picture Books RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN UNITS 1 The Wonky Donkey Smith/Cowley Scholastic 9780545261241 49,267 2 Construction Site on Christmas Night Rinker/Ford Chronicle 9781452139111 9,878 3 First 100 Words Roger Priddy Priddy 9780312510787 9,486 4 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Dr. Seuss Random House 9780394800790 8,697 5 Turkey Trouble Silvano/Harper Two Lions 9780761455295 8,654 6 The Berenstain Bears and the Joy of Giving Berenstain/Berenstain Zonderkidz 9780310712558 8,031 7 Goodnight Moon Brown/Hurd HarperFestival 9780694003617 7,857 8 Little Blue Truck’s Christmas Schertle/McElmurry HMH 9780544320413 7,846 9 The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle Philomel 9780399226908 7,696 10 Giraffes Can’t Dance Andreae/Parker-Rees Cartwheel 9780545392556 6,943 11 Dr. Seuss’s ABC Dr. Seuss Random House 9780679882817 6,498 12 Pete the Cat’s 12 Groovy Days of Christmas Dean/Dean HarperCollins 9780062675279 6,260 13 Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving Dean/Dean HarperFestival 9780062198693 6,222 14 Love You Forever Robert Munsch Firefly 9780920668375 6,197 15 The Wonderful Things You Will Be Emily Winfield Martin Random House 9780385376716 5,988 16 The Pout-Pout Fish Diesen/Hanna FSG 9780374360979 5,866 17 Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Martin/Archambault Little Simon 9781442450707 5,588 18 Little Blue Truck Schertle/McElmurry HMH 9780544568037 5,565 19 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Dr. Seuss Random House 9781524714611 5,562 20 The Polar Express (anniv. ed.) Chris Van Allsburg HMH 9780544580145 5,340 21 I Am Max Astrid Holm Random House 9781524718015 5,279 22 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (anniv. ed.) Martin/Carle Holt 9780805047905 5,164 23 Room on the Broom Donaldson/Scheffler Puffin 9780142501122 5,098 24 How to Catch a Turkey Wallace/Elkerton Sourcebooks 9781492664352 5,029 25 Llama Llama Gives Thanks Anna Dewdney Viking 9781101997154 4,984

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 17 Charts supplied by Apple Inc., copyright 2018 Apple Inc. All Apple Books Bestsellers | NOV. 5–11, 2018 rights reserved. Apple Books is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Fiction & Literature

RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN 1 Nine Perfect Strangers Liane Moriarty Flatiron 9781250069849 2 Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens Putnam 9780735219113 3 Sea of Greed Cussler/Brown Putnam 9780735219038 4 Winter in Paradise Elin Hilderbrand Little, Brown 9780316435505 5 Heads You Win Jeffrey Archer St. Martin’s 9781250172518 6 The Light We Lost Jill Santopolo Putnam 9780735212770 7 A Spark of Light Jodi Picoult Ballantine 9780345544995 8 Unsheltered Barbara Kingsolver Harper 9780062684745 9 Breakfast at Tiffany’s Truman Capote Vintage 9780345803054 10 The Letter Kathryn Hughes Headline 9781783069170 11 Atonement Ian McEwan Anchor 9781400075553 12 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman Penguin Books 9780735220706 13 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan Penguin Books 9781101502730 14 China Rich Girlfriend Kevin Kwan Anchor 9780385539098 15 Rich People Problems Kevin Kwan Anchor 9780385542241 16 Lethal White Robert Galbraith Little, Brown 9780316422741 17 Black and Blue Anna Quindlen Delta 9780307767851 18 The Clockmaker’s Daughter Kate Morton Atria 9781451649437 19 My Not So Perfect Life Sophie Kinsella Dial 9780812998276 20 The Aloha Reef Collection Colleen Coble Thomas Nelson 9780718031886

Mysteries & Thrillers

RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN 1 Past Tense Lee Child Dell 9780399593529 2 The Reckoning John Grisham Doubleday 9780385544160 3 Dark Sacred Night Michael Connelly Little, Brown 9780316486675 4 The Woods Harlan Coben Dutton 9781101128671 5 Elevation Stephen King Scribner 9781982102333 6 You Don’t Own Me Clark/Burke Simon & Schuster 9781501171673 7 The Other Woman Sandie Jones Minotaur 9781250192011 8 Vince Flynn: Red War Kyle Mills Atria/Bestler 9781501190612 9 Holy Ghost John Sandford Putnam 9780735217331 10 Up Shute Creek Denise Grover Swank DGS 9781939996688

Science Fiction & Fantasy

RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT ISBN 1 Sandman Slim Richard Kadrey HarperCollins 9780061999444 2 Seveneves Neal Stephenson Morrow 9780062190413 3 The Forever War Joe Haldeman Open Road 9781497695450 4 Noumenon Marina J. Lostetter Harper Voyager 9780062497857 5 The Consuming Fire John Scalzi Tor 9780765388988 6 The Space Trilogy C.S. Lewis HarperOne 9780062340870 7 The Last Exodus Paul Tassi Talos 9781940456485 8 The Shadow Sorceress, Books 1–3 Bilinda Sheehan B.S. Press 9781386307334 9 The Fifth Season N.K. Jemisin Orbit 9780316229302 10 The Valley of Shadows Ringo/Massa Baen 9781625796707

18 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 International Bestsellers | OCTOBER 2018

New Thrillers Crown European Charts ew thrillers from well-known authors topped the You Freedom is the latest in a string of popular inspirational fiction bestseller lists across Europe in late October. These titles; he is published in the U.S. by Hay House. included The Lords of Time, the final volume of Eva Sebastian Fitzek, said to be the bestselling German author of García Sáenz de Urturi's White City trilogy, which the past decade, returned to #1 on the German fiction list with Nwas #1 on the fiction list in Spain. Sabotage, the latest book from The Inmate, about a father who has himself admitted to a mental perennial favorite Arturo Pérez-Reverte was in the second spot. hospital to find his child’s murderer. Volker Kutsche, whose Sáenz de Urturi has been published in English by AmazonCrossing, Babylon Berlin series is the basis of a popular Netflix adaptation, and Pérez-Reverte is with Random House. was at #3 with Marlow. Steven Hawking’s Brief Answers to the Big In France, Maxime Chattam’s The Signal, a cross between Stephen Questions was #1 on Germany’s nonfiction list. Yuval Noah Harari King and H.P. Lovecraft, was the top fiction title. This is Chattam’s was at #3 with 21 Lessons for the 21st Century; his Sapiens stayed 25th book and he has previously been translated by Gallic Books. atop the nonfiction list in Spain, where it has been for several The second slot was held by Laurent Gounelle, whose I Promise months. —Ed Nawotka Germany Fiction RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT

1 Der Insasse (The Inmate) Sebastian Fitzek Droemer 2 Mittagsstunde (Midday Hour) Dörte Hansen Penguin 3 Marlow (Marlow) Volker Kutscher Piper Nonfiction 1 Kurze Antworten auf große Fragen (Brief Answers to the Big Questions) Stephen Hawking Klett-Cotta 2 Die bessere Hälfte (The Better Half) Eckart von Hirschhausen Rowohlt and Tobias Esch 3 21 Lektionen für das 21. Jahrhundert (21 Lessons for the 21st Century) Yuval Noah Harari C.H.Beck

For the week ended Nov. 4; used by arrangement with Buchreport France Fiction RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT

1 Le signal (The Signal) Maxime Chattam Albin Michel 2 Je te promets a liberté (I Promise You Freedom) Laurent Gounelle Calmann-Lévy 3 J’ai encore menti (I Still Lied) Gilles Legardinier Flammarion Nonfiction 1 Idiss (Idiss) Robert Badinter Fayard 2 Ce que je peux enfin vous dire (What I Can Finally Tell You) Ségolène Royal Fayard 3 Fragile: souvenirs (Fragile: Memories) Muriel Robin XO

For the week ended Nov. 4; used by arrangement with GFK/Livres Hebdo Spain Fiction RANK TITLE AUTHOR IMPRINT

1 Los señores del tiempo (The Lords of Time) Eva García Sáenz de Urturi Planeta 2 Sabotaje (Sabotage) Arturo Pérez-Reverte Alfaguara 3 La muerte del comendador (Killing Commendatore) Haruki Murakami Tusquets Nonfiction 1 Sapiens. De animales a dioses (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind) Yuval Noah Harari Debate 2 El naufragio (The Shipwreck) Lola García Península 3 Nada es tan terrible (Nothing Is So Terrible) Rafael Santandreu Grijalbo

For the week ended Nov. 5; used by arrangement with El Cultural WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 19 Column|LIBRARY NEWS Turning Readers into Writers Sari Feldman The Cuyahoga County Public Library’s writer-in-residence program shows the library’s increasingly critical role in our literary ecosystem

n the days leading up to his scheduled Sept. 16, 2001, visit to the Cleveland Public Library, acclaimed poet Robert Pinsky was stranded in Los Angeles after air travel was restricted following the attacks of 9/11. He was in L.A. taping lines for a guest appearance on The Simpsons, Iand though he was anxious to return to Boston to meet his new grandson, Pinsky honored his commitment to CPL. And on the first Sunday after 9/11, when churches, synagogues, and mosques around the country were struggling to come to grips with the tragedy and loss of life that had just occurred, the poetry selections Pinsky read for us at CPL transcended grief and offered our community a vision of hope and peace. I will never forget that day, because I saw firsthand the power L. to r.: Dave Lucas, David Giffels, Claire McMillan of poetry, and because I got to share it with my father. My dad had been visiting Cleveland on 9/11, and he too was stranded, We seem to get more thrill from the sound of ‘laureate’ than ‘con- unable to fly back to New York. As part of my job, I oversaw sultant in poetry to the Library of Congress,’ which is actually the the Sunday programming for the library, and Dad was curious more democratic, nobler, and more American part of the title.” to see whether people would actually attend. He was surprised Certainly, the Library of Congress, which oversees the poet by the size of the crowd, and even more surprised at how moved laureate position, is a unique institution—a treasure trove of he was by Pinsky’s reading. The signed volume of poetry he national culture. But 46 states and the District of Columbia also purchased that day sat at his bedside until his death. have poet laureate positions, and poet laureates and writers-in- If my first meeting with Pinsky hadn’t been so charged with residence are also valued at the local level, including in my emotion, I might never have recognized the gift the American community. At my library, the Cuyahoga County Public Library people received when he was appointed the 39th poet laureate (CCPL) in Ohio, nurturing these roles has long been a priority. of the United States in 1997. His Favorite Poem Project inspired And in recent years, my dream of creating a dedicated writing more than 18,000 Americans to share their favorite poems and center in one of our branches came to fruition with the support set a new standard for the role of laureates, and writers-in-resi- of the William N. Skirball Foundation, the Cleveland dence. A brilliant and powerful poet, he also excels as a curator Foundation, and Dominion Foundation. Led by librarian and and anthologist. People across the nation, like my father, discover writing program specialist Laurie Kincer, we’ve successfully and rediscover the pleasure and power of poetry because of Pinsky. built community collaborations and programs to activate the space I recently asked Pinsky about his work as poet laureate. What and engage professional and aspiring writers. And among the best is it about that position that Americans seemed to appreciate? ideas for our William N. Skirball Writers’ Center has been the “On the one hand, we Americans are suckers for anything that writer-in-residence program. sounds British and high-class,” he quipped. “Love them royals! Our inaugural writer in residence was David Lucas, currently

Your source for Christmas gifts that warm the heart. www.loyolapress.com LIBRARY NEWS|Department For libraries, it’s important to constantly breathe life into the otherwise static volumes sitting on our shelves by celebrating the creative experience.

poet laureate of the state of Ohio and part of the faculty at Case platform to convey such realities of the writing life to readers and Western Reserve University. He is also a born teacher on a mis- writers who can themselves benefit from that understanding.” sion to help people appreciate the poetry in their lives. In his Although Giffels was joking about living in the library, CCPL essay “Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry,” his opening gambit did host playwright George Seremba in residence from 2011 to is, “I don’t want to convince you that you should love poetry. I 2013, during which time he lived in a small house owned by want to convince you that you already do.” In Cleveland and the library. Seremba came to CCPL through a program that across the state, Lucas’s goal has been to connect people who love assists asylum-seeking writers. During his residency, he held language and words to a larger set of experiences. For example, community workshops and also taught at Case Western Reserve he created Brews + Prose, a regular reading series hosted at a University’s Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities. popular Cleveland bar since 2012, bringing a sense of fun to A Ugandan political refugee, Seremba was forced to leave his stereotypically stuffy events. country in 1980 after an attempted assassination by Milton Following Lucas as CCPL writer in residence was Claire Obote’s military intelligence. He lived in Canada and Ireland McMillan, author of The Gilded Age, and The Necklace. McMillan before landing in the Cleveland area as an established play- is a member of the board of trustees at the Mount, Edith wright and actor. We were lucky to have him. And the Baker- Wharton’s home in Lenox, Mass., and has also been in residence Nord Center was an ideal partner. As the library’s writing pro- as a writer there. But a library residency was a different experi- grams were not fully formed in those years, we learned that ence for this solitary writer. “Being a writer in residence offered leveraging the talent of strong local writing and theater com- me an outlet to interact with the community and get out in the munities created the best opportunities for broader world,” she says. “Through teaching quarterly classes and engagement. holding monthly office hours, I got a chance to meet with and The writing programs at CCPL are evidence that libraries can engage writers at many different places on their writing jour- sit comfortably in that place between creator and consumer, neys.” McMillan is also a natural teacher, and the community of fostering both individual and community exploration of the writers was better for her involvement in their work. literary arts. We can also demystify the writer and the writing CCPL’s third writer in residence is David Giffels, who is best life by bringing authors to our libraries and enabling aspiring known for his books of personal narrative, All the Way Home and writers to meet people who make their living through writing. Furnishing Eternity. Giffels’s humor permeates his view of his And it’s an increasingly vital contribution. For libraries, it’s writer-in-residence title. “It implies that I will be moving into important to constantly breathe life into the otherwise static the library, which is problematic, in part, because I snore,” he volumes sitting on our shelves by celebrating the creative expe- says. “For another, it suggests that the holder of the title is rience and actively supporting the people who create. The role somehow elevated. After the announcement of my appointment, of the library as a link between writer and reader is critical if we somebody tweeted in protest that this post should have been are to stem the decline of recreational reading in our nation. And given to a less established writer, likening the gesture to swag really, who better than libraries? The great director Steven bags being given to already-pampered celebrities at awards Spielberg said it best when he said, “Only a generation of readers ceremonies.” will spawn a generation of writers.” ■ Giffels is another outstanding teacher. And he sees the post as an opportunity to share the grittier story of being a writer PW libraries columnist Sari Feldman is executive director of the Cuyahoga and navigating the publishing world to those in the writing County Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio, and a former president of the community. He explains his focus for his time in residence as “a Public Library Association and of the American Library Association.

Your source for Christmas gifts that warm the heart. www.loyolapress.com MORBID CURIOSITY

Violent crime and the people who commit it continue to fascinate readers

By Clare Swann so

here’s no doubt that the true crime genre is booming: just look to the popularity of Netflix’s Making a Murderer or the podcast Serial. In books, too, the category is on the rise: since the beginning of 2018, true crime titles sold 1.6 million print copies, per NPD BookScan; in the same period in 2016, titles in the category sold 976,000 print copies. TKent State University Press has an entire line devoted to the genre, intended for scholarly and general readerships. The True Crime History series comprises 23 titles to date, and spring will see the releases of The Belle of Bedford Avenue by Virginia A. McConnell (Mar. 2019) and Six Capsules by George R. Dekle Sr. (May 2019). The former examines the 1902 murder of a young man, widely thought to have been at the hand of his teenage girlfriend; the latter delves into the life of Carlyle Harris, a handsome, charismatic medical student in the 19th century who poisoned Helen Potts, an upper class woman he coerced into a secret marriage. “At its most basic, true crime appeals to people’s desire for a vicarious thrill,” says Kent State acquiring editor Will Underwood. “People have always been fascinated with stories of others who behaved badly and tried to get away with it.” In April, Diversion Books will publish Dead in the Water, in which journalist Penny Farmer investigates a murder that went unprosecuted for decades. Keith Wallman, editor-in-chief at Diversion Books, says that “true crime puts us right in the middle of good vs. evil, and gives us the thrill of doing detective work and bringing the bad guys to justice.” When acquiring new projects in the genre, Wallman uses a rubric he calls the backyard test: can the book “powerfully convey”

ALL PRINT UNIT SALES PER NPD BOOKSCAN EXCEPT WHERE NOTED. 22 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Mysteries, Thrillers & True Crime

whether a crime could occur in the the public imagination, we look at forth- reality.” reader’s comfort zone? coming books that help fans of the genre Fisher de- “I’m not talking only about geog- dive in further. scribes herself raphy, but also other kinds of spaces we as a Murderino, all share,” Wallman says. “Interests, Pod People the moniker for work lives, family lives. That sense of For Ali Fisher, editor at Tor/Forge the many fans place, community, or shared humanity Books, good true crime illuminates of Georgia allows a reader to empathize with the how the “broken” parts of society affect Hardstark story’s characters. That’s the element the real people. “Hearing the full story of a and Karen best true crime contains. Without it, the crime from a trusted voice is nothing Kilgariff’s two- reader’s just a bystander. With it, the like sterile news coverage or over- year-old true reader’s involved.” whelming statistics,” she says. “It helps crime podcast, As true crime strengthens its hold on me process a world where violence is a My Favorite Murder (see “Book ’Em.”). On the show, the comedians recount crimes and near-crimes, often for live Book ’Em audiences during their sold-out tours. Fisher contacted the pair about Listen up: these popular podcasts are linked to forthcoming writing a book and helped them mold true crime titles the proposal, which originally con- sisted of the duo’s cheeky commentary, Accused into a book that also incorporates nar- In the first season, journalists Amber Hunt and Amanda ratives on mental health advocacy and Rossman investigated the cold case of Elizabeth Andes, who victim advocacy, both of which are was found murdered in her Oxford, Ohio, apartment in 1978. components of the podcast. The book, The second season focuses on the death of Retha Welch in Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered—the 1987. Diversion published Accused, a transcript of season one, title is taken from the pair’s usual sign- in 2018 and has signed up Hunt for another tie-in title, according to editor-in-chief Keith Wallman. off—pubs in May. The book: Unsolved Murders (DK, Feb. 2019) by Hunt and Emily G. Thompson, “There are a lot of us out there with a founder of the Morbidology website. morbid curiosity and an interest in hor- rible things,” Fisher says. “It’s a relief to Dirty John hear a frank conversation about murder, Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard tracks a Southern California con man failure, and mental health spoken at full who torments and traumatizes a businesswoman, whom he met via a dating volume.” website, and her family. The podcast inspired a Bravo limited TV series starring Other publishers, too, are enthusi- Connie Britton and Eric Bana, which premieres at the end of November. astic about books by popular pod- The book: Dirty John and Other True Stories of Outlaws and Outsiders (S&S, Nov.). casters. “Interest in true crime is at an all-time high,” says DK’s Alastair Forensic Transmissions Dougall, who edited Unsolved Murders Mikita Brottman, a psychoanalyst and the author of several (Feb. 2019) by Amber Hunt, host of nonfiction titles, assembles public domain audio files such as the true crime podcast Accused, and 911 calls, trial clips, police interrogations, and forensic and victim testimony. Recent episodes have centered on Bernhard Emily G. Thompson, founder of the Goetz, known as the Subway Vigilante, and serial killer Ted Morbidology website. Bundy. The book spotlights crimes including The book: An Unexplained Death (Holt, Nov.), which focuses on the 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a single case, the 2006 death of Rey O. Rivera in Baltimore. the Zodiac killings, and the Black Dahlia murder, in a highly visual style My Favorite Murder meant to draw the new wave of true Comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark banter about and recount crime fans, Dougall says. “We wanted murders and other violent crimes, with an underlying emphasis on vigilance and to design something that would appeal self-defense—evident in the oft-repeated mantra that’s now the title of their to the many millennials who devour forthcoming book. true crime podcasts on their The book: Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered (Forge, May 2019). —C.S. commutes.”

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 23 Mysteries, Thrillers & True Crime

in paperback, Available now audiobook ebook, and The knee-jerk responses— that‘‘ she was crazy, that she was evil—did not, for me, answer any sort of question as to why.

—NANCY ROMMELMANN,’’ author of To The Bridge

The Unthinkable Of the myriad crimes humans commit, few evoke horror on par with that of the killing of a child, particularly when the accused is the child’s mother. In May 2009, Amanda Stott-Smith, a middle-class mother of two living in Portland, Ore., drove to the Sellwood Bridge and dropped her two children into the Willamette River. Her seven-year-old daughter survived the fall, but her four-year-old son did not. Stott-Smith was arrested and is serving out her 35-year prison sentence. Journalist Nancy Rommelmann watched the public outcry in the weeks following the boy’s death and felt compelled to explore what leads someone to commit such an act, and the fear such a crime stokes in everyone else. “The knee-jerk responses—that she was crazy, that she was evil—did not, for me, answer any sort of question as to why,” Rommelmann says. “What these reac- tions did tell is how terrified we are by the idea of a mother killing her child, how we have to make her ‘other’ and slam the door. I was not afraid of looking into why. In fact, I had to.” Rommelmann compiled seven years of research and interviews into 2018’s To the Bridge, which PW’s review praised for its “compassion and emo- “A deceptively easy read– tional honesty”; Little A will reissue the book in paperback in given its thunderous message. January, and Rommelmann has plans to speak at AWP 2019 in Term Limits should be March. required reading for every When asked about the difficulty of researching and writing about crimes against children, new politician heading to Rommelmann said that a story so Washington.” seemingly unfathomable needs to be ~ Alan Steele Nicholson, told. “It’s only impossible to compre- FORMER PRESS OFFICER - hend if we decide we cannot look at US SENATOR JACOB JAVITZ, NEW YORK it,” she says. “There are, no doubt, nicer neighborhoods to hang out in than the one where mothers kill their children, but if we stand here for a stevepowellbooks.com moment, place the pieces on the ground and look at them, we can make

24 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Sponsored by Kensington Books Kensington Brings U.K. Grip Lit to U.S. Readers Britain’s domestic and psychological suspense writers offer a dark, edgy take on this mesmerizing genre

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sense of it, we can put it together.” a compelling narrative and an important American adventure, had been beaten Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter journalistic investigation”—complex and tortured. Despite one likely suspect, Edward Humes investigates another case characters, a “rush to judgement” by an American man named Silas Boston, of a mother convicted in the deaths of her authorities, and Parks’s horror at losing no arrests were made, and the case went children in Burned (Dutton, Jan. 2019; her children and being branded a cold for decades. see “CSLie?” p. 83). In early 2017, while murderer. Farmer, 17 at the time of the murders, spending time observing the work at the “The possibility that someone could grew up, had a family of her own, and California Innocence Project, Humes spend the rest of her life in prison for a became a freelance journalist. In October was drawn to the case of Jo Ann Parks, a crime that may never have occurred, and 2015, after what she describes as an woman imprisoned for life for killing her that the justice system might be inca- epiphany, she sat down at her computer, four-year-old son and her one- and two- pable of correcting the errors that could opened up Facebook, and set out to track year-old daughters by burning down permit such an atrocity, struck me as a down Boston. their home in 1989. According to story that had to be told,” Humes says. “By the end of the weekend, I had a Humes, fire science has changed dra- pretty clear picture of Boston’s family,” matically in the 30 years since, and in the Connecting the Dots says Farmer, who lives in the U.K. “I book, he contends that there was no Sometimes an author’s personal link to a was amazed by how easy it was to glean crime in the first place—the fire was case makes its pursuit feel all the more information, which in turn made me accidental. necessary, regardless of how much time has cross with myself that I had not done it From a storytelling perspective, the passed since the crime was committed. sooner. British and American law author says, the case is rich with ambi- In July 1978, Penny Farmer’s 25-year- enforcement agencies and Interpol were guity and suspense. “This is not a DNA old brother, Chris, and his girlfriend, sure that Boston was the perpetrator of case, which generally leaves no room for Peta, were discovered floating in the the crime back in 1979; I was totally doubt about guilt or innocence,” Humes Caribbean off the coast of Guatemala. perplexed to discover he was a free man, says. “It offered all the elements to build The pair, traveling together on a Central living a seemingly normal life on the

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other side of the Atlantic.” McGough probes the 1986 murder of MYSTERY Farmer details the crime and her quest 29-year-old newlywed Sherri Rasmussen. to bring Boston to justice in Dead in the The case remained unsolved until 2009, Water (Diversion, Apr. 2019). The book when a swab from a bite mark on SEASON was, first and foremost, a way for Farmer Rasmussen’s arm was scrutinized with to commemorate Chris and Peta’s new DNA technology, leading to the memory. But she also, as a journalist and arrest of Stephanie Lazarus, an LAPD a grieving sister, felt ownership over the detective and former girlfriend of “MATT COYLE story and how it would be told. Rasmussen’s husband. “It seemed natural to write what is, by McGough had met Lazarus the year anyone’s standards, a most incredible before her arrest, during an interview IS ON TOP OF true crime story that has had such a life- about international art theft—Lazarus’s changing, devastating impact on my division at the LAPD. “Did the respected HIS GAME.” family,” Farmer says. “This is my fami- police detective I met with really commit —MICHAEL CONNELLY ly’s story to tell.” murder and carry that secret her entire NEW YORK TIMES Cold cases, such as the long-unpros- career?” McGough asked. “I was ecuted killing that haunted Farmer’s intensely curious and started digging (HC) 978-1-60809-316-8 BEST-SELLING AUTHOR (TP) 978-1-60809-329-8 family, have proven especially alluring into the story that very day.” ON SALE DEC 4, 2018 to true crime aficionados. One of the The nine-year project threw biggest true crime titles of 2018, I’ll Be McGough, author of the coming-of-age Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, memoir Bat Boy, into the world of inves- who died unexpectedly in 2016, has tigative journalism. “Through trial and sold 164,000 print copies since it hit error, I learned how to develop sources “A GREAT shelves in February. Published by within the LAPD and beyond,” he says. Harper, the book documents In his reporting, he talked with retired McNamara’s obsessive pursuit of a serial LAPD homicide detectives, crime lab READ.” killer and rapist who terrorized analysts, prosecutors, and multiple —ALAN DERSHOWITZ California in the 1970s and ’80s. In friends and former colleagues of NEW YORK TIMES April 2018, two years after McNamara’s Detective Lazarus. BEST-SELLING AUTHOR death and two months after the book’s Like McGough, Mark Bowden also publication, 72-year-old Joseph returned to a subject he had written about DeAngelo was arrested after police say before. When he was a 23-year-old cub (HC) 978-1-60809-318-2 DNA evidence linked him to the reporter at a small Maryland newspaper, ON SALE DEC 18, 2019 crimes. he covered the disappearance of Katherine “The idea of a murderer living freely and Sheila Lyon, ages 10 and 12, from the in society is appalling,” says Matthew parking lot of a suburban D.C. mall in “THE McGough, author of The Lazarus Files 1975. Three years ago, he spotted a story (Holt, Apr. 2019), of the perennial allure in the Washington Post reporting that BREAKING of cold cases. “Every unsolved homicide Montgomery County, Md., police had is its own tragic story with no resolution. made a break in the case. “This was a par- BAD OF THE Readers, like detectives, want to try to ticularly haunting story—one that I never put the pieces of the puzzle together and stopped wondering about,” Bowden says. BOOK WORLD.” help bring clo- “I immediately called and arranged to sure to victims’ drive down from my home in Pennsylvania —NEW YORK JOURNAL loved ones. and talk to the detectives.” OF BOOKS True stories A cold case detective had reopened the (HC) 978-1-60809-320-5 about the long- case and noticed that a 1975 sketch of a ON SALE JAN 8, 2019 delayed suspicious man at the mall, Lloyd Welch, delivery of jus- looked similar to a man who had reported tice are innately seeing the sisters get into a car. The lead powerful.” re-energized the case, and an investiga- In The tion began in earnest—the inquiry, and Lazarus Files, what Bowden calls “remarkable” detec- PUBLISHING continued on pg. 32

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Making Sense of the Past PW Talks with Patrick Radden Keefe

n 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, with a long his- was dragged from her home in Belfast, never to be seen tory in the Irish alive again. Her disappearance is among the most no- Republican torious crimes of the violent, 30-year conflict in Army and in the INorthern Ireland known as the Troubles. Her body was re- early 1970s, covered in 2003, but many questions remain, which New when she was Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe seeks to answer in scarcely out of Say Nothing (Doubleday, Feb. 2019), his investigation into her teens, she McConville’s death and the history of the Troubles. joined the IRA. She led a bomb- You wrote about Jean McConville’s death, and the ing mission to Troubles, for the New Yorker. What brought you to London, was sen- © Philip Montgomery the story? tenced to 20 years in prison, went on hunger strike, defied I first sparked to this story in 2013, when a woman named Margaret Thatcher, got out of prison and married an Irish Dolours Price died and I read her obituary in the Times. She movie star, and eventually disclosed the sensitive details of had lived an absurdly dramatic life: she came from a family her IRA career in a secret oral history project at Boston

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30 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Mysteries, Thrillers & True Crime

College. Price had also played a role in one of the most noto- mother of 10, so with one squeeze of the trigger, her killer rious incidents of the Troubles: the disappearance of Jean orphaned 10 children. Even in the context of the Troubles, McConville. As it happened, my boss, David Remnick, read where so many lost their lives, this crime had assumed an the same obituary, and soon I was off and running on a big iconic dimension. article about Dolours Price and the Jean McConville case. What did you hope to achieve in writing this book, What made you decide to ex- and how did those goals evolve? pand into a book-length I wanted to weave together the stories of both the victims investigation? and the perpetrators on either side of a terrible murder, and I spent 10 months on the piece, but to tie in a series of other questions, about the uses of espio- even as I was finishing it, I felt as nage and intrigue during the Troubles, and the fraught issue though there was a deeper, more proof how to make sense of the past. Say Nothing starts in 2013, found story to be told about the ways with a couple of Belfast homicide detectives traveling to in which the lives of a handful of char- Boston College to seize the oral history transcripts of Dolours acters intersected over the course of Price. They were investigating the murder of Jean McCon- the Troubles. ville. So this one death from 1972 continues to reverberate, in a very real way, in the present day. In fact, what I did not In a conflict marked by such vio- realize when I embarked on this project is that I would end lence and so many disappearanc- up discovering the identity of the individual who actually es, why is this crime so haunting? pulled that trigger in 1972—and identifying that person, for Jean McConville was a widow and a the first time, in the book. —C.S.

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 31 Mysteries, Thrillers & True Crime

continued from pg. 28

I don’t think there’s anything ethically wrong‘‘ with being interested in death. —MIKITA’’ BROTTMAN, psychoanalyst and author of An Unexplained Death

tive work, is the primary focus of The ested. We’re all going to die, after all. In Last Stone (Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 2019). the past, people were a lot more comfort- Welch pleaded to two counts of first- able with death, because they witnessed degree felony murder in 2017. The girls’ it more frequently. We feel uncomfort- bodies were never recovered, and alleged able today when someone thinks and coconspirators were either dead or for talks about death ‘too much.’ ” other reasons As true crime has hit the pop culture could not be mainstream, with it has come some prosecuted. debate about the ethical dilemmas of For Bowden, voyeurism, and using crime and violence returning to the as entertainment or art. start of his career, “I’ve struggled with it a little,” says and seeing some Serena Jones, senior editor at Henry justice served, Holt. “One time the ex-wife of a subject provided a sense of one of my books called me to complain of closure. “I about my author contacting her. It’s wondered about tough, but I usually borrow the line that what happened journalists use, about the story being out to those girls, and who took them, for my there already so the best thing is for it to entire adult life,” he says. “I now feel that be told in the right way. And really, most I know, even if I don’t have all the particu- of the time, victims’ families want the lars. The big questions were answered, and facts out there, as long as it’s done in a that enabled me to understand to some sensitive way. Telling these stories in extent why.” book form can be a way of immortalizing someone, and that seems superethical.” A Moral Quandary Stephen Morrow, executive editor at In An Unexplained Death (Holt, Nov.), Dutton and editor on Humes’s Burned, Mikita Brottman looks into the 2006 says the question, “Why tell this tale?” death of Rey O. Rivera, whose body was is of utmost importance. “Is this story found in Brottman’s Baltimore apartment doing nothing more than satisfying complex. The death was ruled a suicide, some sort of bloodlust? Some appetite but Brottman’s investigation of the case that we ought to be ashamed of?” he leads her to wonder whether it was, in asks. “If you don’t have an understanding fact, a homicide. PW’s starred review of why a story is making a valuable con- called the book “a page-turning look at tribution, then walk away.” the darker impulses of the human psyche.” To the Bridge author Rommelmann In addition to her examination of agrees, adding that true crime narratives Rivera’s case, Brottman, a psychoanalyst can enhance an understanding of human and author of several previous nonfiction nature. “The popularity of the genre, at titles, also turns the exploration inward, its best, can do a real service,” she says. asking questions of her own fixation on “Instead of that knee-jerk crazy-or-evil, death. “I don’t think there’s anything we enter the story, spend some time, and ethically wrong with being interested in come to richer, more humane conclu- death,” she says. “We should be inter- sions.” ■

32 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018

From the author of GRAVESEND and THE LONELY WITNESS Believe the Women New thrillers take inspiration from issues raised by and relevant to the #MeToo movement

By Gwenda Bond

t’s been a year since the New York to her mind Times published a story detailing when she learns allegations of assault and harass- that the man ment by Harvey Weinstein—rev- who assaulted Ielations that reinvigorated the cultural her at a college debate about whose stories are believed, fraternity party what consequences perpetrators should is now a pow- face, and where society goes from here. erful busi- As the world at large ponders questions nessman who of memory, consent, and power, fiction will do any- is proving fertile ground for exploring thing to hide these issues. the truth about Film rights for Alafair Burke’s 2018 his past. suspense novel The Wife (Harper), about In Rachel Cline’s The Question Authority a woman with trauma in her past who (Red Hen, Apr. 2019), a middle-aged discovers her celebrity husband may be woman reunites with a childhood friend a predator, went to Amazon Studios for and discovers that the friend had a rela- seven figures after a five-way bidding tionship with their teacher in the eighth war, and Burke is currently at work on grade. As with Clark’s book, Cline’s the script. She wrote her novel before raises questions of what justice might the spread of the #MeToo movement; look like after so much time has passed. forthcoming titles continue the The roots of Good as Gone author Amy conversation. Gentry’s Last Woman Standing (HMH, Jan. 2019) predate the emergence of All the Rage #MeToo by several years. In 2013, A prime example is Kiss the Girls and Gentry, then a freelancer for the Austin Make Them Cry Chronicle, began covering women by Mary involved in the local stand-up scene and Higgins Clark was invited into private online groups (S&S, Apr. where the comedians shared their experi- 2019), which ences with sexism and harassment. revolves around Last Woman Standing, pitched as a journalist Strangers on a Train meets Thelma and doing research Louise, begins when stand-up comic for a piece on Dana Diaz meets computer programmer #MeToo. A Amanda Dorn. After bonding over the long-buried toxic masculinity in their respective incident returns industries, they agree to get revenge on PublishersWeeklyFullPageAd_Layout 1 11/9/18 3:17 PM Page 1 When god Closes a door, death Opens a Window.

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each other’s assailants. Lawler, who worked as a “I was trying to look at the nurse for two decades, says bigger systemic reasons why she finds the idea of not women are traumatized over being believed terrifying, and over,” Gentry says. though she acknowledges “What drives women out of that it is a very real issue. the tech industry? What “Not everyone wants to hear drives them out of comedy?” the truth, because it’s more She realized, as she began comfortable to hear the lie,” writing, that it’s often easier she says. “I hope, when for women to feel angry for women come forward, we and protective of other hear their truths and say, ‘We women than it is for them to believe you.’ ” be angry for themselves. Stories that unpack female “What keeps women up at anger and frustration aren’t night is knowing these men just cathartic for readers— are serial predators,” Gentry they can be a way for authors says. “In reality, that’s how to process their emotions, and why these things come too. Libby Fischer Hellmann to light. Many victims don’t traces the origins of the fifth think they will get revenge. entry in her series about ISBN 9781464206979 It’s on behalf of other women Chicago PI Georgia Davis to that people come forward.” a specific source: “After the Vigilantism also figures into S.A. 2016 election, I went through a period “A charmingly Lelchuk’s debut, Save Me From Dangerous of rage that lasted for a year.” complex hero Men (Flatiron, Mar. 2019), which In an effort to cope, Hellmann joined launches his series about private investi- a Facebook group dedicated to dis- whose adventures gator Nikki Griffin. Working out of an cussing Russian collusion and interfer- office located above a bookstore, the ence and became friends with its continue to hardboiled PI punishes men who hurt founder. At the same time, she brain- women, humiliating them in order to stormed one book, then another, and highlight many keep their victims and other women safe lost interest because they were too apo- worldly problems in the future. litical. She eventually found an idea “I wanted to explore what is justified, that excited her: what if the female between the and where does that become too much?” head of a large resistance group were Lelchuk says. “It’s vigilante work, but murdered? great wars.” not with a bloodthirsty morality. She After gaining permission from her wants a proportional response.” friend, to whom the book is dedicated, —Kirkus Reviews Lelchuk’s lead character believes and she wrote High Crimes (Red Herrings, helps other women; by contrast, the Nov.), in which the nonpolitical Davis main character in Liz Lawler’s debut must solve a highly politicized case. novel must fight for herself. In Don’t PW’s review noted that “for readers who Wake Up (Harper, Feb. 2019), Alex watch the nightly news with dismay, the Taylor, an emergency physician, comes novel offers a satisfying alternate to on an operating table, with a man reality.” wearing a surgical mask standing over her. She then suffers a chilling assault Justice League that leaves no physical evidence. After Authors with legal and law enforcement reporting the crime she encounters backgrounds are bringing their experi- AVAILABLE FEBRUARY skepticism everywhere, including from ences to bear in novels that mine similar her boyfriend and the police. Alex territory. Retired NYPD detective Ed begins to question her memory, until Conlon—whose memoir, Blue Blood, was poisonedpenpress.com there’s another victim. a National Book Critics Circle Award

36 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Mysteries, Thrillers & True Crime

Childhood’s End The seismic shift between childhood and adulthood underlies these forthcoming novels, which seek to answer questions tied to characters’ pasts in order to illuminate their presents.

Call Me Evie J.P. Pomare, Putnam, Mar. 2019 Pomare’s psychological suspense debut is set in rural New Zealand, where the author, now living in Australia, grew up. At age 17, his unreliable but sympathetic narrator doesn’t know whether she’s a captive or a legitimate dependent of Jim, the A Death in Peking man she lives with. He calls her Evie, but when her foggy By Graeme Sheppard memory begins to give her glimpses of a life she lived in The brutal murder of 19 year-old Pamela Melbourne—in which she went by the name Kate—she sets in 1937 Peking shocked the world, but out to find the truth. her murderer was never found. The book Midnight in Peking declared the murderer an American dentist but years of research The Current by police detective Graeme Sheppard uncovered new evidence to reveal a never Tim Johnston, Algonquin, Jan. 2019 before named suspect. So who did it? Who Audrey Sutter needs to get home to Minnesota to see her killed Pamela? father, a retired sheriff who is dying of cancer, and a fellow TRUE CRIME • 978-988-8422-97-5 • $19.99 college student volunteers to drive her. The car plunges into EARNSHAW BOOKS the Black Root River just outside their destination, and only Audrey survives. The incident recalls a similar one from 10 years earlier, an unsolved murder that haunts Audrey’s father—and that Audrey feels moved to solve. PW’s starred review called the thriller “outstanding”: “The nuanced plot delves deep into how a community—and surviving relatives—deal with the aftermath of a death.”

The Last House Guest Megan Miranda, Simon & Schuster, June 2019 From the author of All the Missing Girls (433,000 print copies sold) comes the tale of an unlikely childhood friendship that ends in tragedy. In the harbor community of Littleport, Maine, it’s rare for a local and a kid from a family of wealthy vacationers to bond, but Avery Greer and Sadie Loman remain close for 10 summers, until their early 20s, when Sadie, the local girl, is found dead in what police deem a suicide. A year later, the still-grieving Avery is certain people in the community blame her, and sets out to learn what really happened.

Run Away Harlan Coben, Grand Central, Mar. 2019 In Coben’s first novel since moving to Grand Central with his longtime editor Ben Sevier, a father learns that his estranged daughter has been spotted in New York City’s Strawberry Fields playing guitar. Simon follows up on the lead and finds her strung out, a shadow of the girl he remembers—and she runs from him. And so he chases after her, into the dark underworld of addiction and something far stranger. —G.B.

38 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Thank You for Joining the Love Your Bookstore Challenge Why do you #loveyourbookstore?

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finalist—asked permission of his former colleague Marie Cirile to fictionalize her False Pretenses 1975 book, Marie Cirile: Memoirs of a From Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley to more recent Police Officer (Doubleday, 1975), which books including The Lying Game, psychologically twisted fiction is, by details her 20 years on the force. In The its nature, full of deception. These books dress the classic setup in Policewoman’s Bureau (Arcade, May new disguises. 2019), Conlon zeroes in on the Bronx in 1958 and the daily sexism experienced An Anonymous Girl by Cirile working in what was, and still Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, St. Martin’s, Jan. 2019 very much is, a man’s world. Jessica Farris, a make-up artist struggling to make ends Former litigator Amy Impellizzeri, meet, fabricates her way into a psychology study of ethics who clerked for two years at a and morality conducted by Dr. Lydia Shields, only to discover Washington, D.C., federal court, exam- as it progresses that she’s taking part in a much more sin- ines how #MeToo plays out in the legal ister kind of experiment. The second collaboration between and political arenas in Why We Lie Hendricks and Pekkanen follows their 2018 hit The Wife (Wyatt-Mackenzie, Mar. 2019). The Between Us (126,000 print copies), and alternates between novel weaves together several narrative Jessica’s first-person and Dr. Shields’s second-person narra- threads, all centered on D.C., to look at tion. PW’s starred review said the book delivers “major the ways the powerful tend to escape league suspense.” culpability; characters include a rising political star, a power player who Golden State assaults a woman in his corporation and Ben H. Winters, Mulholland, Jan. 2019 attempts to impede her career, and a In the country of Golden State, located in what used to be woman haunted by the false accusation California, lying is illegal, and Laszlo Ratesic’s job for the last 19 years has been to enforce the truth as part of the she made against a real abuser to escape Speculative Service. As an officer, he is one of the few citi- her small town. zens allowed to speculate, in order to solve crimes. While Author and former prosecutor Linda investigating a supposedly accidental death with a trainee in Fairstein, who continues to consult on tow, Ratesic begins to see through the distorted fabric of a cases, has spent her 45-year legal career world that is supposed to prize absolute truth. This near- focused on sexual violence and crimes future thriller by Edgar winner Winters (The Last Policeman) is against women and children, including likely to provoke discussion. a stint as head of the first sex crimes unit in the Manhattan District Saving Meghan Attorney’s Office, the model for the D.J. Palmer, St. Martin’s, Apr. 2019 similar unit in Law & Order: SVU. Meghan Girard, age 14, has a history of unexplained ill- During that time, Fairstein says, there nesses that makes doctors suspect Munchausen syndrome were a number of occasions when she by proxy. But not everyone is so sure—is Meghan’s mother thought the culture had reached a Becky ill herself, devoted to a sick child, or could something watershed moment—during the Anita else be going on? This is Daniel Palmer’s first thriller writing Hill hearings, for instance. But then, as D.J. Palmer, following several books that continued his she says, the status quo would return. late father Michael Palmer’s popular medical thrillers. In October 2017, as Fairstein searched for the right topic They All Fall Down for the 20th Rachel Howzell Hall, Forge, Apr. 2019 entry in her series The author of the Elouise Norton series riffs on Agatha featuring Christie’s And Then There Were None in this standalone novel, Manhattan pros- which brings a diverse cast of seven strangers to a remote ecutor Alexandra private island in Mexico. The reason behind the trip—a recently deceased Cooper, she con- person common to all—only becomes apparent later. What beyond-the-grave sidered whether game is being played? And will the narrator make it home to Los Angeles and she wanted to her teen daughter, or will she fall victim to her own sins? —G.B. base a mile- stone book on

40 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 SPRING ADULT ANNOUNCEMENT ISSUE

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Noteworthy Debuts Rookie authors disclose the motives and methods behind their crime novels.

First Case: Bellini and the Sphinx (Akashic, Feb. 2019) Investigator: Tony Bellotto, trans. from the Brazilian Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers Previously published in Brazilian rock musician Bellotto’s native country, the São Paolo–set noir follows private detective Remo Bellini, who is investigating the disappearance of several women connected to the underworld and the related murder of a famed surgeon. Bellotto says he modeled his PI on Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and that the plot, which involves prostitutes and live-sex performers, evokes two classically inter- twined themes: sex and death.

First Case: The Break Line (Berkley, Jan. 2019) Investigator: James Brabazon In what PW’s starred review called “an adrenaline-charged thriller,” British intelligence officer Max McLean, an assassin with a perfect track record, is sent to Sierra Leone on what looks to be a suicide mission. Brabazon, a journalist and filmmaker, has covered numerous conflicts, and says “it was working in Liberia and Sierra Leone during their civil wars that inspired The Break Line.” The ethical challenges of being forced to rely not just on the good guys, but, at times, on murderers, and the frustration of not being able to fully capture his experiences in nonfiction, led to a realization that “writing fiction could be as authentic and as credible as reportage.”

First Case: Evil Things (Bitter Lemon, Feb. 2019) Investigator: Katja Ivar Ivar’s Nordic noir, set during the Cold War, introduces Hella Mauzer, the first female inspector in the Helsinki Homicide Unit. When the wife of an Orthodox priest asks her to investigate the disappearance of a man in a small village on the Soviet border, Mauzer discovers the man was murdered, and that his death may not be the only crime in need of investigation. Ivar says she began the novel as a way to escape the overwhelming “grief and pain” she experienced after suffering a stillbirth, and spent hours poring over artifacts in Finland’s National Police Museum. Elements of her past, she says, worked their way into the story, and “it turned out to be a very life-affirming book.”

First Case: The Wolf and the Watchman (Atria, Mar. 2019) Investigator: Niklas Natt och Dag In 1793 Stockholm, a disabled ex-soldier and former night watchman finds a badly mutilated corpse and wants to give the man a proper burial. That means working with Cecile Wing, a lawyer turned detective who is dying from consumption and hopes for a last redemptive act. Natt och Dag says his research included “prowling every secondhand bookseller in Stockholm and buying everything they had on the era in general, and Stockholm in particular,” and that the task quickly “took on the feeling of an inherited responsibility, to speak for the dead.” The Swedish Academy of Crime Writers named the book the best debut novel of 2017. —G.B.

what might have proved to have been years earlier. a short-lived moment in the news Even after the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirma- cycle. But when the #MeToo move- tion battle, which Fairstein says has uncanny echoes in her ment continued to pick up steam, she novel, the author remains optimistic about the prospects for knew exactly the story she wanted to lasting change. A year after the Weinstein allegations, she tell. The result, Blood Oath (Dutton, says, #MeToo is still front-page news, noting that in earlier Apr. 2019), finds Cooper on a case times the press and the public were quick to move on. “So involving a woman who is speaking that, to me,” she says, “is distinctly different than anything out about the abuse she suffered by a that came before.” ■ high-profile law enforcement official while a witness at a federal trial many Gwenda Bond is the author of many novels for young adults and children.

42 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 CELEBRATING 20 YEARS

Lightning Source The Possibility of the Impossible

Karen Thompson Walker’s second novel, The Dreamers, follows the spread of a mysterious sleeping sickness

By Emily Ch enoweth photography llc hawk ©dan

ell before we met, I felt as if I knew second novel. The Dreamers (Random House, Jan. 2019) takes Karen Thompson Walker. Though this place in the fictional Southern California mountain town of wasn’t true, it didn’t seem entirely delu- Santa Lora, where a sickness descends one evening in early fall. sional: Portland, Ore., is a small town; A first-year student at the local college leaves a party, goes to we have a dear friend in common; and, bed, and then doesn’t wake up; a few days later, she’s dead. Soon Wthree months ago, I’d had lunch with her husband and older after, another girl falls asleep. She doesn’t die, but nor can she daughter at a large writerly gathering at a local brewpub. be roused. Though the college attempts to quarantine the stu- Thompson hadn’t attended, perhaps because it was blisteringly dents, the sickness spreads, first among the residents of a dorm hot that afternoon, or perhaps because she had a six-month-old and then outward: to the janitor who cleaned their rooms, to a baby at the time, and instead seized a chance to get some sleep. clerk at a convenience store, a backpacker, and a young bride, Sleep, the holy grail of the new (or, in this case, repeat) and soon to the doctors and nurses caring for the sick teens, parent, is the subject, in a way, of Walker’s haunting, hypnotic who sleep “like children, mouths open, cheeks flushed.

44 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Author Profile

Breathing as rhythmic as swells on the sea.” her in a dream. “When I realized that sleep would be the main As if the creep of a mysterious sleeping sickness weren’t eerie symptom of this strange sickness,” she says, “I knew I’d arrived enough, the world around Santa Lora seems to shimmer and in my favorite fictional territory: those places in human experi- vibrate with threat. The mountain lake is vanishing, the region ence where the uncanny or the extraordinary exists rights along- is prone to earthquakes and landslides, and the forest is “fertile for side the everyday.” fire.” As Walker’s compassionate, omniscient narrator asks, “What In the everyday of The Dreamers, sisters and couples fight, if misfortune can be drawn to a place, like lightning to a rod?” children trick-or-treat, bonds form and break, and “a secret When Walker and I finally meet, outside a pie shop, she has cluster of cells” implants itself in a sleeping woman’s womb. a brilliant smile and a happy, bell-like laugh. A former editor The present-tense narrative telescopes in and out, pulling back at Simon & Schuster, she is now a professor at the University of to give a panoramic view of the situation, then zooming close Oregon in Eugene, two hours south of Portland. Thankfully, as individual, intimate stories play out against the backdrop of when I tell her that I’m convinced I know her already, she the crisis. The disease is determined to be airborne, and soon doesn’t seem to find this very weird. the entire town is cordoned off. In the outside world, conspiracy On this sunny fall Friday, over the sound of clinking porce- theories abound; within, the dreamers’ brains show “more lain, as the ice caps melt and the world veers toward autocracy, activity... than has even been recorded in any human brain— Walker explains that she took inspiration awake or asleep.” from Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness, about Walker gives us numerous carefully an epidemic, and his careerlong fascination drawn characters in The Dreamers, but she with “the possibility of the impossible.” For began this novel, like her first, not with a Walker, the line between what is possible person, but with a question: what if sleep and what’s not is “the richest territory” for became contagious? Or, as in The Age of fiction, in part because the pressure of a Miracles, what if “light became unhooked catastrophic force serves to illuminate the from day, darkness unchained from night”? quotidian. Her bestselling debut, The Age What would happen in such unprecedented of Miracles, imagined the slowing of Earth’s circumstances? rotation and the cataclysmic disruptions Walker cites Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let this causes for all planetary life—but also, Me Go as “a master class for me in how to just as powerfully, it chronicled its adoles- blend speculative elements with psycho- cent narrator’s charged, complicated logical and emotional realism.” Marilyn coming-of-age. The Dreamers employs sim- Robinson’s Housekeeping and Julie Otsuka’s ilar psychological realism and a disaster The Buddha in the Attic were also influences, that’s far less sci-fi: point of fact, there’s a she says, and Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto served “mystery illness” in the headlines on the as a model for how to follow a large cast of very day we meet. imperiled characters. When I point this out, Walker laughs her fine laugh again. The heady premise of The Dreamers allowed Walker to inves- “Maybe another reason I’m so interested in that particular quality tigate the complexities of consciousness, the foundations of of realism is that I’m someone who’s quick to worry and fear,” she morality, and the very nature of what we understand to be says. “And writing is a way of exploring anxiety and frightening reality. But if that sounds grand and cosmic, there is also the scenarios in a way that’s satisfying, instead of just horrifying.” tiny sweetness of a father teaching his baby new words (“This is And contagion stories in particular, Walker notes, are com- our shadow, yours and mine, long on the sidewalk because the pelling because of the way “they inevitably reflect human con- sun is low in the sky at this time of year”) and the hesitant flush nections and human bonds.” In a plague novel, it’s the out- of new love (“Here he is beside her. Here is his hand, laced in siders—another favorite subject of hers—who stay safest. That’s hers at the end of the day”). because, as The Dreamers tells us, the sickness travels most easily And here, in this Portland café, there is the chatter of neigh- “through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship boring tables, the steamy hiss of the cappuccino machine. and love.” There’s the sun shining outside, and soon it will be the When Walker began writing The Dreamers, she didn’t know weekend, and, in a few days, Walker will write to say that she what her sickness should look like—a flu, first taking hold in a got the sickness she didn’t use in fiction: a stomach flu. But— college dorm, perhaps. She was living in Iowa City at the time, spoiler alert—unlike a handful of her characters, she very while her husband was enrolled in the MFA program at the quickly gets better. ■ University of Iowa (Walker’s MFA is from Columbia). But one night—and here is the magic thing, “the thing that seems too Emily Chenoweth is the coauthor, with Johnny Marciano, of Klawde: Evil good to be true,” she admits—the idea for the disease came to Alien Warlord Cat, forthcoming in February.

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 45

NOVEMBER 2018

Your guide to self-publishing

Meet the Judges of the 2018 BookLife Prize • Seven Author Branding Tips • First Lines from BookLife Authors • Book Cover Redesign • 84 New Titles Listed The Fans Are Out There How Leslie Langtry found her readers

BY MATIA BURNETT

eslie Langtry’s writing career began in the second grade, when she wrote La story about a family camping trip gone wrong. When the kids in her class laughed, she says she was “hooked.” In college, she focused on political science, Soviet studies, and art administration. But her love for writing—and making readers laugh— never left her. As she neared age 40, she joined a writer’s group and wrote three books, which she says she subsequently “buried in the backyard after a ritual burning, so no one would ever, ever read them.” But, after Langtry wrote for a couple more years, her husband challenged her to sell a book in one year. The result of that effort ® INDIE SUCCESS

her books as “cozy comedies” because they have elements that fall into the cozy category, but “they seem to make people other than my mother laugh.” Langtry says she has always been a fan of mysteries: “I read my first Nancy Drew in the third grade. At some point, I graduated to Agatha Christie by stealing my mother’s books off her nightstand and blaming it on my sister.” Recurring themes find their way into Langtry’s books. There’s one leitmotif in particular: animals, including a rabbit, skunk, raccoon, and owl, grace the covers of the Merry Wrath books. In this case, art imitates life. “I think it’s safe to say we have a problem,” Langtry says. “We have three dogs, three cats, and a disturbingly large mini lop bunny we inherited after our daughter broke up with her boyfriend.” Other past animals have included turtles, parakeets, zebra finches, guinea pigs, and an iguana named Cedric. Langtry also writes a lot about the Girl Scouts, having spent 10 years as a troop leader: “I must admit my hilarious and precocious troop gave me a lot of material to work with. Some people are sur- Leslie Langtry prised when they find out that many of the more absurd incidents was 2007’s ’Scuse Me While I Kill This in my books actually happened.” Guy, the first book in what would become Langtry writes funny books, but the Greatest Hits Mysteries series. She sold the writing is not all fun and games. “Someone once first book to Dorchester Publishing, followed by said, ‘Dying is easy—comedy is hard’—and they’re the next four titles in that series. Her publishing right,” she says. “I’ve written straight books with- story gets a little twisty after that. out humor, and I can write those in half the time Around 2011, Langtry got the rights back to the I write my comedies. The trickiest part is having Greatest Hits books and decided to give the indie the right balance of comedy mixed with serious route a try, republishing the original Greatest Hits life-and-death situations.” books herself in order to reach a broader reader- With 23 books and additional short stories both ship. They were later picked up again by a small traditionally published and self-published, Langtry mystery press, Gemma Halliday Publishing. “Working has earned her merit badges. She believes that with Gemma has been incredible, and I’ve hit the self-publishing has meaningfully transformed the USA Today bestseller list under her guidance,” the landscape—perhaps most significantly by allowing author says. for more fluid parameters between genres. Langtry’s other series include eight Merry Wrath Langtry is confident that, as long as authors put books and two books in Gemma Halliday Publishing’s out the best versions of the best books they can Aloha Lagoon series. She has recently self-published write, readers will come: “You can write a space a Greatest Hits novella, as well as two horror books, opera/sweet romance/werefrog novel with nonfic- and is looking to self-publish four additional books tion elements, and you can find an audience who across two series in the next year. Langtry describes will eat that up.” Her next book, perhaps? ■

48 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 ®

Q&A SPONSORED

and household responsibilities, even when they gen- BookLife Talks with erate a larger portion of the family income. The more childhood adversity the women experienced, the Jude Miller Burke, PhD more likely they were to take control of their lives by starting and owning their own businesses. Psychologist and business coach Miller Burke helps The men in my study group experienced more readers turn childhood challenges into adult childhood abuse and witnessed more family abuse successes. than the women did. Both sexes developed perseverance and flexibility on their career paths, had a pro- Why did you write The Adversity Advantage? tective work style, and struggled with self-esteem Twenty-five years of counseling and and relationships at work. However, they coaching successful men and women in became students of the skills they did not large and small companies have led me to learn at home, which helped launch them believe that there is a predictable journey to success. Both sexes also used detours from childhood hardship to career and and failures to launch them into new personal success. I wanted to illuminate opportunities. this process with scientific data and interviews to take years off a difficult and con- Who is your ideal reader and why? fusing process. I grew up in a troubled The ideal reader for this book is someone family and, through many difficulties, who experienced childhood hardship, or detours, and obstacles, became success- knows someone who has, and wants to ful. The research-based, up-to-date infor- learn well-researched and easily described mation and heartfelt stories I have gath- ways to transform this adversity into per- ered will ease the way forward for others. sonal and workplace strengths.

Tell us a little bit about your research Why or how do you think this book is par- into childhood adversity and the people ticularly relevant now? whose stories inform this book. Society is growing increasingly accept- I conducted a scientific research study of ing of the idea that childhood forms who 310 highly successful men and women— we are as adults, creating both healthy CEOs, artists, psychologists, and commu- and unhealthy habits that may hinder or nity leaders—half of whom were self-made help us. This is a book that will help read- millionaires, who grew up in lower-income ers manage their childhood “triggers” at to middle-class families. Among the study group, 40% home and at work to move forward toward success. experienced childhood abuse, witnessed abuse, or Learning how to maximize positive behaviors and had an alcoholic parent, which is higher than the to minimize negative coping strategies is absolutely national norm. These challenges did not keep them possible. All it takes is practice. from achieving a high level of success, however. What is the one thing you most want to tell people Did you find that childhood adversity affects men about you or your book? and women differently? This is the only easy-to-read inspirational book that Both men and women reported experiencing child- outlines specific steps on the journey from childhood hood abuse, witnessing familial abuse, and experi- hardship to adult success. The lasting, serious effects encing alcoholism in their families. This is a surprise of childhood abuse, alcoholism, and poverty on one’s to many people. In addition, the pathway to success mental and physical health are described along with for men and women is more similar than different. clear strategies for recovery. Readers will learn that However, women—as reported by men and women— they can drop that heavy old friend, childhood trauma, experience more prejudice and discrimination while for lighter and brighter futures. seeking financial, professional, and leadership success. Women also absorb the second shift of childcare For more information, visit booklife.com/burke

BOOKLIFE.COM 49 ® COVER ART Cover Redesign This month, Michelle Argyle at Melissa Williams Design reimagines the cover of Dreams of the Turtle King by indie author Denise Bossarte, who praised the new cover, saying it “captured the essence” of her book

To submit a book for a free cover redesign, email us at [email protected]. Original Cover

When a cover The author showcases an wanted a award seal, it’s “dreamy” feel, important to so we chose a design around title font that is that element sophisticated instead of but hints at a placing it over bit of whimsy. the title. I chose a background photo that allowed me to do this.

Instead of putting a drop shadow behind While the the text, which illustrated might add to cover is the cluttered beautiful, the feel, I created a watercolor and dark gradient font choices to make the felt too juvenile text and turtle for the content stand out. and intended readership. A photo and different fonts dramatically change the tone and feel.

50 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 ®

Q&A SPONSORED

How are things different today than when you BookLife Talks with grew up? I grew up knowing my grandparents and seeing Marianne Spampinato aunts, uncles, and cousins on a regular basis. Such family ties reinforced our shared heritage and accu- Erma Bombeck fans will delight in Spampinato’s mulated wisdom. Today, we’re much more mobile. In humorous take on Mother knowing best. our area, many had to relocate for work, especially after Bethlehem Steel and U.S. What is the story behind Listen to Your Steel closed local mills. My cousins and Mother—what inspired you to write it? their children, as well as the children of I am a columnist and freelance corre- many friends, are spread out across the spondent for Our Town, a local weekly United States. Since more women work newspaper in Somerset County, Pa. outside the home than when my mom Readers have told me that they especially returned to work full-time, children are enjoy my columns about my rescue dog, in day care or are watched by people out- Galla, and my relationship with my mom. side the family. Life has also dramatically Inspired by this response, I came up with changed due to technology, the internet, the idea for Listen to Your Mother during and social media. These changes aren’t the summer of 2017. My mother has necessarily bad—I keep in touch with dis- always told me I have a book inside of me. tant relatives and friends on Facebook— I finally listened to her. but today children are growing up in an environment far different from the one I Tell us about your mother. What was grew up in. she like when you were a child? We didn’t have the stereotypical “Wait till Who is your ideal reader and why? your father gets home” family; my mom I’ve heard from many people around my was the disciplinarian. Like her mom, she age that Listen to Your Mother brought managed the family budget and paid the back precious memories of their own bills. Like her dad, who was a gifted moms. I know one woman who bought craftsman, she can figure out all sorts of my book for her daughter when she was things. Mom has great inner strength expecting her first child. An older woman and knows her own mind. She made bought it as a wedding gift for her grand- many sacrifices, including going back to work full- daughter. Although women may relate more to the time when I was in elementary school, so we could book, I’ve also received positive feedback from men. have a better life. What is the one thing you most want to tell read- Did you always follow your mother’s advice? What ers, other writers, booksellers, publishers, or about the times when you didn’t? agents about you or your book? I have pretty much ignored her warning not to eat Listen to Your Mother is a slice-of-life book. chocolate because it makes your face break out, as Readers are bound to relate to some of the well as her advice to not snack. My mom also advised, sayings and anecdotes. The book is available on “Don’t rush; take your time.” One unfortunate day, I madeinsomersetcounty.com and on Amazon. ignored this and another of her warnings, namely Wholesale bulk orders may be arranged with the not to wear cuffed pants, as I’m a bit of a klutz. I was Daily American, parent company of Our Town. rushing around doing errands during my lunch break Please contact me at [email protected] and I and caught the heel of my shoe in the cuff of the will forward requests to the publisher. You can also other pant leg. I fractured my left big toe and was find me on Twitter @mts_wrtr and on Facebook given crutches, which meant people around me were @Listen2urMother. in for more comedy. For more information, visit booklife.com/spampinato

BOOKLIFE.COM 51 ® BOOKLIFE PRIZE Meet the Judges The semifinal round of the 2018 BookLife Prize will be judged by six bestselling and award-winning authors

BY DANIEL LEFFERTS

n its third year, the BookLife Prize—an annual sophistication in submissions: “Making sure the writing contest sponsored by Publishers Weekly story arc is satisfying without being obvious. Making Iand BookLife—received more than 900 submis- sure the question the story is answering is the same sions. Of those, 30 books advanced to the semifinals. one it asks at the beginning. Making sure loose ends From there, a panel of six judges selected six titles are tied up, that subplots and themes are rich enough to advance to the finals. The grand prize winner, to support something book length.” Working with set to be announced on December 17, will be selected an editor on these and other matters, she says, can by the judges and PW’s editorial staff. PW caught help indie authors “take their work to the next level.” up with the six BookLife Prize judges to talk about And BookLife Prize entrants are clearly committed self-publishing, writing, and a whole lot more. enough to their work to take that step, Brown says. “If people are serious enough to enter and serious Eleanor Brown: The Power of an Editor enough to get to this stage, it usually means they’re Is there a difference between self-published and serious enough to have developed their work until traditionally published work? According to Eleanor it’s something really solid.” Brown, a returning judge and the author of three Brown selected Anne and Louis by Rozsa Gaston traditionally published novels, there sometimes is, for the BookLife Prize finals, calling it “a lively, but its not what one would expect. engaging story, rich with historical detail.” “The difference I find is not about the writing but about the editorial process,” Brown says. “Folks who Adam Croft: The Elusive Happy Ending choose to self-publish—their writing and their stories The story of Adam Croft’s self-publishing career is are often just as good. But someone else weighing the kind that inspires novice writers. Since 2011, in could have helped when he self-published his first crime novel, Too Close them strengthen the for Comfort, through Amazon’s Kindle Direct program, book.” Croft has sold hundreds of thousands of books. As of That’s why Brown 2016, according to a profile in the Guardian, his thinks it’s a good idea proceeds were up to almost $3,000 per day. for self-published But Croft advises aspiring writers not to read too authors to work with much into such tales. “People often see the success editors or critical read- stories out there and think it’s easily ers, even if they’re still or quickly emulated,” he says. “It’s in the middle of a proj- very, very possible, but it does Brown ect. Editorial insight, require applied effort over time.” even on a single story or chapter, can be useful in Croft gained renown with his the long term, she says. 2015 novel Her Last Tomorrow, Brown knows the value of editorial advice firsthand. which sold 150,000 copies in the “I have a tendency to want a really happy, tight, tidy first five months after its publica- ending,” she says. “With my first novel, my editor tion. “The truth is that was my ninth said, ‘This is too tidy.’ So, I always make sure I untie book,” he says. “It’s a case it just a little bit at the end.” of sticking with it.” As a judge, Brown looks for signs of editorial Croft Croft does believe

52 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 BOOKLIFE PRIZE ® in the power of self-publishing, however. After he seriousness, she notes. “There’s a difference between published Her Last Tomorrow, the author signed a bringing humor and warmth to a story that might book deal with Amazon, but later ended his relation- have some difficulties and being blithe and glib. ship with the company and says he wouldn’t work Glib is the enemy of with a traditional publisher again. “Not unless the memoir.” deal was extraordinary,” he says. “I’ve been there, Powell also says that and it’s nowhere near as good.” she finds herself In Croft’s view, the line between self-publishing drawn to memoirs by and traditional publishing has blurred to the point people with a “vastly of almost no longer existing. The self-published different—or even sub- authors “who do it properly tend to use the same tly different—experi- editors and the same cover designers as a traditional ence” than she’s pre- publishing house,” he says. viously encountered. For readers of crime novels, of course, it’s the Powell “You want your eyes story that counts. According to the Guardian, in open to something you haven’t seen before,” she 2017 crime overtook general and literary fiction as adds. “There are only so many memoirs I can read the most popular book genre in the U.K. That doesn’t about middle-aged white ladies having a renais- surprise Croft. “I think the reason for that is that sance.” we seek happy endings,” he says. “We like to see the Powell selected Of Monkey Bridges and Bánh Mì bad guys get caught.” Sandwiches by Oanh Ngo Usadi for the BookLife Croft selected A Lady and Gentleman in Black by Kelly Prize finals, praising the author’s “empathy and Jameson for the BookLife Prize finals, calling the book vivid storytelling.” a “fascinating and intriguing twist on the crime genre.” Tim Pratt: Honor Thy Fans Julie Powell: The “Tricky Genre” Tim Pratt, a returning judge, began his career in After an author publishes her first memoir, does self-publishing in order to feed his fans. In 2009, he she start looking at her life as a potential second published the fourth book in his Marla Mason series, memoir? For a while after writing her bestselling about an adventurous witch, with Bantam Spectra, debut memoir, Julie & Julia (which later became a film which was then a Random House imprint. starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep), Julie Powell, Around that time, the industry entered dire straits. a returning judge, did. She compares the experience “About a third of publishing was laid off,” Pratt to affecting an “authentic” personality on social media. says—including his editor. The Marla Mason series “On social media I try to present myself in an unvar- looked to be dead. nished way,” Powell says. “But, still, you’re composing: Pratt had ended the fourth book in the series on a ‘Oh, this is an incident.’ All of us do some of that now.” cliffhanger; he and his editor had planned to publish For memoirists, though, it can be more extreme. a fifth title. When it became evident that the series “Immediately after writing Julie & Julia, I was definitely would not continue, readers wrote to him expressing like, ‘What does this mean? How is this going to weave frustration that the story had been left unresolved. into the warp and weft?’ ” she says. “I’ve kind of let go Pratt decided to serialize the fifth title on his web- of that now, maybe just because my life is really boring.” site. He set up a PayPal account for readers who wanted After all, for Powell, a good memoir is one that to pay for the book. He ended up taking in five figures. brings context to a life, rather than one that focuses Since then, Pratt has self-published myriad novels on its every particular. “Memoir is a tricky genre,” and short stories, sometimes collaborating with a she says. “You want to hear this person’s innermost small publisher on distribution and design. These unique thoughts. At the same time, you don’t want include several more titles in the Marla Mason series, to spend 300 pages reading navel-gazing.” which he crowdfunds on Kickstarter. His income from Memoirs also need to balance pathos with humor. these books tends to be similar to his income from Readers don’t want to feel that they’re “slogging traditionally published works. Random House paid him through the Bataan Death March of despair all the $20,000 per book in the Marla Mason series. The time,” Powell says. “Levity is a vital thing.”But at Kickstarter campaigns for self-published Marla Mason the same time, it shouldn’t come at the expense of titles have brought as much as $18,000 per book.

BOOKLIFE.COM 53 ® BOOKLIFE PRIZE

Still, Pratt likes to keep a remains connected to the community of readers and foot in the door of tradi- fellow writers she found there. She’s also drawing tional publishing, partly to on her experience in publishing to counsel writers grow the readership for his who are just starting out. In addition to judging self-published output. “I’m contests such as the BookLife Prize, she works as a fundamentally a lazy person, mentor with Pitch Wars, a program through which so if I can have a publisher established writers help novices find agents. get my books out in front “I’m picking writers out of the slush pile who I think of tens of thousands of have what it takes,” Sky says. It would appear that she norwesconb Pratt © people through their distri- has good instincts. All her mentees thus far have bution channels, I like that,” he says. landed agents, and a mentee of hers from two years Pratt isn’t actually all that lazy. He works full-time ago went on to sign a six-figure book deal. as a senior editor at the science fiction and fantasy Sky’s success story might inspire first-time writers magazine Locus. He has one weekday off, Thursday, to publish their work as soon as possible, but she advises and that’s his writing day. “I have no hobbies,” he caution. “Once you put your work out there, that’s it,” jokes. “I write, and I hang out with my kids.” she says. “That’s your first work. Don’t rush into that.” Given that Pratt lives and breathes science fiction Sky also recommends that writers do their research. and fantasy, he’s looking for entries that feel fresh: “Take time to explore the genre,” she says. “Read a books that couldn’t just as well have come from a lot of what’s been successful in self-publishing and mainstream publisher and that don’t fit an already what’s been successful in traditional publishing and robust niche in the genre. compare that to your work.” Pratt selected Fid’s Crusade by David H. Reiss for the Sky selected Ray vs. the Meaning of Life by Michael BookLife Prize finals, calling it “one of the most refreshing F. Stewart for the BookLife Prize finals. “This author and lively takes on the superhero genre I’ve seen in years.” has a new fan in me,” she says.

Rebecca Sky: Know Your Audience Rebekah Weatherspoon: By the time Rebecca Sky published her debut novel, Creating Space for Diversity Arrowheart, with Hodder Children’s Books earlier this According to her website, Rebekah Weatherspoon, year, she already had millions of readers. That’s because a returning judge, has held the following jobs: she originally published the novel in serial format on “library assistant, meter maid, middle school teacher, the user-generated storytelling platform Wattpad. At B-movie production assistant, reality show crew present, Arrowheart, which is about a mermaid who chauffeur, D-movie producer, and her most fulfilling can turn any man she kisses into a merman, has been job to date, lube and harness specialist at an erotic read more than 12 million times on that website. boutique in West Hollywood.” In addition to all that, Publishing on of course, she’s built a career as a romance author. Wattpad, Sky says, Though she started out as a self-published author, helped her hone her she eventually began working with traditional presses craft. With millions of and recently signed a deal with Kensington. people reading each Given Weatherspoon’s robust résumé, it’s perhaps installment of the no surprise that her first advice to novice writers book, “I learned how to is to figure out what kind of authorial output they to take feedback and can sustain. “I don’t write as fast as some really assess what worked prolific authors,” she says. “I can’t set myself up for, foto for me and worked for say, a Nora Roberts career. I just don’t write that foxx Sky © my story and my fast. It’s important for people to sit down, think vision,” she says. about what resources and tools they have at hand, It also helped Sky shape her story so as to maximize what kind of time they have.” reader satisfaction. “I was learning what my readers It’s also important for writers to take care of them- were anticipating as I was writing,” she says. “I was selves. “Sleep is really important,” Weatherspoon says. able to change direction or surprise them.” “If you’re sleep-deprived, you’re not going to put out Sky no longer publishes on Wattpad, but she a good book, or it’s going to take you even longer.”

54 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 BOOKLIFE PRIZE ®

Weatherspoon finds easier for me to find more romance novels with black it odd that, in the writing heroines and queer people in the self-published world, people don’t often realm. There are plenty of wonderful traditionally talk about the actual published books by black women. But there aren’t labor of composition. At as many.” writing conferences and Weatherspoon runs the website WOC in Romance seminars she’s attended, to promote the work of women of color in the genre, “there’s always a lot talk and her community of fellow readers shares her about what to do after sentiments. “We share new releases every week, you finish your book, and 80% of the books we share are self-published,” Weatherspoon and there’s not a lot of she says. talk about finishing the book,” she says. “A lot of Does Weatherspoon think that self-publishing is people who are thinking about publishing or working putting pressure on traditional publishing to be toward publishing, they haven’t really sat down and more diverse? “I would hope so,” she says. “But I thought about finishing the book yet.” think if the pressure were actually there, traditional And, ideally, when that book is finished, it’ll offer publishers would have done something about it readers something they haven’t been expecting. As already. And they haven’t.” a judge, Weatherspoon says, she’s looking for some- Weatherspoon selected After the Gold by Erin thing “a little bit different.” McRae and Racheline Maltese for the BookLife Prize That reflects her tastes as a reader more generally. finals, calling the book “a light yet magnetic tale of When Weatherspoon looks for stories that reflect life and love.” ■ her experience, she often looks to self-published books. “I’m a black queer woman,” she says. “It’s Daniel Lefferts is a writer living in New York.

BOOKLIFE.COM 55 ® BOOK MARKETING Seven Branding Tips For Indie Authors How writers can build stronger brands and sell more books

BY MARK COKER

Mark Coker

eaders seek out books by their favorite authors. brands to represent to readers, visualize the How does an author achieve the level of experiences that their books will deliver to readers, Rawareness, trust, and admiration needed visualize the legacies they want to leave with their to become a favorite author? It all starts with writing, and be accurate in their marketing claims. branding. Think of an author brand as a bundle of percep- 2. Present a unified front. If self-published authors tions and expectations that form in readers’ minds want readers to know and respect their brands, over time. A brand is a promise; it’s what readers then they must take steps to ensure that their expect from an author. books make good first impressions. This means Strong brand affinity is the reason readers select professional cover designs and common design an author’s self-published books over other books. themes across their lists to make books more Brand is how authors build durable careers. recognizable to fans. Authors with strong brands enjoy numerous Although experienced indie authors claim they marketing advantages over those whose brands already know the importance of this, the truth is are weaker. For example, authors with strong that most authors fall short of their potential. brands are more likely to earn coveted book reviews Great cover design is so affordable that there’s and retailer merchandising. The results of such simply no excuse for skimping. If an author writes wins then feed into a self-reinforcing cycle that a series, the covers should share a unified design generates more readership, greater visibility, and theme, all the way down to the colors, typestyles, more sales. layout, and emotional feel. Whether an author Authors with strong brands can also command writes series or standalones, there should be com- higher prices for their books. In fact, the prices mon design elements that run through every cover authors select for their books convey a promise for every book—and the same goes for author about their brands. websites, social media profiles, and all marketing Smart brand building is how unknown authors communications. Such unified elements foster become known authors. Here are seven tips to help familiarity and make it easier for fans to recognize authors cultivate stronger brands: an author’s work.

1. Visualize the destination. Although it’s pos- 3. Provide a consistent experience. What’s the sible to build a strong brand by accident, most emotional or intellectual experience that readers bestselling indie authors get there with deliberate can expect from an author’s books, and does that planning and execution. Each author’s brand is experience align with the author’s brand identity? found at the intersection of the author’s true Consistency fosters familiarity, trust, and confi- capabilities and his or her desired brand percep- dence. Think of Starbucks coffee. A customer can tion. Authors must visualize what they want their expect that a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte

56 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 BOOK MARKETING ® purchased in Dallas will taste the same as a Starbucks 6. Practice ethical marketing. Ethics and honesty pumpkin spice latte purchased in Denver or Detroit. are essential to successful author branding. The customer knows what to expect both from Without ethics and honesty, it’s impossible to Starbucks the coffee chain and from each indi- build reader trust. We’ve all heard stories of vidually branded Starbucks custom coffee. The authors who cut ethical corners, like paying shills customer’s confidence in the brand is reinforced to give them artificially glowing reviews. We’ve with every purchase. all seen or read authors who promised one thing with their covers, book titles, or book descriptions 4. Always delight. It’s difficult to earn reader trust but delivered another. Such actions sully an but easy to squander it. As I’ve written in previous author’s brand. We remember these authors for columns, good books aren’t good enough anymore. the wrong reasons. With a glut of high-quality, low-cost books out there, only super-fabulous books drive positive 7. Don’t pee in the pool. Be a nice person. No one brand development for their authors. If an author’s likes mean, inconsiderate people. Publishing is a books don’t take readers to an emotionally satisfy- people business. Authors’ brand perceptions are ing extreme, every time, then the books aren’t shaped by every interaction—online and offline—that good enough. they have with readers and fellow publishing industry professionals. Be the author who contrib- 5. Continuously improve. It can be difficult for utes sunshine, helpfulness, and gratitude to the authors to recognize their own shortcomings. party. Be the author others want to elevate. ■ Authors should keep open minds, seek out critical feedback, and always aim to continuously improve Mark Coker is founder of Smashwords and author their implementation of best practices. of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.

BOOKLIFE.COM 57 ® BOOKS TO WATCH Scouting Report In this month’s roundup of the best-reviewed BookLife titles, we highlight a pair of historical romances, a work of urban fantasy, a mystery about abducted animals, and a novel set in a world still plagued by the War of the Roses.

★ Stolen ★ The Cost of Hope LINDA J. WRIGHT G.S. CARR Synopsis: This series kickoff Synopsis: Carr delivers a introduces Kieran Yates, a poignant message about former Crown Counsel, who the meaning of freedom in has left practicing law to the first Cost of Love work as an investigator of historical. crime related to animals. PW’s Takeaway: The message PW’s Takeaway: Wright about freedom not always combines her passionate being simple is significant commitment to animal and well conveyed without rights with a riveting whodunit that’s not being preachy or overstated. This well-told histor- dependent on murder to sustain interest. ical romance is intense and powerful. Comparable Titles: Robin Lamont’s The Chain and Comparable Title: Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary The Trap Union Sample Line: “I brooded. I drank immoderately. I Sample Line: “Sarah stared into the coffin-sized bathed irregularly. I ate seldom and unwisely. I hole that represented the end of her hope. Mrs. shut off my phone. I was becoming more and Williams was dead, and with her had died the more unhinged, and I knew it.” little protection she provided.” Read the Review: Read the Review: publishersweekly.com/9781732359307 publishersweekly.com/9781719552233

★ A Queen ★ On the ★ Hero Forged from the Edge of JOSH ERIKSON North Daylight Synopsis: Erikson ERIN MCRAE AND blazes onto the GISELLE BEAUMONT RACHELINE urban fantasy A beauti- scene with a cor- MALTESE Synopsis: fully crafted histor- nucopia of decep- Synopsis: This series kickoff intro- ical romance about the journey tively simple worldbuilding and duces an alternate world in which and eventual sinking of the Titanic. meticulously plotted storytelling. the Wars of the Roses never ended. PW’s Takeaway: This expertly PW’s Takeaway: This is an intri- PW’s Takeaway: A perfect cocktail characterized and tautly plotted cate mystery laced with humor of intrigue and romance. story is an impressive debut. and lore. Comparable Title: Rachel Hauck’s Comparable Title: Danielle Steel’s Comparable Titles: Jim Butcher’s Once upon a Prince No Greater Love the Dresden Files series Read the Review: publishers- Read the Review: publishers- Read the Review: publishersweekly.com/9781946192073 weekly.com/9781980593225 weekly.com/ASINB07CZ51BXD

58 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 FIRST LINES ®

Changing Ways First Lines JULIA TANNENBAUM “I think the world is ending.” Our monthly look at some of the best first lines from BookLife authors Birdseye Chronicles L.A. GOLDSMITH “It was an ordinary day in the neigh- In November, we’ve got bloody stars, ordinary borhood.” days, and the joys of going commando. To submit a first line, email [email protected]. The Forgotten Flapper A Day Out of Time LAINI GILES KELSEY CLIFTON “You know, it’s really no fun haunting “In Cat’s professional opinion, things people who refuse to be afraid of you.” were already going to shit by the time the pteranodon attacked.” Persistence of Vision STEVEN DEEBLE The Awakened Ape “The stars were covered in blood.” JEVAN PRADAS “The happiest people in the world don’t wear underwear." ® WRITING ADVICE

It’s distracting and slows down everyone around you—the cou- Ask the plot by telling the reader ple arguing in the restaurant, how the character feels, twice. the kids chatting on the bus. It seems like an insult to the Take notes. Learn to write the the reader. way people talk. “ ‘I just got a big raise,’ Tina Editer said happily.” Obviously Tina is 4. Read your dialogue aloud. If happy about this. you find yourself stumbling over A veteran editor answers “ ‘You are my best friend,’ words or it sounds stilted to you, your writing questions Tom said honestly.” Is there a it probably is. Back to the draw- reason to doubt Tom’s honesty? ing board, or rather, your note- BY BETTY KELLY SARGENT “ ‘This thing is about to book. It’s like learning a new explode,’ George said seriously.” language. After a while, it Dear Editor: Duh! comes naturally. y dialogue is clunky. Any Msuggestions? —Fred C. My other rules: 2. Leave out the small stuff. ever use an adverb to mod- “Hey dude, how’s your day going “Nify the verb ‘said.’” That’s so far?” If it’s not essential to Betty Kelly Sargent is the rule #4 in “Elmore Leonard’s 10 the exchange between the two founder and CEO of BookWorks. Rules of Writing.” I’d call it my characters, leave it out. rule #1 in writing good dialogue. If you have a question for the Doing this is a “mortal sin,” 3. Listen. Develop your ear for editor, please email Betty Sargent BOOKWORKS_HALF_H_0715_Layoutaccording to Leonard. 1Why? 7/24/15 10:12 AMlanguage Page 1 by listening to at [email protected].

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PW SELECT LISTINGS ® New Titles from Self-Publishers Booksellers, publishers, librarians, and agents are encouraged to look at the 84 self-published titles below. Each appears with a list of retailers that are selling the book and a description provided by its author. Some of these writers are waiting to be discovered; others have track records and followings and are doing it on their own. If you are a self-published author interested in listing titles in this section, please visit publishersweekly.com/pw-select for more information.

Fiction he fights the East Germans and present- Publishers. $16.95 paper (262p), ISBN 978- Awakening day Germany to reclaim his father’s pre- 0-692-15390-1 Jackie Goldman, illus. by cious art collection. Amazon, BN.com Noelia Dickson. Jackie A bunch of eclectic characters hunker Goldman. $11.11 paper Christmastime 1939: down in abandoned boxcars, fed up with (200p), ISBN 978-1- Prequel to the Christmastime Series digital life. They tell yarns with comical 72705-462-0 Linda Mahkovec. digs at contemporary society. Amazon Bublish. $2.99 e-book, A Brooklyn mother who ASIN B07HPG2T3T Licking the Salt Block escapes insecurity by secretly penning Amazon, Apple iBooks, Jan Fink. Fifth Estate adventure comic books featuring a BN.com, Google Play, Publishing. $15.99 paper glamorous alter ego must decide what Ingram, Kobo, OverDrive (322p), ISBN 978-1- to do when real life and fantasy converge. A young widow, Lillian 936533-60-2 Hapsey, is determined Amazon Bocage to give her two small sons a happy A young girl grows up Charles Birmingham. Christmas, despite difficulties. Can she with dysfunctional Cider Circle Press. $16.99 rediscover the excitement and magic of parents in the Deep South during the ’50s paper (422p), ISBN 978- Christmas? and ’60s, when racial and social preju- 0-692-16520-1 dices were at their peak. Amazon The Civil War at Home In this historical novel, Dustin McKissen. Working A Model Mind a strange midnight Class Books. $9.99 paper Brad Kash. Senior visit draws an American expat living in (219p), ISBN 978-1- Richardson Publishing. France into a deadly adventure that pivots 73276-932-8 $16.99 paper (372p), between present-day Normandy and the Amazon ISBN 978-0-9703272- deadly hedgerow fighting of the Allied Two suburban men 1-5; $9.99 e-book, ISBN breakout from Normandy in 1944. engage in a growing 978-1-73256-811-2 and deadly feud fed by assumptions BradKash.com, Amazon. The Case of Emil Diesel about class, race, and the legacy of a BN.com, Kobo Patricia Menton. Xlibris. horrific crime. Mega ’80s rock star Tommy Model loses $19.99 paper (223p), ISBN it all only to find himself on top of the 978-1-984518-39-2 The Junk Yard charts again years later after a life- Amazon, BN.com, Xlibris Solution: Adventures changing experience leads him to find Inspired by true Among the Boxcars his true love and muse. events, this story has and Other Lost Max Diesel caught in a Causes Munching on the Sun web of conspiracy as Peter Kelton. Edit Ink Mark Paul Oleksiw. Mark Paul Oleksiw.

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$16.99 paper (296p), $22.99 hardcover (60p), ISBN 978-0- paper (374p), ISBN 978- ISBN 978-1-77511-112-2 9975902-7-2; $11.99 paper (60p), ISBN 978- 1-73237-530-7 Amazon, BN.com, Chapters 0-9975902-9-6 Amazon The coming-of-age Amazon, Books-a-Million Surviving combat and story of Lukas Wunand, A modern, satirical threatened with exe- a university student take on Rudolph the cution for desertion, a with a darkened soul, Red-Nosed Reindeer. teen from West Kent and his search for redemption and love. This tale of inclusion is forges a new family for readers who love and future in Italy, only to face risking My Husband’s Marriage Is Fine, but Christmas, Hanukkah, everything again, this time for love. Mine Isn’t: Patience and Trust in God; or both. Illustrated throughout. The Key to a Fulfilling Life Thursday’s Child: An Epic Romance Aretha S. Larsen. iUniverse. Second Thoughts: Joseph Wurtenbaugh. GRealist Ink. $22.50 $10.99 paper (98p), ISBN Second Chances paper (665p), ISBN978-1-5205-1684-4; 978-1-5320-3084-0; D.C. Moses. Toplink $2.99 e-book, ASIN $5.99 e-book, ISBN 978- Publishing. $15.99 paper B079QL4LW7 1-5320-3085-7 (398p), ISBN 978-1- Amazon Amazon 949169-67-6 Adele Jansen, a gifted After discovering her Amazon, BN.com young attorney, takes husband has been living Two people of differ- one step off the career a second life with another woman, Sarah ent generations radically change their track for an impromptu must find the strength to withstand the lives, discovering second chances along excursion with a fasci- crumbling of her marriage. the way. nating, mysterious man. But that one step leads her into an odyssey. Reminds Me of My Innocence: Amorous Short Story Treasures, 1 Adventures Among Kissing Cousins Amy Sheffield. Dorrance Publishing. $13 The Trevor Truculence: Amorous Peter Kelton. Edit Ink paper (136p), ISBN 978- Adventures Among the Phoenician Publishers. $16.95 paper 1-4809-3718-5 Antiquities in the South of Spain (498p), ISBN 978-0- DorranceBookstore.com Peter Kelton. Edit Ink 692-17761-7 An eclectic mix of Publishers. $16.95 paper Amazon, BN.com, Ingram short stories that (256p), ISBN 978-0- This novel traces broth- delve into politics, 692-17198-1 erly and sisterly ties religion, mystery, and Amazon, BN.com through a lifetime of much more. A Spanish fishing village misadventures and a journey into absur- is thrust into the modern dity, where Alzheimer’s takes the narrator. Tales from a Strange Southern Lady world as eccentric and Jan Fink. Fifth Estate Publishing. $19.95 bizarre characters emerge in a parade of Road to Antietam paper (276p), ISBN 978-1-936533-47-3 lust and occasional betrayal. Tom E. Hicklin. Palmetto Amazon Publishing Group. $12.99 In these 10 short stories, Viking Warlord: paper (278p), ISBN 978- the characters search A Saga of Thorkell the Great 1-64111-118-8 for meaning and free- David K. Mullaly. CreateSpace. $11.99 paper Amazon dom, struggling with (327p), ISBN 978-1-72732-550-8; $2.99 Daniel and Christopher the human capacity e-book, ASIN Galloway are teenagers for good and evil, the B07HY57NWT when they join the Eighth Ohio Infantry capacity to love, Amazon at the beginning of the Civil War. Expecting human frailty, the burden of guilt and Thorkell is an old Dane, adventure, they instead find hardship sin, and realizing the dark side of their a survivor of raids and and brutality. own nature. invasions, sharing his life story so that his Schmuck the Buck: Three Women and the River: The fame will live on: a Santa’s Jewish Reindeer Englishman Who Forgot His Own Name historical Viking leader dealing with his Exo Books, illus. by Karina Shor. Exo Books. William Harry Harding. Lymer & Hart. $24.95 past and his mortality.

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The Wind’s Story SAMMY SHOVEL Anne B. Udy. Xlibris. $24.19 paper (144p), DETECTIVE NOVELS ISBN 978-1-5144-4320- BY RONALD M. JAMES 0; $4.99 e-book, ISBN 978-1-5144-4321-7 Amazon The victim may not be as evil as it seems, This novel tells of but rather—a casualty of circumstances misunderstandings and obstacles, challenging members of two royal families and their servants. It’s not always clear Travel on Detective Sammy Shovel’s coat tails as he who is royal and who is not. transforms from being despised by the San Francisco Police Department into a successful private investigator The Yesterlings: Secrets Among the over the course of four books. He delves into each Wild Horses of Sable Island crime to learn what evil turns seemingly innocent people Peter Kelton. Edit Ink into public enemy number one. James mischievously Publishers. $16.95 paper combines two opposite words to the reader’s delight and (330p), ISBN 978-0- crafty treats all with snappy dialog. 692-18313-7 Amazon, BN.com A yachting expedition to a Canadian island famed for wild horses and shipwrecks uncovers a hoax in the raw truth of Sable Island.

Poetry Forest Lungs Andrew G. Zubinas. Toplink Publishing. BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW $11.99 paper (142p), http://a.co/d/8mhXFTo http://a.co/d/ad4Lavl http://a.co/5lk7jl0 ISBN 978-1-947620- ISBN: 978-0998175645 ISBN: 978-0998175683 ISBN: 978-0998175669 15-5 PAGES: 396 PAGES: 302 PAGES: 330 Amazon, BN.com A book of poetry, exploring healing and art, inspired by the beauty of the Lithuanian language. AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AS PAPERBACK Oil Spill AND KINDLE Dylan Saucedo. Dylan Saucedo. $8 paper (97p), ISBN 978-1-72680-309-0 “James’ new book ‘An Amazon A poetry collection Adventurous Night’ is a acknowledging bad TAUT MYSTERY!” feelings—feelings many — Publisher’s Weekly of us experience and relate to but that often aren’t given the attention they deserve. BUY NOW http://a.co/hi9mQPi ISBN: 978-0998175621 | PAGES: 134 Tributaries: A Book of Poetry Pamala Ballingham. Earth Mother RONALDJAMESBOOKS.COM Productions. $14.98 paper (152p), LEARN MORE AT ISBN 978-0-922104-36-9

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Amazon The Lawyer in Medellín On the Count of Three The power of words Richard Hedlund. New Generation Publishing. Carolyn Arnold. Hibbert & reveals deep meaning $6.34 e-book, Stiles Publishing. $15.99 in complex matters of ASIN B07CQ4JYH9 paper (458p), ISBN 978- life and death. Amazon 1-988353-74-6; $5.99 Ballingham was Stuart Gleeman is in e-book, ISBN 978-1- inspired by the wonders Colombia on business. 988353-73-9 of living. Before he leaves, MI6 Amazon, BN.com asks him for a favor: Being convicted of DUI vehicular homicide Mystery/Thriller deliver a parcel to a made her a target for a serial killer. Now The Berlin Tunnel: A Cold War Thriller family in Medellín. What could possibly she’s missing. Can the FBI save her in time? Roger L. Liles. Acorn Publishing. $24.99 go wrong? hardcover (456p), ISBN Urban Limit 978-1-947392-28-1; Let Her Go Steve Zell. Tales From Zell. $14.99 paper $15.95 paper (456p), D.J. Adamson. Horatio (408p), ISBN 978-0-9847468-4-2; $7.49 ISBN 978-1-947392-27-4 Press. $14.86 paper audio, ASIN Amazon, Apple iBooks, (448p), ISBN 978-1- B01MAV0PMF BN.com, Google Play, 73267-221-5 Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Scribd Amazon Audible Spy vs. spy in Cold War Murder. Betrayal. While Kristi trains for Berlin as America builds a top-secret Love gone wrong. Olympic gold, her twin tunnel under the river Spree to tap into Understanding how emotional dilemmas brother conquers an Russian communications links. The strained the family emboldens Lillian online medieval world. Berlin Wall closes, resulting in a crisis. Dove to find the prime witness to the In the Oregon wilderness, their worlds Conrad truths. are about to collide. Death Opens a Window: Mourning Dove Mysteries, Book 2 Murder on the Lake of Fire: SF/Fantasy/Horror Mikel J. Wilson. Acorn Mourning Dove Mysteries, Book 1 ...And, Her Name Will Be Called Hagit Publishing. $14.95 paper Mikel J. Wilson. Acorn Publishing. $14.95 Mitchell J. Rycus. CreateSpace. $8.65 paper (286p), ISBN 978-1- paper (316p), ISBN 978- (217p), ISBN 978-1-71754-060-7 947392-38-0; $5.99 1-947392-06-9 Amazon e-book, ASIN Amazon, Apple iBooks, Growing up a black B07H2669PZ BN.com, Kobo woman of Jewish Amazon, Apple iBooks, Special agent Emory descent, Hagit even- BN.com, Kobo Rome returns to the tually becomes the As he struggles with the consequences Smoky Mountains president of the U.S. of his last case, Emory Rome returns to hometown he aban- But her friends notice investigate another bizarre murder. doned to investigate the bizarre death of something strange an ice-skater and an apparent case of happening to her, and what they learn Immortal Wounds: spontaneous human combustion. will change the world forever. A Doctor Nora Kelly Mystery Kate Scannell. Word Haven Media. $11.99 No Deadlier Destiny Beyond a Veiled Reflection: paper (343p), ISBN 978-1-73257-140-2; Jeanette A. Fratto. Anachronistic Dimensions, Book Two $3.99 e-book, ISBN 978-1-73257-141-9 Outskirts Press. $14.95 Christine Church. Grey Horse Press. $2.99 Amazon, Apple iBooks, BN.com, Ingram, Kobo paper (226p), ISBN 978- e-book, ASIN B07DTB2PB6 A doctor recovering 1-977203-18-2 Amazon from a family tragedy Amazon, BN.com, Can Dane and is drawn back into her Books-a-Million Meirah’s love survive life during a perilous A probation officer is the ultimate betrayal? quest to solve the mys- forced into hiding when threatened, Readers who’ve seen tery of multiple deaths takes matters into her own hands, and Mikaire will now enter among the staff at risks all she holds dear. Almareyah, where Oakland City Hospital. even a mere step into

64 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 PAID LISTINGS

PW SELECT LISTINGS ® a puddle of water can mean torture, Chasing Colton’s Tail Gardens of Corfu agony, and death. Todd Aldrington. Athlete Rachel Weaving, illus. by Raccoon’s Books. $4.99 Marianne Majerus. A Life Without End e-book, ASIN B07J9LC5JJ Impress Publishing. $65 Garland DeNelsky. Xlibris. Amazon, Apple iBooks, hardcover (256p), ISBN $19.99 paper (302p), BN.com, Kobo 978-1-9997825-1-1 ISBN 978-1-984512- Todd is an athletic Amazon 03-1; $3.99 e-book, ISBN raccoon who’s just This first-ever book 978-1-984512-04-8 come of age and secretly fancies an on the gardens of Corfu, greenest of the Amazon edgy fox named Colton. They’ll share Greek islands, spans the range from Stan Miller, obsessed either an unforgettable prom night or romantic old estates to contemporary since childhood with death and the a complete disaster. works by international designers. afterlife, is cryonically preserved (frozen). Reanimated in 2068, he is stunned by Nonfiction God’s Unreasonable Reasoning: the dramatically altered world, especially The Adversity Advantage: Turn Your What God Is Up to When Things in Life the short-term marriage contracts. Childhood Hardship into Career and Don’t Make Sense Life Success Preston Williams II. iUni- The Prisoner Jude Miller Burke. Wisdom verse. $13.99 paper Sara Allyn. Kindle Direct. Editions. $16.99 paper (238p), ISBN 978-1- 99¢ e-book, (165p), ISBN 978-1- 5320-5811-0; $3.99 ASIN B07GYLKMMK 939548-67-2 e-book, ISBN 978-1- Amazon Amazon 5320-5810-3 Imagine a world with no Based on a study of Amazon, BN.com money and no politi- 300 men and women A spiritual guidebook that can help you cians. Imagine a world who overcame hardships to have per- understand God’s reasoning in life’s where lawyers don’t take sides and men sonal and workplace success. The book many transitions. and women always get along perfectly provides real and inspiring stories, well. If only it was safe to go outside. insights, and specific techniques. A Guide for Writing Teachers: How to Build Effective Writing The Separation Alzheimer’s with Communities in College Thomas Duffy. My Mother, Eilleen LaRonce M. Hendricks. CreateSpace. $12.99 Jim Dicke II. Orange AuthorHouse. $10.99 paper (306p), ISBN 978- Frazer Press. $14 paper paper (70p), ISBN 978- 1-983520-87-7 (99p), ISBN 978-1- 1-5246-9739-6; $3.99 Amazon, BN.com 939710-96-3 e-book, ISBN 978-1- This is the story of a Orangefrazer.com, 5246-9738-9 future where the sexes Amazon Amazon are separated at birth and young people A candid look at what the Alzheimer’s A helpful tool for teach- aren’t allowed to meet (or know about) sufferer’s family can expect. ers, exposing educational perspectives on the opposite sex for the first 22 years of how negative predispositions prevent a their lives. The Christians’ God Does Not Exist! student from performing at high levels. Yes, He/She Does! It Is Matter That Romance/Erotica Does Not Exist! A History of the Apocalypse (second ed.) All the Wrong Reasons Proncell F. Johnson Jr. Catalin Negru. Catalin Negru. $25 paper Jerilee Kaye. CreateSpace. $3.99 e-book, Dorrance Publishing. (637p), ISBN 978-1-387- ASIN B07JJBG1NX $43 paper (870p), ISBN 91116-5; $2.99 e-book, Amazon, Apple iBooks, 978-1-4809-4107-6 ISBN 978-1-387- BN.com, Kobo DorranceBookstore.com 91839-3 What happens when a The material universe Amazon, Apple iBooks, prim and proper virgin is one big illusion. All Kobo, Lulu has a one-night stand things are spiritual, the manifestation of Every generation thinks with the city’s most God. Johnson’s proof is based on a law that its problems are wanted playboy? of physics. the most important ever. Thus, people

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always see signs in their times, and the end Looking to the Stars from Old Algiers and their consciousness through specific of the world is constantly a fresh subject. Other Long Stories Short meditation techniques that can help them Jan Risher. Sans Souci develop the power to control their destiny Inside Hollywood Books. $9.99 e-book, and prevent failure and disease. Marsha Ross. ISBN 978-1-946160-33-1 CreateSpace. $35 paper Janrisher.com, Amazon, My Pashtun Rabbi: A Jew’s Search for Truth, (200p), ISBN 978-1- BN.com Meaning, and Hope in the Muslim World 5440-3100-2 This book is Risher’s David Eden. BookBaby. Amazon collection of columns, $32.56 hardcover (344p), A book of thoughts and which creates a narrative ISBN 978-0-692-08615- art about love, life, and of her aim to build her family and commu- 5; $17.95 paper (344p), success in the movie capital of the world. nity, and weave the stories and lessons ISBN 978-1-5439-3155-6 from the past into the present. Amazon, BookBaby It’s All in the Name Eden chronicles his Keith Brovald. Xlibris. “Love Letters”: Deep time as the “journal- $15.99 paper (110p), Affection; Fondness ism expert” at United Arab Emirates ISBN 978-1-5434-4602- Claudia Rhodes. Xlibris. University during the 2008–2009 school 9; $3.99 e-book, ISBN $19.99 paper (108p), year, as the world’s economy collapsed 978-1-5434-4603-6 ISBN 978-1-5434-4935- and war erupted in Gaza. Amazon 8; $3.99 e-book, ISBN This book contains a 978-1-5434-4936-5 My Soul Is Filled with categorized list of possible names that Amazon Joy: A Holocaust Story have other meanings (e.g., Luke Warm, Telling your truth will free you of any Karen I. Treiger. Stare Justin Tyme, Jim Nasium). complications in life. All parents should Lipki Press. $14.99 paper write their own stories for their children. (315p), ISBN 978-0-692- Kick-Ass Kinda Girl: A Memoir of Life, 11579-4 Love, and Caregiving M.A.R.E.S.: Mature, Attractive, Amazon Kathi Koll. Ward Respectable, Even-Tempered, Single, This is a tale of Publishing. $16 paper Professional Ladies over Forty Holocaust survivors Sam and Esther (276p), ISBN 978-1- Sherry Lynne. iUniverse. Goldberg, and of the author as she tells of 73236-490-5 $13.99 paper (180p), ISBN her writing journey the past three years. Amazon, BN.com, 978-1-5320-1098-9 IndieBound Amazon, BN.com, iUniverse Nostradamus Speaks Again: Koll unveils an unex- Do women over 40 Heaven Paradise pected life of joy, adventure, and great who pursue younger Elisabeth Jörgensen. sadness with honesty and humor as she men want to be called Balboa Press. $2.85 navigates the realities of life as a full- cougars? For those who paper (160p), ISBN 978- time caregiver. aspire to a higher level of femininity and 1-4525-1489-5 professionalism, Lynne has coined the Amazon Lean but Not Mean acronym MARES for confident, attractive, An exploration of human Anil K. Singhal. Anil K. fun-loving, and financially secure ladies nature as well as the Singhal. $20 hardcover who magnetize a man searching for complicated times we are now approaching. (200p), ISBN 978-1- those qualities. 73244-750-9 Notes from the Trenches: A Musician’s Amazon Meditate to Unlock Awareness Journey Through World War I Singhal takes a con- Edna E. Craven. Toplink Gary H. Foster. Outskirts trarian’s view to the Publishing. $22.99 paper Press. $24.95 paper question of how to run a successful cor- (88p), ISBN 978-1- (306p), ISBN 978-1- poration by prescribing his “lean but not 949169-98-0 4787-9274-1 mean” approach. Amazon, BN.com Amazon Craven argues that Foster retraces his readers can overcome grandfather’s footsteps limitations and expand from enlistment in the

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National Guard to the trench battles in hostile world. a game plan that utilizes the same science- France during WWI to his joyful home- based exercise and diet approach that coming. The Road to Glory: Meditations on the has worked for Wood’s clients for more Way from Here to Heaven than 30 years. Operation Wappen: A War that Never Was Thomas Dillon. WestBow Robert K. Maddock Jr. Xlibris. $41.99 paper Press. $10.99 paper (166p), Unwelcome (84p), ISBN 978-1-5434- ISBN 978-1-973623- Opportunity: 6084-1; $3.99 e-book, 65-6; $3.99 e-book, ISBN Overcoming Life’s ISBN978-1-5434-6085-8 978-1-973623-64-9 Greatest Challenges Amazon Amazon Richard V. Battle. Outskirts The story of a CIA-MI6 Theologian and lawyer Press. $14.95 paper (162p), Middle East 1957 Dillon explores signs, ISBN 978-1-977201-64-5 military adventure to overthrow the illustrations, and symbols in Scripture Amazon, BN.com Syrian government and a return of knights that will guide us on the right road on the Battle faced multiple tests in a short to the battlefield. way from here to heaven. period of time and shares how he, with God’s daily provision, overcame them. Out of the Lion’s Den Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man Susan Mattern. in America What Endures: An Amerasian’s Lifelong CreateSpace. $7.99 Theodore Kirkland. Xlibris. Struggle During and e-book, ASIN B01LDTR6KI $23.99 paper (522p), After the Vietnam War Amazon ISBN 978-1-4691-8625- John Vo. Xlibris. $15.99 The true story of five- 2; $3.99 e-book, ISBN paper (76p), ISBN 978- year-old Laura Small’s 978-1-4691-8627-6 1-5434-8229-4; $3.99 attack by a mountain Amazon e-book, ISBN 978-1- lion in a California park, with family, In this autobiography, 5434-8230-0 cover-ups, legal battles, and beliefs Kirkland offers critical insight and Amazon pushed to the brink. politically cognizant commentary on Vo came to America in 1987 as a refu- the past, future, and real-time reality of gee from war-ravaged Vietnam. This is Paul and the Dispersion: The Teacher’s race relations in America. his lifelong story of hope and despair, Edition triumph and defeat. Richard J. Willoughby Sr. Stupid Cupid: A Survivor’s Guide to iUniverse. $33.99 paper Online Dating What to Expect as an Adult (162p), ISBN 978-1- Alison O’Donnell. Linda Tengan Wright. Linda Sue Tengan Wright. 5320-1239-6; $3.99 Stillwater River $12.95 e-book, ISBN e-book, ISBN 978-1- Publications. $20 paper 978-0-578-40935-1 5320-1240-2 (297p), ISBN 978-1- Amazon Amazon 946300-25-6 Wright discusses the This book equips teachers to explore Authoralisonodonnell. importance of credit, and explain Paul’s mission to the Jews of com, Amazon, BN.com finances, education, the Diaspora, revealing the scope of this Chronicling 100 horrific dates, the author renting a home, buying often-overlooked aspect of his wide- gives online dating advice for men and a car, and much more. ranging apostolic work. women. Written in short snippets, it’s an easy read that’s as fun as it is practical. The Yankee Way: Pulpit Friction: Reawakening the The Bluepaper that Created America Church’s Voice in a Political Wilderness TBC30: 6 Steps to a Stronger, Troy Tyson. Courant Publishing. $14.95 paper Ken Kinton. WestBow Healthier You (266p), ISBN 978-1- Press. $13.95 paper Michael Wood. Wicked 73278-120-7 (156p), ISBN 978-1- Whale Publisher. $14.95 Theyankeeway.com, 973641-56-8 paper (244p), ISBN 978- Amazon, BN.com Amazon, BN.com, Ingram 1-73219-250-8 How did America Kinton examines the Amazon, Apple iBooks, become great? This challenges facing the BN.com book proposes that church in a politically The TBC30 plan offers America’s unparalleled

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success stems from the traits of a small, everyone feel included? K My Name Is Kendra peculiar ethnic group from New England Kamichi Jackson. Kindle Direct. $9.95 paper known as the Yankees. Carol and Santa (178p), ISBN 978-1-5410-3303-0 Karen O. Cotton. Karen O. Amazon You Are Not Alone: Cotton. $7.99 paper Fifteen-year-old A Heartfelt Guide (89p), ISBN 978-0-578- Kendra’s life begins to to Grief, Healing, 40033-4 spiral with the visit of a and Hope Amazon, BN.com celebrity uncle, who Debbie Augenthaler. Carol Bell, an eight- sets his sights on her Everystep Publishing. year-old cowgirl who and the return of the $14.99 paper (268p), keeps getting blamed for trouble, didn’t runaway sister deter- ISBN 978-1-73202- believe Santa delivered coal to naughty mined to save her. 330-7; $13.80 audio, ASIN B07GJQWQDZ kids. She learns it’s not Santa, but she Debbieaugenthaler.com, Amazon, BN.com knows who does. Outside My Bedroom Walls Augenthaler, a licensed mental health Nona Ransom, illus. by Windel Eborlas. Xlibris. counselor, combines her personal story of The Handy Helpers: Not a Happy $17.99 paper (38p), ISBN 978-1-5434- devastating loss with practical insights and Camper 4130-7; $3.99 e-book, simple suggestions for healing and hope. Rosemary Morgan ISBN 978-1-5434- Heddens. Xlibris. $19.99 4131-4 Children’s/YA paper (214p), ISBN 978- Amazon The Adventures of Camellia N.: 1-5434-5598-4; $3.99 Carina wants to go The Rainforest e-book, ISBN 978-1- somewhere, anywhere Debra L. Wideroe, illus. by 5434-5597-7 over the summer. With Daniela Frongia. Notable Amazon her aunt Maria’s help, Carina discovers a Kids. $16.95 hardcover Exciting adventures await the Handy world to explore, right outside her bed- (40p), ISBN 978-0- Helpers and Beth Anne, who learn the room walls. 9970851-4-3 value of helping each other along the way. Amazon, BN.com, Booktopia Power Hunt (ArcMed, Book 1) (ArcOn 3) Journey with pint-size explorer Camellia How Jack Got Flat Erinn Price. NLSA. $3.99 N. as she discovers why the rain forest is Susan Donohue Colby. Mill City Press. $25.99 e-book, ASIN one of the most important and lush hardcover (40p), ISBN 978-1-5456-3986-3; B07F36VVML habitats on planet Earth. $15.49 paper (p), ISBN Amazon 978-1-5456-3490-5 They thought that, as The Adventures of Katarina Rose Amazon, BN.com a scientist, Morgan S.G. Johnson. Xlibris. $21.99 paper (32p), A humorous story Dumont would be an ISBN 978-1-4836- about a cat whose life easy target, but they 3584-2 is forever changed, and how he adapts were wrong. Together with Mathew, a man Amazon to this change and discovers new and with some extraordinary abilities, she races A kitty cat would rather exciting adventures from it. to get to the ancient relics of power first. go on adventures than sleep all day. Jim Crow Must Die! The Secrets of Harriet A. Dickey. Hawthorne House Alycat and the CreateSpace. $7.99 Donald Firesmith. Mage Friendship Friday paper (158p), ISBN 978- Press. 99¢ e-book, Alysson Foti Bourque, 1-4783-5779-7 ASIN B07GV2F814 illus. by Chiara Civati. Amazon Amazon, Apple iBooks, Mascot Books. $14.95 It’s the summer of BN.com, Indigo, Kobo hardcover (38p), ISBN 1966, and 10-year-old Matt’s life changes 978-1-68401-903-8 junior militant and Chicago native Hannah forever when a family of witches moves Amazon, BN.com, Books-a-Million, Powell’s Jordan is making her annual trip to into the dilapidated Victorian mansion When a new student joins the class, Mississippi. Her grandparents’ town is rife next door. A tale of unlikely friendship someone feels left out. Can Alycat use with segregation that she is unfamiliar with, and the clash of two very different cul- her creativity and imagination to help so she decides something must be done. tures. ■

68 BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 REVIEWS ®

and Jamal’s ethics pushing him toward a herself against a vicious attack by her Fiction dangerous, climactic confrontation. The enslaver, 22-year-old Soleil flees with her truths here are poignant, and the realities five-year-old-daughter, Hope. They are res- Beach Body Boogie of racism, homophobia, and the exploita- cued by 25-year-old Alex Cummings, a Timothy Fagan. Fireclay, $14.99 trade paper tion of young athletes are scrutinized by an powerful white plantation owner who rec- (384p) ISBN 978-1-7324596-0-1 insightful author who leaves readers with ognizes the confused woman as Soleil Dufor, Carl Hiaasen fans will enjoy Fagan’s the hopeful message that “You become his former love interest, who mysteriously tongue-in-cheek first novel, a series launch strongest in your broken places.” disappeared six years earlier. Soleil is a for- set on Cape Cod. Three years after Pepper midable and sympathetic protagonist Ryan was kicked off the New Albion, Mass., Catherine Lescault whose role as a mother makes her both resil- police force following a botched drug Walter Idlewild. Fårö, $15.99 trade paper ient and vulnerable to those threatening stakeout, he receives a second chance. (334p) ISBN 978-0-9986226-0-6 their freedom. Even as Soleil’s connections Pepper’s return to duty coincides with the Idlewild’s novel is a fantastic exploration to wealth and her history with Alex are discovery of a bizarre crime—beachcombers of the creative process and the horror of cre- gradually revealed, the tension remains find the body of Arnold Keser buried in the ation, heavily rooted in Honoré de Balzac’s high as Soleil battles prejudice against sand, under a tarp. Keser was shot and then “The Unknown Masterpiece.” Balzac’s former slaves and loopholes in emancipa- steamed to death in a clambake, with a red characters move through the novel as spirits tion. The message about freedom not always starfish left on the corpse. The Secret Service and paintings, each a different incarnation being simple is significant and well con- reveals to the New Albion PD that the dead in a mirrored world. In the opening episto- veyed without being preachy or overstated. man was one of theirs, assigned to do laries, Mary Frenhofer hopes that the “rari- French-speaking readers may be distracted advance security work before President fied air” of an inherited country home will by inaccuracies in Soleil’s use of the French Wayne Garby’s vacation in the vicinity— help her husband recover from depression language, but the writing is otherwise and that they’re taking seriously a recently and finish his masterpiece, a book years in smooth. This well-told historical romance received death threat to POTUS, which the making; she doesn’t know that the is intense and powerful. features a drawing in red of a starfish and house is marred by a torturous history of signed “R.I.P. Garby. U took my candy!” artists going mad and muses dying within. Gaia Twist Pepper, who ends up as the liaison to the “The house of fiction has many rooms,” Dr. Doug Walker. CreateSpace, $15.99 trade feds, races frantically to prevent the assas- Frenhofer observes. “But in this house a paper (392p) ISBN 978-1-71918-732-9 sination. Fagan manages the impressive feat room is missing.” The novel takes a sharp A mysterious toxin contaminating the of balancing suspense and humor. turn into the unreal when Dr. Frenhofer is food supply threatens Earth in 2816 in proven to be right; a portrait of the dead this mixed debut novel from physicist Broken Places artist Porbus is found in a hidden room, and Walker, whose storytelling isn’t as inno- Roland Martin. iUniverse, $18.95 trade paper from it he walks like a specter. In a mirror vative as his scientific concepts. Southwest (300p) ISBN 978-0-595-52961-2 universe, Porbus’s muse Gillette is the Saskatchewan field monitor Galen Sjøfred, Martin’s intense and profound novel is ingénue painter seeking to perfect her mas- a stereotypical former hero fallen from about battles that are waged with society, terpiece, and Mary’s letters are found docu- grace, is alerted to the crisis when he dis- authority, the self, and others. Three young ments. Gillette is Pygmalion, and Porbus covers dead animals littering the soybean African-American men are assigned to share is entirely her creation. Idlewild’s novel fields he oversees. The totalitarian Earth a dorm room as college freshmen at becomes a palimpsest in itself; pieces of Authority’s Minister of Organic Resources Pittsburgh City University, but their dif- Balzac’s original narrative are obscured and is desperate to cover up the existence of ferences are daunting. Shawn Collins, over- repurposed, until the novel itself imitates Toxin X and orders the immediate arrest of sexed and egotistic, is a rising basketball Balzac’s fictional painting of Catherine Galen and his nieces, Kessa and Marta star showered with elaborate recruiting Lescault. Idlewild’s exploration of the Dahlstrom, who are visiting from the planet gifts (including a BMW). Robert Robinson, nature of art is a bewildering, beautiful New Gaia. Pilots Jet Castilian and Stoke at school on an academic scholarship, is gay, novel full of intriguing characters. Omroni join the cast of wooden characters but he’s repressed by guilt and his religious when an inexplicably rash decision forces faith, and he’s always braced for harassment. ★ The Cost of Hope them to help the Dahlstrom sisters evade Jamal Lewis also won an academic scholar- G.S. Carr. Gabrielle O. Brown, $3.99 e-book the government pursuit. Walker’s solid sci- ship; he maturely and wisely tries to serve (194p) ISBN 978-1-71955-223-3 entific concepts paint a believable vision of as a bridge between his two roommates, Carr (Divorce Wars) delivers a poignant Earth’s future, but the combination of befriending Robert and tutoring Shawn. message about the meaning of freedom in overly familiar plot tropes with two-dimen- Their lives are changed by the semester they the first Cost of Love historical. Carr wastes sional characters detracts from the stimu- spend together, with Shawn’s coach and no time in vividly setting up Soleil’s dra- lating premise and thematic exploration ex-girlfriend manipulating him, Robert’s matic and hard-hitting plight as a former of isolationism vs. community. longings causing him fear and confusion, slave in 1860s Alabama. After defending

BOOKLIFE.COM 68a ® REVIEWS

Goodbye, Magnolia readers may feel misled and annoyed. of old gods, only Vale, demigod hacker Zian, Krista Noorman. CreateSpace, $10.99 trade Melissa’s villainous mother and an unex- and ambitious Texan journalist Candice paper (250p) ISBN 978-1-5024-7790-3 pected relative are irredeemable, making Kennedy can stop it. Comby (Blind Chess) This appealing Christian romance from the reader wish for their demises as soon as ably handles dynamic action, and Cold Noorman (Bittersweet) explores how rash possible, and Faber’s late, sharp veer into City’s post–Great Recession instability fits judgments can stand in the way of true love. thriller territory just doesn’t ring true. detective noir well. However, close adher- Rival wedding photographers Maggie ence to 1930s tropes feels dated at best, ret- James and Simon Walker are both talented, ★ Hero Forged: rograde at worst: Vale’s Chandleresque driven, and determined, and love weddings Ethereal Earth, Book 1 banter includes a dash of glaring misogyny, as expressions of the leap of faith. But Simon Josh Erikson. Josh Erikson, $3.99 e-book with every adult woman sexualized, labeled also feels that Maggie misjudged him when (346p) ASIN B07CZ51BXD “bitch,” or both. Casual jokes about Asians they briefly dated over 10 years ago, and he’s Debut author Erikson blazes onto the eating bugs and a villain’s bad English only never gotten over her. However, although urban fantasy scene with a cornucopia of increase the discomfort. These dusty stereo- they have a clear chemistry when they run deceptively simple worldbuilding and types undermine even the most jaded read- into each other preparing for weddings, meticulously plotted storytelling. Gabe is er’s enjoyment of an otherwise fine magical Maggie allows Simon to charm her only a professional con man in dire need of homage to hardboiled crime fiction. briefly before repeatedly shutting him money to ensure his ill father’s continuing down. The repetition of this cycle becomes care. When the perfect way to earn some The Italian Couple tedious as it plays out from one wedding to quick cash appears, Gabe jumps on the J.R. Rogers. J.R. Rogers, $4.99 e-book (434p) the next. After one too many rejections— opportunity, only to learn—the hard way— ASIN B07C4XW4MY for both Simon and the reader—Simon that nothing good comes cheap: he and This suspenseful combination romance finally decides he needs to give up. But will several others are set up to be consumed by and espionage thriller centers on a married his faith in the destiny he believes in allow powerful unearthly beings called Umbras, couple in despair in Fascist Italy under him to move on? Although the book is and after the ritual is botched, Gabe ends Benito Mussolini’s rule. In 1938, in the heavy on dialogue and light on character up with one of them in his head. Suddenly city of Asmara, known as Little Rome in development, Norman’s message of faith Gabe’s narrow view of the world is exponen- the Italian Eritrea colony of East Africa, and perseverance will find an audience with tially expanded, and he’s forced to reeval- Col. Francesco Ferrazza, a cagey Italian readers of inspirational romance. uate his entire concept of self while dealing military information officer, is tasked with with the Umbras and trying to stop the ones Operation Red Lion, a sabotage operation Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch who are out to destroy humankind. This is ordered by Mussolini. Through manipula- Elise Faber. Elise Faber, $2.99 e-book (250p) an intricate mystery laced with humor and tion and enticements, the colonel begins ASIN B07BKB77H7 lore. Precise characterization, and an equal to groom local mechanic and novice race Faber continues her Roosevelt Ranch focus on personal evolution and the car driver Mario Caparrotti to carry out the series (Disaster at Roosevelt Ranch) with this everyday fantastic, lend the novel a satis- destruction; one of the colonel’s schemes uneven contemporary tale about a food fying gravitas. Fans of Jim Butcher and includes Mario becoming the lover of the blogger and a cop whose marriage appears Craig Schaefer will gobble up this trilogy colonel’s wife, British-born Emilia, who to be hitting the rocks. Melissa is content launch and eagerly await more. reluctantly goes along with the ruse. The with her life as a wife and mother in sabotage scheme begins unraveling when Darlington, Utah, until she finds a secret Hostile Takeover: Mario demands more money after cellphone with messages that imply her Vale Investigation, Book 1 becoming involved in the colonel’s cover- husband, Rob, is having an affair with a Cristelle Comby. Cristelle Comby, $3.99 e- up of a murder, and Emilia begins an mysterious woman named Celeste. As if book (355p) ASIN B07D2MWFN7 affair with Gyles Aiscroft, a British free- that’s not enough, when an unexpected This brisk paranormal noir innovatively lance foreign correspondent and part- dinner party at her sister’s turns into a combines gods and gentrification, but stale time intelligence agent working for her chance for Melissa to have her own cable genre artifacts leave a bad aftertaste. In an father. The novel’s pacing is skillful and cooking show, she’s thrilled—but her hus- alternate version of the present-day U.S., precise, leading ultimately to an unfore- band isn’t, further driving a wedge between private eye Bellamy Vale works for Lady seen and terrifically satisfying ending. the two and making divorce seem likely. McDeath—death incarnated as a classic Rogers’s depiction of Asmara—its stra- Faber’s competent characterization (par- femme fatale—whose quick-healing powers tegic significance, architecture, and how it ticularly of Melissa and her pregnant sister, he accesses in exchange for fealty. She sends was modeled after a typical Italian city, Kelly, the heroine of the first book) pulls him to hunt a murderous part-beast ber- even incorporating a car race with Mario the reader into the story, a heartbreaking serker through Cold City. When the ber- as a driver in the novel’s introduction—is view into a marriage devolving—so when serker’s seemingly random maulings unfold both a richly visual impression of Rome Faber takes an almost cartoonishly soap into an otherworld-spanning plot rooted in and a dark reminder of Mussolini’s rule. opera–like series of detours late in the book, real estate, gentrification, and the worship

68b BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 REVIEWS ®

Last Call ★ On the Edge of Daylight: leading an Outer Sphere terrorist group. Libby Kirsch. Sunnyside, $12.99 trade paper A Novel of the Titanic Beyer gives the reader little time to soak up (250p) ISBN 978-0-9969350-8-1 Giselle Beaumont. Trek, $11.99 trade paper atmosphere or to puzzle out the mysteries Janet Black, the heroine of this appealing (474p) ISBN 978-1-980593-22-5 of his universe (such as the presence of tele- series launch from Kirsch (the Stella In this beautifully crafted historical pathic alien AIs that boost human intelli- Reynolds series), is proud of the Knoxville, romance about the journey and eventual gence), but the fast pacing, occasional Tenn., bar she owns. She’s determined to be sinking of the Titanic, debut author humor, and clear split between the good a level-headed and responsive boss to her Beaumont weaves facts with fiction to guys and bad guys push a lot of questions rag-tag group of employees—and a warm create a transcendent tale. The author mod- out of the way as the action pulls the reader face to her eccentric patrons. But circum- estly points out that the novel is not a 100% forward. stances take a sinister turn when Janet dis- accurate portrayal of the tragedy, but it’s covers a body—that of a bar regular, Ike close enough that readers will feel as if they Piercing Maybe Freeman—behind the Dumpster of her bar. have experienced the disaster personally. Dan Cray. Third Quandary, $16 trade paper Amid the chaos of swarming cops and con- When feisty Seventh Officer Esther Bailey (340p) ISBN 978-1-940317-07-6 fused regulars, Ike’s daughter plants roots and her commanding officer, Will Murdoch, This science fiction thriller tantalizes at the bar, refusing to budge until the police meet, cutting wit ensues—and the two with a bold, intriguing, and original solve the crime. Janet’s own sleuthing leads quickly recognize their sparring as enticing premise, touching on themes of human her to uncover the victim’s hidden past and foreplay. Rules prohibit a romance until the potential and the ethics of eugenics, but to become a thorn in the side of law enforce- ship docks in New York, leaving sim- falls apart due to a lack of subtlety and plau- ment, while a second murder causes her to mering, suppressed sexual chemistry woven sibility. Andra Barger’s is the only human doubt even those closest to her. Tension throughout the story. When the Titanic woman entrusted by the secret Cinüe race rarely rises above a slow simmer, but the meets its date with destiny, Esther and Will to help execute their 180,000-year-old mystery reveals unexpected entanglements realize that not everyone gets a tomorrow— diminishing program, by which every and stranger motivations. Readers may not and that their roles must give them the human child’s godlike capacities are elimi- gain a deep sense of Janet’s interiority, but courage to help others. Vivid descriptions nated by the stealthy placement of a gel on she’s a strong-willed, good-hearted woman bring the reader onto the doomed ship as the mother’s palm at conception. Andra who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. characters shrink in terror from the inevi- struggles with balancing her general oppo- table, pray for rescue, and grieve for the lost. sition to this program, and her personal May Day Beaumont heartbreakingly chronicles sur- desire for an unaltered child, with politics R.R. Born. R.R. Born, $13 trade paper (262p) vivor’s guilt wrapped in a history lesson, that affect the lives of her loved ones. These ISBN 978-1-73243-370-0 and ably portrays the heroism and honor of concerns are amplified when, to her sur- Although uneven in its delivery, Born’s the men and women of the sea. This expertly prise, she is tapped to vote on the semicen- debut novel introduces readers to a fascinating characterized and tautly plotted story is an tennial Council’s reapproving the program. world of ancient magic and sets up a number extremely impressive debut. Cray (Mother Tongue) fails to reconcile the of intriguing arcs for the proposed series to cloak-and-dagger nature of the diminishing come. Ari Mason was born with highly Pathogen Protocol process with a near-perfect success rate over destructive magic powers that her heartless Darren D. Beyer. Darren D. Beyer, $13.99 millennia, and though Cinüe-created tools mother manipulated ruthlessly. Having fled trade paper (579p) ISBN 978-0-9973366-1-0 and environments are often evocatively her coven, Ari is now a bartender and tarot Like ripples in a pond, this frenetic space described, an unsatisfying explanation of card reader. She’s determined to use her powers opera sequel to Casimir Bridge moves in “arcane tech” is relied on for almost every- to help others, including her ghost companion bigger and bigger circles outward from the thing. Cray lets what could have been a Remy and her friend Leise, who has just splashy events detailed in the opening thought-provoking story degenerate into a received an unusual bequest. She may even volume. Jans Mikel and the other leaders of humans vs. others power fantasy. have found love for herself. When a killer with Applied Interstellar Corp., reeling from the supernatural powers begins targeting invasion of their extrasolar headquarters, ★ A Queen from the North Houston’s witches and humans alike, Ari try to keep their source of the wormhole- Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese. Avian30, resolves to take action—until she realizes the generating hyperium hidden while security $27.99 (408p) ISBN 978-1-946192-07-3 killer is much closer to her than she ever imag- chief Grae Raymus organizes the resistance. The splendid first in the Royal Roses ined. The premise of this story is appealing, Rival corporate power Tech Standard and series introduces an alternate present-day reminiscent of Adrian Phoenix’s Hoodoo its head operative, Erik Hallerson, force the U.K. in which the Wars of the Roses never series, but too little meaningful exposition issue by seizing the remaining known hype- ended and a political marriage between and too much extraneous detail keep this story rium supplies, bringing the three Earth Prince Arthur, the widowed Lancaster from exploring anything deeper than the superpowers into their court. Mikel’s agent, Prince of Wales, and Lady Amelia Brockett, superficial and generally predictable. Mandi Nkosi, makes a desperate attempt to the radical daughter of a Yorkish earl, is the contact a rogue AIC officer who’s now only thing that might finally unite the

BOOKLIFE.COM 68c ® REVIEWS

kingdom. Amelia, a grad student studying ★ Stolen: A Kieran Yeats Mystery that “The problem with grief was that it environmental science, never planned on Linda J. Wright. Cat’s Paw, $16.95 trade paper didn’t come with a user manual.” This becoming a princess, but when Arthur pro- (240p) ISBN 978-1-7323593-0-7 thoughtful story about learning how to live poses their union as a mutually beneficial Set in Victoria, British Columbia, this after loved ones are gone will captivate political arrangement soon after their first superb series kickoff from Wright (the readers. meeting, she can’t deny her people the Caitlin Reece mysteries, as Lauren Wright chance to finally have a York on the throne. Douglas) introduces Kieran Yates, a former Terminal Against her better judgement, she grows Crown Counsel, who has left practicing law John Leifer. Earhart, $12.99 trade paper closer with the charismatic prince. Faced to work as an investigator of crime related (366p) ISBN 978-0-9995655-2-0 with relentless press coverage, a divided, to animals. She’s drawn into a complex case Leifer (The Myths of Modern Medicine) skeptical populace, and an ever-changing after Jen, her 13-year-old goddaughter, con- makes his fiction debut with this sus- political climate, Amelia struggles to keep fesses that 11 Bengal kittens have mysteri- penseful and alarming kickoff to a trilogy. track of what in their relationship is real and ously disappeared from the cattery where Cmdr. John Hart has an impressive resume. what is just for show. Rich, diverse world- Jen was hired to keep watch. Though Jen A former Navy Seal with degrees in medi- building sets this story of contemporary insists that all the doors were locked and the cine and nuclear engineering, he officially royalty apart. McRae and Maltese (the Love alarms set, someone managed to enter and works with the Defense Advanced Research in Los Angeles series) have created a perfect abscond with the valuable felines. From Projects Agency, and is part of the counter- cocktail of political intrigue and slow-burn what Jen says, Kieran gets the sense that the terrorism team that addresses the threat of romance. crime was an inside job. The inquiry bioweapons. He faces his greatest challenge broadens after Kieran learns that others in when Ibrahim Almasi al-Bakr, the founder The Silver Horn Echoes: the area have also had their pets stolen. of the United Islamic State, sets a diabolical A Song of Roland Kieran uses both high tech (she has a friend plan in motion to devastate the U.S., making Michael Eging and Steve Arnold. iUniverse, hack into the alarm system at the residence use of a “virus of unimaginable destructive $29.95 (334p) ISBN 978-1-5320-2021-6 housing the cattery) and old-fashioned shoe power.” Al-Bakr intends to target America’s In this thrilling medieval swashbuckler, leather to crack the case. Wright, who has four busiest air terminals with the highly Eging and Arnold reimagine the adventure, been involved in animal advocacy for 30 contagious disease, which was developed as treachery, and epic battles of the Franks in years, combines her passionate commit- part of a covert Soviet biowarfare program. 801 CE through Roland, knight of Breton ment to animal rights with a riveting who- Hart’s desperate efforts to avert disaster are March and King Charles’s esteemed combat dunit that’s not dependent on murder to aided by his colleague and former lover, hero. Roland is an ambitious young warrior sustain interest. Elizabeth Wilkins, a senior scientist with who finds himself only posted to garrison the Centers for Disease Control. While the duty when King Charles leaves to battle the A Strange Companion overall plotline isn’t new, Leifer, who has Saxons. When an envoy arrives with news Lisa Manterfield. Steel Rose, $5.99 e-book served on a presidential panel headed by of another foreign aggressor, Roland leaves (342p) ASIN B06XB85BD8 former national security adviser Brent to inform the king of the news. He joins the Manterfield’s bittersweet debut follows Scowcroft, makes the details plausible. Saxon assault, becoming the king’s bravest, a young woman’s attempt to recover from most skilled fighter, and earns the title overwhelming loss. Seventeen-year-old Kat “champion.” Meanwhile, Roland uncovers Richardson thought she and her boyfriend, Nonfiction a plot to harm the king, and suspects his Gabe, would marry and spend their lives stepfather, Ganelon, is its instigator; together. But those plans are dashed when God’s Grand Design for Health Roland believes Ganelon also killed his Gabe dies in a rock climbing accident. Two James Darnell. WestBow, $13.95 trade paper father, William. The Franks soon find years later, Kat has been having trouble (168p) ISBN 978-1-5127-8641-5 themselves battling on two fronts. There moving on—until she meets handsome Darnell, a chiropractor and holistic coun- are gory battles throughout that will reso- fellow university student Owen, whose sellor, introduces his system of spiritual and nate with combat and history enthusiasts, playful and earnest personality has started physical health in this clear and helpful but may be too graphic for some readers. to heal Kat’s broken heart. But their bud- book. Taking readers beyond symptoms and Those closest to Roland—his wife, Aude; ding relationship is interrupted when she into the intricate world of the symbiotic friend Oliver; and mother, Gisela—elevate returns home to meet her new niece, Mai, relationships between bodies and their sur- a complex, powerful character whose who’s been adopted by her brother and his rounding environments, Darnell explores decency can seem at odds with his brutality husband. There, Kat is confronted with the how diet, the environment, and the delicate during battle. This tale of military aggres- possibility that Gabe has been reincarnated balance of pH in the body may affect all sion, family betrayal, and knightly valor as Mai. Manterfield presents the idea of aspects of health. In his opening chapters ably reimagines the legend of Roland and reincarnation with just the right balance of he uses many charts and lists to explain the his indomitable fighting spirit. skepticism and hope as Kat questions both increasingly poor health of U.S. citizens. He her mind and feelings while acknowledging then dives into his holistic approach, which

68d BOOKLIFE, NOVEMBER 19, 2018 REVIEWS ® focuses primarily on cell health and reduc- WWI Crusaders: A Band of Yanks tion of inflammation. While most of his in German-Occupied Belgium Help medical advice comes in the form of dietary Save Millions from Starvation as and nutritional tips, he also insists that Civilians Resist the Harsh German personal harmony begins with spiritual Rule, August 1914 to May 1917 harmony. A devout Christian, Darnell uses Jeffrey B. Miller. Milbrown, $24.95 trade paper biblical quotes to reinforce his ideas: “We (726p) ISBN 978-0-9906893-8-6 are appointed stewards to what God has Miller expands upon his previous volume given us... to whom much is given, much is (Behind Enemy Lines) to provide the com- required.” With great detail on the causes plete story of the Commission for the Relief and effects of inflammation, the influence of Belgium, a private American-led relief of free radicals, the best sources for vitamins organization that supervised the import and and minerals, and the sources of toxins in distribution of food to the people of foods, Darnell provides a wealth of health German-occupied Belgium and Northern information in a small space. This is a read- France, from its beginnings in 1914 able, practical guide for any Christian through America’s entry into the war. Much reader who wishes to find a path to healthier of the book focuses on the volunteer living. American delegates who worked inside Belgium under commission chair Herbert I Didn’t Believe Any of This Hippie Hoover, and who were harassed by the Dippy Bulls**t Either: A Skeptic’s German military and always in danger of Awakening to the Spiritual Universe arrest. Meanwhile, German submarines Julie Rasmussen. Red Renegade, $14.95 sank numerous CRB ships and threatened trade paper (198p) ISBN 978-0-692-08090-0 to shut down the relief effort; the Allied This irreverent debut spiritual memoir military was not in favor of the operation delivers evocative humor but never gets and at one point accused Hoover himself of much below the surface. The primary arc spying for the Germans. Among many concerns the author’s growing under- impressive characters, Hoover stands out as standing of her connection with her “twin an incredible organizer and powerful per- flame,” a person with whom one shares a sonality without whose efforts 75% of the type of soul connection that she says is much population of Belgium might have faced rarer than that shared by soulmates. starvation. Though its length will be Although Rasmussen is sure that Bo, whom daunting for most general readers, those she met through an online dating service, with a serious interest in WWI history or is her twin flame when the book opens, the the life of Herbert Hoover will find this relationship remains in flux over the course lively and engaging book fascinating. of her mystical awakening. Readers will enjoy her clever imagery and snarky self- analysis but in the end will find coinci- dence-loving Rasmussen (she sees signs in license plates) as remarkably gullible. The story of her on-again-off-again relationship with Bo and his spiritual growth path is unsatisfyingly incomplete. Although Rasmussen professes a belief in a connected universe, there isn’t much clarity in her assertion or proof in her personal story to back up her claims. The author’s foul- mouthed humor helps make this entry stand out among other spiritual memoirs, but the derivative message and excessive confidence with which Rasmussen offers herself as a spiritual model make this a poor source of guidance.

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treasures the time they have left. When Joseph finally succumbs to his illness, the Reviews devastated Nina must pick up the pieces and take the reins of the Gregory Corporation. Nina soon discovers that her father, who revered the Gregory legacy Fiction and lived life in the spotlight, was hiding secrets about his company and her The River mother, who died when Nina was a child. Peter Heller. Knopf, $25.95 (272p) ISBN 978- A potent—and mutual—attraction to 0-525-52187-7 Rafael complicates things further. Nina’s Heller (Celine) explores human rela- self-discovery is bolstered by the strong tionships buffeted by outside forces in his women in her life, and her struggle to suspenseful latest. The central friendship accept her larger than life father as a flawed is between two young men, Wynn and man will resonate with readers. This is a Jack, students who have taken a leave of Roberto Bolaño’s The Spirit of Science Fiction charming and sexy crowd-pleaser. (Feb.) absence from Dartmouth to explore the is a dreamy, meandering novel about two writers Canadian wilderness. Their late summer trying to find their voices (reviewed on this page). The Sisters Hemingway canoe trip, however, finds them pursued Annie England Noblin. Morrow, $15.99 trade by two dangerous natural foes—a rapidly holed up in the apartment, reading books paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-267451-7 advancing wildfire and the equally swift and penning letters to sci-fi authors he Noblin (Just Fine with Caroline) returns approach of freezing temperatures. Their admires, such as Ursula K. Le Guin and to Cold River, Mo., in this sweet tale of trip is further complicated when the two Fritz Leiber. Jan’s solitude is contrasted by coming home after life goes awry in the men’s intervention in a domestic drama Remo’s social jaunts around the city: he big city. The three Hemingway sisters all results in the addition of a deeply trauma- joins a poetry workshop, falls in love with head home for the funeral of their last living tized woman, Maia, to their traveling a young woman named Laura, and rides a relative, Aunt Bee, with each leading very party. Short on supplies, racing against motorcycle. Remo’s involvement in the different lives from the last time they were disaster toward civilization, Jack and city’s literary scene exposes the reader to in Cold River. Hadley is the wife of a Wynn’s loyalties to one another are a number of digressive stories (one partic- senator, Pfeiffer works as a book editor in repeatedly strained. Jack and Wynn— ularly memorable aside features Georges New York City, and Martha is a famous who are both effortlessly erudite while Perec unwittingly defusing a duel between Nashville country singer fresh (and secretly) also seemingly adept at virtually every poets Isidore Isou and André Vernier in out of rehab. After the deaths of their skill of the outdoorsman—may be too Paris). Meanwhile, the reader also sees Jan’s mother and sister in a tornado, the sisters well-rounded to be entirely believable. searching letters, scattered throughout: all left Cold River as soon as they came of Their motivations are convincing, however, “Oh, Ursula, it’s actually a relief to send age, each expecting to never return. In especially when nature’s violence rekindles out messages and have all the time in the contrast to the stress and pressure of their Jack’s memories of his mother’s accidental world,” he writes. Though more a collec- new lives, the slow pace of Cold River and death years earlier. Maia, conversely, can tion of scenes and impressions and thinner the easy familiarity of small-town life at times feel more like a plot device than than his other novels, this is an intriguing provide the sisters the opportunity to let like a woman with an inherently dramatic and dreamy portrait of two writers their guard down. But when they chance story of her own. Nevertheless, with its taking different paths in their pursuit of upon a gruesome discovery that upsets what evocative descriptions of nature’s splendor their love of literature, hoping to discover they thought they knew about their family and brutality, Heller’s novel beautifully their voices. (Feb.) history, they will have to face not only their depicts the powers that can drive humans own demons, but also the late Aunt Bee’s. apart—and those that compel them to More Than Words With fun cameos of previously introduced return repeatedly to one another. (Mar.) Jill Santopolo. Putnam, $25 (352p) ISBN 978- residents of Cold River, Noblin’s heart- 0-7352-1830-7 warming story of the strength of family The Spirit of Science Fiction Santopolo follows 2017’s The Light We will please fans and newcomers alike. (Feb.) Roberto Bolaño, trans. from the Spanish by Lost with a heartfelt story about life, love, Natasha Wimmer. Penguin Press, $24 (208p) and taking chances in the aftermath of ★ Golden Child ISBN 978-0-7352-2285-4 loss. Thirty-something hotel heiress Nina Claire Adam. SJP, $26 (288p) ISBN 978-0-525- This striking, meandering novel from Gregory loves her job as speechwriter for 57299-2 Bolaño (2666), written toward the New York mayoral candidate Rafael Adam’s excellent debut explores a dark beginning of his career, follows the coming- O’Connor-Ruiz, and she loves her boyfriend and haunting Sophie’s Choice–like dilemma of-age of two young writers in Mexico and lifelong best friend, Tim Calder. But set in the lush and dangerous bush of City. Aspiring writers Jan and Remo get she adores her father, Joseph, and as cancer Trinidad. At the center are 13-year-old twin an apartment together. Jan spends his days weakens the once-vibrant man, Nina brothers—Peter, the brilliant son with a

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in San Francisco in the late 1910s and into ★ Big Bang the 1920s, then as a documentarian of American life during the Great Depression David Bowman. Little, Brown, $32 (624p) ISBN 978-0-316-56023-8 and WWII. Lange’s tenacity stems from a here were you when you first heard President troubled childhood—a bout with polio Kennedy had been shot?” asks Bowman that left her with a twisted foot, an absent (1957–2012) in the opening of his big, bold, father, and an overworked mother. She’s “ and brilliant posthumous novel, and for the determined to do better than her parents Wnext 600 pages, he investigates what occurred in the by attaining a rewarding career and a years leading up to that monumental event in American happy family life. But Lange’s first mar- history. Through the lives of such iconic figures as riage, to painter Maynard Dixon, unravels Norman Mailer, Elvis, William de Kooning, Marilyn with his infidelities. When their incomes Monroe, Dr. Spock, Ngô Dihn Diem, Aristotle Onassis, take a hit from the Depression, Lange decides they should separate and place the Kennedys themselves, and dozens of others, Bowman their two sons in foster care. She finds a conjures an enormous narrative out of the troubled years better second marriage to Paul Taylor, an from 1950 to 1963. Bowman takes the reader to Nevada, where Arthur Miller and economist, but spends years trying to Saul Bellow become short-term neighbors while waiting to obtain quickie divorces; repair her relationships with her sons. to Seattle, where Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee have a strange encounter; to Mexico Historical fiction fans will gobble up City, where William S. Burroughs shoots his wife in the head during a William Hooper’s novel and be left with the satis- Tell stunt gone horribly wrong; to Robert McNamara’s home, where he and some fied feeling that they have lived through Washington, D.C., friends have a book club; to Vietnam, where a fake coup quickly much of the 20th century with Dorothea becomes a real one; and, of course, to Dallas on the day the President was gunned Lange. Agent: Barbara Braun Assoc. (Jan.) down. Bowman (Let the Dog Drive) relates all of these remarkable tales with a straight-faced, just-the-facts approach, stripping these giants of the 20th century Sacred Cesium Ground and of their mythic status and rendering them as mere humans—caught, like everyone, Isa’s Deluge: Two Novellas in the crossfire of unrelenting history. Bowman’s self-described “nonfiction novel” of Japan’s 3/11 Disaster is a stunning and singular achievement. (Jan.) Kimura Yusuke, trans. from the Japanese by Doug Slaymaker. Columbia Univ., $20 (160p) ISBN 978-0-231-18943-9 golden future, and Paul, the family’s the fate of the boys and family. Throughout The perseverance and anger of survi- sorrow—who are simultaneously lifted and this stunning portrait of Trinidad’s multi- vors of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent doomed by the aspirations of their parents, cultural diversity, and one family’s sacrifices, nuclear meltdown that devastated the relatives, and teachers. The first of three soaring hopes and ultimate despair, Adam Tohoku region of Japan unites this pair parts begins with the disappearance of Paul weaves a poetic lightness and beauty that of strident novellas from Kimura, a native after a harsh tongue-lashing by his father, will transfix readers. (Jan.) of the area. In “Sacred Cesium Ground,” Clyde. The second part reveals Paul’s Nishino volunteers at a ranch whose troubled childhood, in which he’s cast as Learning to See: A Novel of owner, Sendo, has refused the govern- mentally slow and Peter as a genius by Dorothea Lange, the Woman ment’s order to slaughter his irradiated their doting mother, Joy, Paul’s lifelong Who Revealed the Real America cattle. Nishino wonders whether all she protector. It’s also when the concern of an Elise Hooper. Morrow, $15.99 trade paper is doing is prolonging the cows’ suffering, Irish priest at the boys’ school in Port of (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-268653-4 but Sendo persists, explaining, “I am not Spain opens Paul to his first-ever glimmer In an earnest sophomore effort that gonna allow it to be as though this never of hope and confidence—before a break-in closely hews to biographical facts, Hooper was.” In “Isa’s Deluge,” Shoji is preoccu- at the family’s rural home triggers the (The Other Alcott) presents a fictionalized pied with dreams of his uncle Isa, a tragic chain of events leading to Paul’s account of photographer Lange, who nursing home–bound former fisherman disappearance. In the third part, Clyde snapped the famous Migrant Mother picture infamous for his drunkenness and violence, makes the heartbreaking choice—forced in 1936. Hooper’s Lange is scrappy, fighting particularly “the wounds inflicted in by a jealous family member—that seals for success first as a portrait photographer onboard knife fights.” The stories about

▲ Isa that his family tells Shoji convinces Our Reviewers him that his uncle is a reincarnation of an Paul Goat Allen Eboni Dunbar Michael Kurland Chelle Parker Michael Barson Idris Grey Pam Lambert Tim Peters Emishi, a medieval warrior from one of Amelia Beckerman Patricia Guy Diane Langhorst Leonard Picker the region’s proudly independent tribes. Vicki Borah Bloom Marc Igler Kathryn Livingston Gwyn Plummer Leah Bobet Mary M. Jones Sheri Melnick Eugene Reynolds Though Kimura’s agenda forces his story- Lisa Butts Michael M. Jones Ro Moore Joseph L. Sanders Henry Carrigan Frances Katz Julie Naughton David Szonyi telling into a supporting role, each novella Donis Casey Bridget Keown Marcia Z. Nelson Marta Tandori offers a persuasive alternative to the trite Robert Clough Gary M. Kramer Dai Newman Julia Tilford John DiBello Lauren Kramer Eric Norton cry of “Ganbare Nippon; together we

70 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_FICTION Review_FICTION Advertisement

can beat this, Japan!” that spread after with him. Also playing major roles in Lucy’s the disasters. Nishino contemplates life are her best friend and teammate, Alexis remaining at the farm forever, while Shoji Feliz, and two downtown female artists, imagines leading a violent assault on Violet and Max, who share an apartment Tokyo; however divergent, each character’s in SoHo and impart to Lucy important reaction feels authentic to the suffering of lessons about life, love, and art. Lucy spends Tohoku. (Jan.) most of the book wandering around Manhattan, giving her story a plotless feel. Miraculum And Lucy and her friends sound way too Steph Post. Polis, $26 (336p) ISBN 978-1- mature and savvy for their teenage years. 947993-41-9 (Lucy, for instance, describes a character In this underwhelming novel from Post having a beard “that belongs on a Hasidic (Lightwood) a circus hires on a mysterious rabbi from Warsaw circa 1934.”) Despite stranger and soon finds itself suffering from a lived-in sense of place, this coming-of- a string of unexplained tragedies. age novel seems to be about jaded young Touring the Louisiana-Texas border in characters who have already come of age, Demon King 1922, Pontilliar’s Spectacular Star Light leaving them—and the reader—with little Erik Henry Vick. Miraculum is made up of a rough crowd of room for emotional development. (Jan.) Ratatoskr Publishing, $23.99 outcasts and runaways, everyone holding trade paper (650p) secrets and grudges against one another. The Best Possible Angle ISBN 978-0999079522 When the geek—a member of the show Lloyd Johnson. Lloyd Johnson, $14 trade paper who bites off the heads of small animals— (294p) ISBN 978-0-9973234-4-3 u u u u u u u u is found dead from an apparent suicide by Secrets, blackmail, and murder make hanging, a well-dressed man named Daniel for a tantalizing trifecta in Johnson’s edgy shows up out of nowhere and offers to take and entertaining novel. If the buzz in his place. But Ruby, a snake charmer and Tinseltown over his soon-to-be-released Vick’s dark, tense thriller pits the daughter of the circus owner, has a movie, It Is What It Is, is to be believed, young kids—and their older selves— feeling Daniel is hiding something sinister. then hunky Kendrick Black is on the verge against a demonic evil and his twisted While the circus atmosphere Post creates of becoming a huge star—and after five daughters in Upstate New York. is one of danger and intrigue, there’s little years of struggling, he’s more than ready. In 1979, Benny Cartwright knows actual mystery to be found here. The story Then, while visiting family in Minnesota, something is wrong when his friend moves too quickly, leaving the characters Kendrick gets into an accident, inadver- Toby Burton doesn’t show up for underdeveloped and their motivations tently killing a little girl who jumps in school. He sets out to find his friend unclear. Twists are also telegraphed in front of his car. He flees the scene in a panic and is almost captured by the demon advance through jumps in perspective that before calling Lenox, his best friend, who Herlequin, who took Toby. Quickly, often make the story hard to follow. Both takes care of everything and counsels him the town is besieged by Herlequin’s too rakish and supernatural to be believable, to carry on as if nothing ever happened. As demon horde, including his daughter, Daniel maintains an uncanny effect on all Kendrick’s star continues to rise, he begins Brigitta, and her lover, former Marine sniper Owen Gray, who goes on a those around him from his introduction having nightmares about the hit-and-run, shooting rampage. In 2007, Drew until the novel’s predictable end. Despite plagued by shame and guilt, problems Reid is a college professor who can the rich setting and strong concept, Post’s that are compounded when Sabathany, his see demons (which appear human to story of a macabre travelling spectacular opportunistic girlfriend, learns Kendrick’s everyone else) and kills each one he fails to captivate. (Jan.) secret and decides to blackmail him. The finds. Scott Lewis is a state trooper well-plotted story features some complex investigating the killings who quickly The Falconer characters who all seem to have an angle— becomes involved in Reid’s hunt for Dana Czapnik. Atria, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1- some are devoid of a moral compass while demons. Vick bounces the story line 5011-9322-4 others, such as Kendrick, test the limits of between eras effectively, and the In her flawed first novel, Czapnik rec- how far they’re willing to allow their moral tension never lets up. Stephen King reates the New York City of 1993 as seen compasses to veer for the sake of their fans will enjoy spotting the references through the eyes of Lucy Adler, an Upper survival. This is a sharp, suspenseful that Vick sprinkles throughout in West Side high school student who lives novel. (BookLife) homage. Readers may find the story for basketball. Lucy is a member of her confusing at first, the quick plot school’s girls’ basketball team and also plays A Lady in Havana resolution too thin, and some rape and killing scenes overly graphic, but pickup games in Riverside Park—where Ashley Morgan. Gatekeeper, $9.95 trade paper the thrills and horrors are engrossing. she is often the sole girl on the court—with (295p) ISBN 978-1-64237-142-0 (BookLife) her wealthy friend, Percy Abney, who seems A torrid love affair and a country on oblivious to the fact that Lucy is in love the brink of revolution mesmerize in this erikhenryvick.com

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his idiosyncratic ways of conceiving ★ Trust Exercise them—manifests both in the poems’ style and content. This volume is grace- Susan Choi. Holt, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-1-250-30988-4 fully unified by its commitment to hoi’s superb, powerful fifth novel, after 2013’s enjambment as a way of rendering My Education, marries exquisite craft with topical familiar narratives suddenly and won- urgency. Set in the early 1980s, the book’s first derfully strange. As the book unfolds, section depicts the Citywide Academy for the the work is increasingly inhabited by CPerforming Arts, an elite high school in an unnamed silence, which amplifies the surreal and Southern city. Galvanized by the charged atmosphere often disconcerting moments in each created by the school’s magnetic theater teacher, Mr. intricately imagined dreamscape. Šalamun Kingsley, 15-year-old classmates Sarah and David have provocatively places the line in tension an intense sexual relationship the summer between their with the sentence, allowing suspense to accumulate and undermining expectations freshman and sophomore years. Sarah, who has taken its of narrative resolution. Šalamun’s poems secrecy for granted, is horrified when David makes their are as subversive in their craft as they are romance public that fall. She repudiates him, the two spend the year estranged, in their thinking, and this translation and she grows increasingly isolated until an English theater troupe makes an preserves that originality of thought and extended visit to the school. When she is pursued by one of the troupe’s actors at expression. (Jan.) the same time her classmate Karen falls in love with its director, the two young women form a fraught, ambivalent bond. The novel’s second segment reintroduces Invasive Species the characters a dozen years later, shifting from Sarah’s perspective into to a new Marwa Helal. Nightboat, $15.95 trade paper viewpoint that casts most of what readers thought they knew into doubt. After the (96p) ISBN 978-1-937658-93-9 tensions of the past culminate in an act at once shocking and inevitable, a brief Physical, psycho-spiritual, and linguistic coda set in 2013 adds a final bold twist. Choi’s themes—among them the long displacement form a nexus of poetic reverberations of adolescent experience, the complexities of consent and coercion, lines that course through this restless, and the inherent unreliability of narratives—are timeless and resonant. Fiercely memoiristic, and deeply felt debut from intelligent, impeccably written, and observed with searing insight, this novel is Helal. The book opens and closes with destined to be a classic. (Apr.) sections of short, plainspoken poems and blocks of runaway, breathless, form- shifting prose texts. Meanwhile, the core historical romance by the pseudonymous irresistible drama. (BookLife) hinges on an abecedarian mini-memoir Morgan. It’s the early 1950s, and dutiful of Helal’s family emigration from Egypt Florida wife Dorothy “Dimple” Duncan to the U.S., and her subsequent travels (who lives in a shabby bungalow “near Poetry back and forth as she navigates 912.5 Coral Gables, not in it”) joins her husband, days of a dehumanizing and bureaucratic Dallis, on a trip to Havana, where they ★ Druids visa process to remain in “A country that embark on a risky business venture. Their Tomaž Šalamun, trans. from the Slovenian by fakes left but passes a hard right.” Much local contact is handsome attorney Roberto Sonja Kravanja. Black Ocean, $18.95 (112p) of the collection takes place in cars, airports, Montero, who makes no secret of his ISBN 978-1-939568-25-0 waiting rooms; in dreams and songs; and attraction to Dorothy. When Dallis tem- The poetry of the late Slovenian poet in inventively reworked immigration porarily returns to the States, Roberto and Šalamun (1941–2014) proves joyfully documents. In this latter form, Helal Dorothy become lovers, but she’s shocked irreverent in this collection that defamil- reverses expectations (and syntax) and to discover that her charming lothario is iarizes the everyday. In Kravanja’s attentive deflects the unidirectional flow of state the integral link between Cuba’s despotic translation, Šalamun’s terse, expertly authority with a biting sense of humor president and Fidel Castro, the man crafted lines create “dark incisions” into a that jumps from threat to cartoonish planning on overthrowing him. The story world readers thought they knew. “I’m mockery to near despair, her only constant is well researched with a solid narrative, placed in God with all my flesh./ Food in a dead-aim of purpose: “these mother- and the dialogue is peppered with a pan, the people’s food./ I flow out, on all fuckers have a green card lottery while charming Southern affectations as elderly sides, like a river/ and people tell me they refugee babies wash up drowned at sea.” Dorothy recounts the shocking events of wash their/ souls in me,” he writes. By Drawing on influences as disparate as her younger life to her adult daughter. The exploiting the tension between the seen June Jordan, DJ Khaled, and author writes with a convincing famil- and unseen, the known and the unknow- L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetics, Helal iarity, and her characters’ brief interac- able, Šalamun destabilizes commonly finds in poetry something that goes tions with the likes of Lana Turner, Ernest held beliefs about the order of things: beyond resistance or balm, and might Hemingway, Meyer Lansky, and Castro “Order, according to cosmic dawns.” This even approach hope. (Jan.) himself add historical authenticity to an obsession with logic and causation—and

72 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_FICTION Review_FICTION Advertisement

★ Only as the Day is Long: “Aleppo,” Alyan describes “how a lone New and Selected Poems bomb can erase a lineage: the nicknames Dorianne Laux. Norton, $ 26.95 (128p) for your mother, the ghost stories, the only ISBN 978-0-393-65233-8 song that put your child to sleep.” People Featuring selections from five books do not merely inherit memories, they also augmented by 20 new poems, this generous inherit the accompanying pain; the book’s volume from Laux (The Book of Men) reads prevalence of couplets may attest to this something like a life story: notably, one kind of pairing. In “Armadillo,” where that begins with familial fear, incest, and Alyan recounts family memories, she asks abuse. Travelling through confusion, and answers, “What do we do with heart- adult sex, motherhood, love, fatigue, and ache? Tow it.” The inheritance of displace- redemption, Laux ends where she begins: ment is pervasive, as Alyan describes, and with her mother, who is, to the last, a her lines are prone to linger in the minds The Colorado troublesome nurse. In spite of everything, of readers just like the ghosts that haunt Christa Sadler the poet can’t help but celebrate the the work itself. (Jan.) This Earth Press/National Sawdust, $60 hardcover (270p) self’s mistakes and triumphs. When ISBN 978-0692982501 Laux welcomes readers into a personal Fire Season moment, she speaks for humankind: Patrick Coleman. Tupelo, $16.95 trade paper “We’ve forgotten the luxury of dumbness,/ (104p) ISBN 978-1-946482-15-0 � � � � � � � � how once we crouched naked on an outcrop/ “Every morning I drive past wild horses of rock, the moon huge and untouched/ on the way to work,” writes Coleman in a above us, speechless.” Concrete places superb debut composed via audio recording “In this thoughtful companion to abound: bedroom, trailer, hospital psychi- during his commute to and from his job at Murat Eyuboglu’s 2016 documentary of atric ward, a porch. There is a lot of sex; the San Diego Museum of Art. The book the same name, river guide Sadler (Dawn for example, “Vacation Sex,” an aroused features a rich mix of ekphrastic, landscape, of the Dinosaurs: The Late Triassic in version of a travel tour, revels in its own and self-reflective prose poems. “I need the American Southwest) traces the con ict-laden and cautionary history obsessive pleasure. Some of the best poems distance, loss, or its possibility; I need the of the Colorado River and its basin, here appear toward the chronologically world to cede to mind and memory,” following its evolution from untamed, organized collection’s end, where humor Coleman writes; this sentiment runs free- owing river to human-engineered arrives despite a mother’s growing through the collection and complements disaster area. Lavishly illustrated and dementia. And in the long biographical his interest in the movement of thought beautifully produced, the book provides poem “Arizona,” Laux writes lovingly of through conversation and wordplay. a at if broad overview of the river’s that same mother’s face as “a map of every Throughout, he muses and observes in history as, variously, sustainer of Native place she’d been.” This is a catalogue of understated lines: “Can it be childlike when Americans, colonizing pathway for Spanish missionaries, incubator for honest work, from beginning to end. (Jan.) it comes from a child? But childish isn’t rampant development, political and social right either.” Each poem is paired in loose cauldron, and victim of climate change. ★ The Twenty-Ninth Year conversation with a color image of a Explorer John Wesley Powell made the Hala Alyan. Mariner, $15.99 trade paper painting or sculpture from the San Diego majestic Grand Canyon and Colorado (96p) ISBN 978-1-328-51194-2 Museum of Art. This added visual River famous in the late 19th century, The past never truly dies in this searing dimension expands each poem’s universe, and proposed “commonwealths” with fourth collection from Alyan (Salt Houses), created as they were in small pockets of boundaries based on an area’s watershed it merely resurfaces in the form of battle time between the attentions of new instead of random development, predicting “a heritage of con ict and scars and familial wounds. The Palestinian- fatherhood and work meetings and against litigation over water rights, for there is American poet, novelist, and clinical the backdrop of California wildfires that not enough water to supply these lands!” psychologist weaves an ever-shifting smolder on the horizon. “I think of my Policymakers ignored Powell’s prophetic narrative that chronicles the personal wife and daughter, at home now, waiting words, however, parceling out the “liquid history that shapes and informs her present. for me only five minutes away, and how property” to the competing demands of These kaleidoscopic flashes of former lives all distances are now measured as time.” agriculture, urban growth, and industry, share the feeling and act of displacement, Coleman artfully captures the transcendent with the result that resources are now the way in which the body can store the moments within a busy life when “unfocused stretched dangerously thin even as climate change worsens conditions. mental, emotional and psychological desires squeeze through the seams.” (Dec.) Sadler’s in-depth exploration of the traumas long after the inciting events have Colorado River and its rich legacy offers transpired. “We inherit everything. Lord of the Butterflies a thought-provoking if unsettling look at Especially questions,” Alyan writes in “The Andrea Gibson. Button, $16 trade paper society’s destructive exploitation of the Honest Wife.” Throughout her work the (112p) ISBN 978-1-943735-42-6 water and its failure to practice Powell’s theme of displacement elicits more than Propelled by all that is raw, heartfelt, concepts of conservation. (BookLife) emotion; it’s a recurring memory. In and confessional, this fifth collection from www.this-earth.com/the-colorado

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Gibson (Take Me With You) is a tour de force may be both this book’s totem and a sym- Antoine Lazenac out of Lazenac’s fishing of performance poetry. Gibson is a natural bolic figure for the reader; when the speaker boat and leaving the man to drown miles storyteller and delivers with gumption, imagines rearranging a pet gecko’s tank, off the Brittany coast. What follows is whether narrating a visit to an ex-lover’s “She soundlessly scrapes the glass to learn Kremeur’s explanation for his crime to new ivy-coated apartment or digitally new vertices.” “Walls are made to be the judge presiding over his case. editing a sister’s mug shot. Recounting the stroked,” Johnson reminds readers, as Kremeur, a laid-off shipwright employed Orlando nightclub shooting, where first those surfaces are but another locus of as a groundskeeper at a rundown château, responders “walked through the horrific bewilderment and discovery: “Laugh until gradually reveals how he got conned into scene/ of bodies and called out,/ If you are full, until body itself is a world.” (Dec.) investing all his cash in an ocean-view alive, raise your hand,” Gibson’s speaker apartment in a building complex that recalls being in bed hundreds of miles away, Things That Go Lazenac, a slick property developer, was imagining that “in that exact moment/ my Laura Eve Engel. Octopus, $16.95 trade paper promising to construct on the site of the hand twitched in my sleep,/ some uncon- (136p) ISBN 978-0-9861811-8-4 château. After six years, Kremeur realizes scious part of me aware/ that I had a pulse,/ Engel traces intricacies and inaccuracies that Lazenac has no intention of doing that I was alive.” The book’s subject matter of memory in her nimble, philosophical anything. Meanwhile, Kremeur’s ranges widely, with Gibson delivering a debut. Shades of difference and nuance of 17-year-old son is feeling the strain his tongue-in-cheek ode to public panic attacks feeling, as well as the vast chasms that can father is under and acts out. Arresting (“You found me at Disney World,/ in line exist between two people, feature as metaphors enliven the spare prose (when for The Little Mermaid/ Slow Moving prominent themes. In “The Field You Kremeur signs the papers sealing the real Clam Ride”) between tackling Tinder Weren’t,” Engel astutely draws a line estate deal, “it felt like I’d had the Shroud dating and gun violence, and confronting between fantasy and reality, noting the of Turin authenticated by Christ in issues that affect the greater LGBTQ temptation to look back on a relationship person”). Viel should win new American community. Despite Gibson’s storytelling with rose-colored glasses when the desire fans with this elegant effort. (Feb.) prowess, some of these poems feel a little to reminisce “sits/ like a magnet sits nearby too familiar while simultaneously falling another magnet trembling.” Meanwhile, ★ The Killer Collective flat on the page. Though this work lacks she amusingly describes falling in love as Barry Eisler. Thomas & Mercer, $24.95 the vivacity of Gibson’s stage presence and “Like finally finding inside a haystack/ (416p) ISBN 978-1-5039-0426-2 live performance, the book is notable for there’s a more beautiful/ haystack.” In this crackling-good thriller from its energy and diverse array of voice-driven Weather patterns and trains are constant bestseller Eisler (The Night Trade), poems. (Dec.) touchstones, as when Engel describes how Seattle PD sex crimes detective Livia “A girl may not be meant/ to think of her Lone, assassin John Rain, and former Pungent dins concentric mouth/ as a smokestack but insists// are Marine sniper Dox form a testy alliance Vanessa Couto Johnson. Tolsun, $14.95 trade you sure we’re still moving is a feeling/ to combat a vile conspiracy involving paper (82p) ISBN 978-1-948800-06-8 and that feeling chuffs like a train/ until corrupt and toxic government agencies. From its synaesthetic title to its closing delay.” In a series interspersed across the When Livia survives an assassination poem, this complex debut from Johnson collection, Engel speaks for Lot’s wife, attempt while investigating an international shows that surrealism remains alive and capturing the plaintive voice of one ren- child pornography ring, she learns that swell. The Brazilian-born Texan poet offers dered inert for eternity: “what will grow those behind a new manifesto—“No need to order, but up/ around me will certainly/ die or else the hit may a desire to, with take out”—and regales learn/ to live by my salt.” Recording and work for the readers with puns (“Hippocratic oaf”; “I examining the minutia of emotional FBI. Livia skid you not”) as well as vertiginous shifts response, Engel offers moments of deep recruits Dox, of voice, tone, and register. Postmodern insight and quiet revelation that should her partner from juxtapositions (“Captain Kirk with Plato’s prove relatable to anyone overwhelmed or The Night Trade, stepchildren”; “A baby in line for a burrito”) mystified by their own wild feelings. (Dec.) to aid and abet and copious parentheticals—”(sp)rang,” her. Meanwhile, “c(lock),” “peri(met)er”—announce that Rain—who neither rhyme nor reason need apply. Mystery/Thriller originally was Johnson also tells narrative and lyric offered the hit conventions to take a hike: “We watch Article 353 on Livia—must come out of retirement to Canadian cultists sleeveless undershirted Tanguy Viel, trans. from the French by William assemble a world-class team of black ops ski-masking with machetes in a forest Rodarmor. Other Press, $15.99 trade paper all-stars to battle a parallel threat. chasing the coated.” At such moments, (160p) ISBN 978-1-59051-933-2 Persuasive action sequences lead to the one may think of Wallace Stevens’s critique Martial Kremeur, the narrator of this merging of the two forces midway of surrealism, that it invents without beguiling noir from French author Viel through the story. The feisty interplay discovering. And yet, the charge of frivolity (Beyond Suspicion), isn’t surprised when the among these killer elites is as irresistible does not stick here. A skin-shedding lizard police arrest him a few hours after heaving as if one combined the Justice League

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with the Avengers, swapping out the subsequently discovered a few miles superhero uniforms for cutting-edge from his perfectly operational truck in the weaponry and scintillating spycraft. By shadow of the eerie headstone known as the satisfying conclusion, the world has the stockman’s grave. Absent any clear been scrubbed a bit cleaner of perfidy. This indications of foul play, the local authorities is delightfully brutal fun. Agent: Laura undertake a perfunctory investigation, Rennert, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Feb.) leaving a troubled Nathan to start asking questions that no one wants to answer. In A Spy in Exile the grim journey that follows, the surviving Jonathan de Shalit, trans. from the Hebrew members of the Bright family must con- by Steve Cohen. Atria/Bestler, $27 (384p) front some devastating secrets. Harper’s ISBN 978-1-5011-7056-0 sinewy prose and flinty characters compel, On orders from the Israeli prime minister, but the dreary story line may cause some former Mossad agent Ya’ara Stein, the readers to give up before the jaw-dropping heroine of this middling spy thriller from denouement. Author tour. Agent: Daniel the pseudonymous de Shalit (Traitor), Lazar, Writers House. (Feb.) assembles a crew of promising amateurs to form a secret strike team. Ya’ara believes The Moroccan Girl that newbies will be effective, because they Charles Cumming. St. Martin’s, $27.99 won’t fall into the predictable routines (368p) ISBN 978-1-250-12995-6 that come from the training of experienced At the start of this uneven spy novel spooks. After a few practice runs on low- from bestseller Cumming (The Trinity Six), stakes missions in Germany, the team thriller writer Kit Carradine is accosted steps into the big leagues with a plan to on a London street by Robert Mantis, who assassinate two Muslim radicals, one in claims to be a big fan of his books. Mantis, Ghostographs: An London, the other in Brussels. Aided by whose card identifies him as a British Album Maria Romasco Moore Ya’ara’s chief recruiter, Amnon Aslan, the government “operational control center Rose Metal Press team carries out the two hits with stunning specialist,” persuades Carradine to do some Fiction, Hyprid Genre alacrity. Another mission, however, never spying for the U.K. in Morocco, where 978-1-941628-15-7 materializes, and the rest of the story focuses he’s to attend a literary event. His tasks: on Ya’ara rebuilding past relationships carry some cash to one of Mantis’s associates and hand-wringing about her career and and keep an eye out for a “remarkable young personal life. In between some exciting woman, cunning and unpredictable.” In We Women Have No moments, readers will find themselves Morocco, Carradine succeeds in identifying Fatherland Ilse Frapan, trans. waiting around for something to happen. the girl of the title: Lara Bartok, the former James J. Conway Those expecting to glean much inside girlfriend of Ivan Simakov, the leader of a Rixdorf Editions knowledge of espionage from de Shalit, revolutionary group that’s been kidnapping Fiction, Women’s Studies “a former high-ranking member of the right-wing journalists. The Russian 978-3-947325-09-2 Israeli Intelligence Community,” will be government wants to stop Simakov; the disappointed. (Feb.) American government may also be involved. Cumming is a terrific stylist with The Lost Man a great sense of place, but the convoluted Jane Harper. Flatiron, $27.99 (320p) ISBN 978- plot becomes tiresome. Readers will The Word Pretty 1-250-10568-4 struggle to care about Carradine, a romantic Elisa Gabbert Black Ocean Australia’s outback, with its brutal dreaming of glory, who’s more sad sack than Literary �on�ction, climate and equally bruising isolation, hero. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit. Women’s Studies looms as large as any character in this stark (Feb.) 978-1-939568-26-7 standalone from bestseller Harper (Force of Nature). For years, the three Bright I Invited Her In brothers—divorced dad Nathan, the Adele Parks. Mira, $16.99 trade paper eldest; family man and everybody’s favorite, (448p) ISBN 978-0-7783-6921-9 middle child Cameron; and the mentally In 1999, when Melanie Harrison, the challenged youngest, Bub—have main- heroine of this underwhelming psycho- Invasions tained an uneasy equilibrium on adjacent logical thriller from British author Parks Gavin Gimpelevich Instar Books cattle ranches. That flies out the window (Playing Away), dropped out of university Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies the week before Christmas when Cameron after becoming pregnant after a one-night 978-1-68219-910-7 goes missing; his desiccated corpse is stand, she lost touch with her best friend, spdbooks.org/handpicked

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Abigail Curtiz. Seventeen years later, Mel L.A. County deputy sheriff. Johnson and Bradley’s excellent 10th Flavia de Luce is living comfortably in Wolvney, England, his buddy, Ned Kiefer, are on loan from novel set in 1950s England (after 2018’s with her doting husband, Ben, and their the violent crimes unit to the FBI, which The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place): three kids. Out of nowhere, she receives tosses them several preliminary crimes that “How had an embalmed finger found its an email from Abi, who explains that she’s Bruno solves with preternatural aplomb way from the hand of a dead woman in a getting a divorce from her cheating husband and that reconnect him with an old love, Surrey cemetery into the heart of a wedding and moving back to the U.K. from America. FBI special agent Chelsea Miller, with cake at Buckshaw?” Though only in her Mel invites Abi to stay in her home whom he once worked on a case that went early teens, chemistry prodigy Flavia has indefinitely, and Abi eagerly accepts. After bad. Finally, the Feds reveal the special formed a private detective agency with spending years in suburbia, Mel can’t help problem that Bruno and Ned have really Arthur Dogger, her late father’s valet, at becoming infatuated with the glamorous been chosen to handle: finding a way to the family estate of Buckshaw. The dis- Abi, who interviews celebrities for a living arrest and charge Amos Leroy Gadd, who covery at her sister Ophelia’s wedding of and loves sharing the details of her sex life. is recruiting children to rob banks in an the severed digit—which turns out to Soon, however, Mel gets the impression effort to isolate himself from the crimes. have come from the corpse of a guitar that Abi wants more than just a place to Bruno and Ned must stop the robberies, impresario—presents Flavia and Dogger stay and time to reconnect. Parks generates preferably without hurting the children, with her first case. Meanwhile, the sleuths some tension by switching among the and tie them back to Gadd. As the pace get their first client when Anastasia Prill perspectives of Mel, Abi, and Ben, but picks up, the plot takes some startling asks for their help in recovering some stock characters and predictable plot twists. Putnam, a retired cop, uses his sensitive stolen letters relating to her developments make this a lesser effort. long experience in law enforcement to good father’s homeopathic practice, an inquiry Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown. (Feb.) effect, but some readers will feel he covers that turns into a homicide investigation. too much territory too fast. Agents: Mike Bradley, who has few peers at combining The Reckless: and Susan Farris, Farris Literary. (Feb.) fair-play clueing with humor and has fun A Bruno Johnson Novel mocking genre conventions, shows no David Putnam. Oceanview, $26.95 (320p) ★ The Golden Tresses of the sign of running out of ideas. Agent: Denise ISBN 978-1-60809-288-8 Dead: A Flavia de Luce Novel Bukowski, Bukowski Agency. (Jan.) Putnam’s sixth Bruno Johnson novel, the Alan Bradley. Delacorte, $26 (352p) ISBN 978- overstuffed sequel to 2018’s The Innocents, 0-345-54002-7 The Widows further explores Bruno’s years as a young A ghoulish question is at the heart of Jess Montgomery. Minotaur, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-18452-8 Montgomery’s deeply felt debut, set ★ Scrublands in hardscrabble Appalachian Ohio coal- mining country in 1925, centers on two Chris Hammer. Touchstone, $26.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-5011-9674-4 determined women on opposite sides of ydney journalist Martin Scarsden, the hero of the law—Lily Ross, a sheriff’s wife, and Australian author Hammer’s stellar first novel, is moonshiner and union organizer Marvena still recuperating from a traumatic experience while Whitcomb, a miner’s widow—who are covering a story in the Middle East when he’s sent based on a pair of formidable historical Sto Riversend to write an article about how the people figures, Maude Collins, Ohio’s first female of the drought-stricken town are coping one year after sheriff, and activist Mary Harris “Mother” Byron Swift, a local priest, inexplicably shot down five Jones. Only six months after the disastrous men in cold blood outside his church one Sunday cave-in at a mine managed by Bronwyn morning. Martin first stops at a bookstore, where he County sheriff Daniel Ross’s ruthless meets its beautiful owner, Mandalay Blonde, who’s half-brother, Luther, who has hired head- cracking Pinkertons to keep his increasingly struggling to come to grips with a painful past. Mandy mutinous workers in line, Daniel’s shocking insists that Byron, who was killed by a cop shortly after murder—allegedly at the hands of a he committed his horrific crime, was a decent man who treated her and her miner—thrusts secretly pregnant mother late mother kindly, not the child abuser some believed him to be. Mandy urges of two Lily into the crossfire as acting Martin to try to find out why he did it. Martin learns after talking to others that sheriff. As Lily starts to investigate her more tragedies may be connected with the mass murder. The stakes rise when husband’s killing, she swiftly discovers a Martin breaks a journalist’s fundamental rule by becoming part of the story, lot that doesn’t add up, as well as some of which turns out to be a “heady mix of murder, religion, and sex,” as Martin comes his carefully guarded secrets, among them to realize. Richly descriptive writing coupled with deeply developed characters, his connection to Marvena. Some of the plot relentless pacing, and a bombshell-laden plot make this whodunit virtually twists prove more surprising than con- impossible to put down. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (Jan.) vincing, but the feisty female protagonists do their real-life foremothers proud.

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Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group. (Jan.) stuck in her back. Could the murders be related? With the help of Geneva, the Take-Out and Other Tales of resident ghost of Weaver’s Cat, Kath and Culinary Crime friends lay a trap to catch a killer. The Rob Hart. Polis, $16 trade paper (304p) motive for the murders may be weak, but ISBN 978-1-943818-42-6 cozy fans will enjoy the quirky characters Hart’s first story collection offers 16 and charming, small-town setting. (Jan.) winning food-themed tales, three previously unpublished. Whether his leads are The Guilt We Carry operating a taco truck (“Confessions of a Samuel W. Gailey. Oceanview, $26.95 (336p) Taco Truck Owner”) or running a family ISBN 978-1-60809-320-5 business that has lost customers to trendier One evening in 2005, the parents of competitors (“How to Make the Perfect 15-year-old Alice O’Farrell, the heroine of New York Bagel”), Hart (the Ash McKenna this gripping tale of redemption from series) brings their worlds to life through Gailey (Deep Winter), leave her in charge of effective use of character and mood. her bratty four-year-old brother, Jason, at Highlights include the grim “Butcher’s their home in Wilmington, N.C. After Hard Cider Block,” which presents a sadistic variant Jason paints her bedroom walls with her on Food Network cooking competition fingernail polish, Alice yells at him. While Abbey shows, and the satirical “Foodies,” which she tries to clean the walls, Jason traps K.P. Cecala takes an enjoyably vicious dig at food himself in the basement dryer and dies. Six $12.99 paperback snobs, for whom dining at the latest hot years later, the guilt-ridden Alice is an ISBN 9781721125746 place even trumps their basic humanity. alcoholic reduced to working as a bartender In “Creampuff,” someone has invented the at a strip joint in Harrisburg, Pa. One u u u u u u u u new cronut, the Creamelé, a baked French morning, she wakes up next to the corpse pastry with frozen ice cream inside. This of her boss, who has overdosed, in his trailer. latest “it” food induces people to line up Next to the bed is a duffel bag containing Gentle humor and restrained at 4 a.m. to buy one, but the focus is on the $91,000 in cash. Alice flees with the loot prose lift Cecala’s series launch. Odo bakery’s bouncer, who ends up with his in search of refuge in Wilmington with an LeRoi, a young monk, is transferred throat slit. The varied settings and story old friend, but on the train ride south she from an abbey in Quebec to Holy Face lines effectively showcase Hart’s versatility. can’t help intervening when she spots a Abbey in Appalachian West Virginia, Agent: Josh Getzler, HSG Agency. (Jan.) teenage girl being abused. The plot unfolds where he encounters an eclectic cast logically, and Gailey does a superior job of of hard cider–brewing monks. He also Crewel and Unusual: making his flawed lead sympathetic. Agent: stumbles on a corpse in the woods— A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative that of the abbey’s esteemed librarian, Molly Macrae. Pegasus Crime, $25.95 (272p) Management. (Jan.) Fr. Lucian Powers, whose death is ISBN 978-1-64313-008-8 initially thought to be a suicide. Odo In Macrae’s solid sixth Haunted Yarn The Liar’s Room himself is an enigmatic addition to Shop mystery (after 2015’s Knot the Usual Simon Lelic. Berkley, $16 trade paper (352p) the abbey: while considered mute Suspects), the residents of Blue Plum, Tenn., ISBN 978-0-440-00043-3 since birth, the truth is that “he could are saddened when retired banker Garland Set mostly during a single marathon speak. He simply chose not to.” Brown is found dead at a mountain trailhead therapy session, this unsettling psycho- Brother Emerick Ottlesby, a straight- parking area, his head bashed in with a logical thriller from British author Lelic talking veteran born and raised in the rock. But life must go on, and Kath (The New Neighbors) pits the counselor hardened community surrounding Rutledge, a textile preservation specialist calling herself Susanna Fenton against the the abbey, takes Odo under his wing. and owner of Weaver’s Cat Yarn Shop, is young man who arrives at her office one Emerick, who’s certain that the good- drawn into a quarrel between two day and introduces himself as Adam natured Lucian would never have acquaintances when she’s asked to Geraghty. Susanna, who has crafted a taken his own life and was instead authenticate a 1940s era embroidered second act with her now-14-year-old murdered by a monk at the abbey, and Odo work together to track down the tablecloth belonging to Belinda Moyer, daughter, Emily, after a horrific series of killer. Cecala crafts a quirky mystery owner of a space in the Vault, a co-op for events 14 years earlier, instantly senses that with two unlikely sleuths and an small arts-related shops in a repurposed on some level she knows Adam. When exceptionally appealing setting. bank. Nervie Bales thinks Belinda’s vintage their session begins, however, his pointed Readers will be eager for more linens are fake. Belinda accuses Nervie of questions start to suggest he’s the one who adventures from the endearing duo. stealing her patterns. The feud takes a knows precisely who she is—and that unless (BookLife) deadly turn when Belinda is found dead she can manage to outmaneuver him, her with a pair of scissors from Weaver’s Cat carefully reconstructed life could come www.kpcecala.net

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crashing down. Leaving or calling for help She’s relieved contributors, most of whom will be isn’t an option, given the evidence Adam when a friend unfamiliar to American readers. (Jan.) supplies that he knows Emily and that her offers her a part- safety hinges on Susanna’s cooperation. time gig What Doesn’t Kill Her Though the increasingly dangerous teaching yoga at Christina Dodd. HQN, $15.99 trade paper sparring between the pair does, inevitably, a facility for (384p) ISBN 978-1-335-50753-2 take on a somewhat stagy quality, the homeless teens. Dodd’s prequel to 2018’s Dead Girl painful secrets exposed and the tragic The class isn’t a Running starts slowly, weighed down by linked past that emerges contain enough roaring success, protagonist Kellen Adams’s complicated emotional truth to carry the day. Agent: but Kate makes backstory, which includes a murder/suicide; Caroline Wood, Felicity Bryan Assoc. (U.K.). a connection a stolen identity; a stint in the army in (Jan.) with a runaway Afghanistan; a stretch of homelessness; 13 named Rainbow, who ends up being the months in a coma, during which she ★ Murder at the Queen’s Old Castle prime suspect when Gabriel Cousins, the produced a child; and a budding romance Cora Harrison. Severn, $28.99 (240p) ISBN 978- youth center’s director, is shot dead in his with “tall, dark, handsome, Italian- 0-7278-8830-3 office. Rainbow has plenty of problems, American, broad-shouldered former foot- Harrison is at the top of her game in but Kate is convinced of her innocence ball player” Max Di Luca. The present-day her sixth whodunit set in 1920s Cork, and takes it upon herself to help the girl action finds Kellen at the Di Luca Winery Ireland, featuring the Reverend Mother by finding out who really killed Gabriel. in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, trying to Aquinas (after 2018’s Death of a Novice). Weber doesn’t hold back on depicting reconnect with her seven-year-old daughter, Joseph Fitzwilliam, the notoriously tight- the agony of infertility, or the dangerous Rae, and re-establish a relationship with fisted owner of a “shop selling cheap and miserable plight of troubled youth Max, the little girl’s father. She accepts a clothes and household linens” known as living on the streets of Seattle. Those job with a government agency, and is the Queen’s Old Castle, has offered to let who like their cozies with a dark edge charged with picking up “a priceless the reverend mother take her pick of will be rewarded. Agent: Priya Doraswamy, antique head” and taking it to “a weird water-damaged goods to distribute to the Lotus Lane Literary. (Jan.) recluse expert.” When Rae stows away in city’s poor. While doing so, the religious the van in which her mother is traveling, leader is horrified to see Joseph, who’s Sydney Noir Kellen finds herself pursued by two groups clutching a small barrel-shaped canister Edited by John Dale. Akashic, $15.95 trade of villains: one wants her dead, the other used for transporting change, fall over a paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-61775-581-1 wants the antique marble head. Fans of railing outside his office on an overhead Sydney is a good choice for Akashic’s romantic suspense who don’t mind a lack platform to his death. The canister smells first noir anthology set in Australia, since, of realism will be satisfied. Agent: Mel of gas, suggesting he was poisoned. as Dale notes in his introduction, it “has Berger, William Morris Endeavor. (Jan.) Joseph’s hysterical widow, who witnessed more unsolved murders than any other his fatal fall, cries murder, then points her Australian city, as well as more drive-by All That Glitters: A Great Western finger at 14-year-old shop employee Brian shootings and more jailed politicians.” Detective League Case Maloney, accusing the boy of mistakenly The 14 uniformly strong selections feature Paul Colt. Five Star, $25.95 (305p) ISBN 978- killing her husband instead of herself. familiar subgenre figures: gangsters, 1-4328-4955-9 While the politics of the time are not ethically compromised cops, and people A clunky and distracting framing device central to the plot as in other entries, bent on revenge for the loss of a loved one. hampers Colt’s third crime thriller based the fair-play puzzle is among Harrison’s The volume’s standout is Philip McLaren’s on a real-life 19th-century “association of finest. Agent: Peter Buckman, Ampersand “Black Cul-De-Sac,” which opens with a law enforcement professionals operating Agency (U.K.). (Jan.) man named Craig, “the aboriginal liaison” across the west” (after 2017’s The Bogus for the Redfern region of Sydney, arriving Bondsman). In 1909, reporter Robert Murder Likes It Hot: at a dark alley where a murdered black man Brentwood collects more reminiscences A Downward Dog Mystery has been found. Craig has become the from retired U.S. Army Col. David Crook, Tracy Weber. Midnight Ink, $15.99 trade paper “politically appointed watchdog” after a who once headed the legendary Great (288p) ISBN 978-0-7387-5069-9 wave of black deaths in police custody, a Western Detective League and is now in a At the start of Weber’s gripping sixth role that bears further exploration in future Denver rest home. Crook recounts his Downward Dog Mystery (after 2018’s Pre- stories. Two other tales warrant singling Colorado-based group’s efforts, in 1878, Meditated Murder), Seattle yoga instructor out: Gabrielle Lord’s “Slow Burn,” with to catch a jewel thief, who took advantage Kate Davidson and her new husband, its sophisticated, slow-motion vengeance of the noise of the fireworks for a Chinese Michael Massey, are struggling with fertility plot, and Mark Dapin’s dark-hued “In the New Year celebration in San Francisco to issues. Meanwhile, she’s worried about the Court of the Lion King,” an account of a blow open a safe belonging to International financial impact on her business of a cut- grim struggle for survival in a Sydney Imports and make off with $60,000 in rate yoga studio that opens directly across prison. Fans of dark crime fiction will diamonds and other precious stones. Crook the street from her own Serenity Yoga. want to seek out other works by these dispatches some of his operatives to

78 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_FICTION Review_FICTION

California, where they learn that the theft accusations of betraying his kind. Neither space opera that strands its protagonist is connected with shadowy criminal syndi- is a perfect fit for the worlds they come amid imperial politics and murder. Mahit cate El Anillo. Back in 1909, Brentwood from, and the closer they grow to each Dzmare, summoned from tiny Lsel Station steels himself to propose to his beloved, other, the more adversity they face. When to replace the previous ambassador to the Crook’s rest home attendant. Clichéd a Ynaa kills a young man and his grieving Teixcalaanli Empire, Yskandr, must nego- developments and lackluster prose (“A brother responds by assassinating one of tiate both for Yskandr’s corpse and for the light scent of vanilla ice cream flavored the aliens, a terrible cycle of violent retri- safety of her home world, an object of her presence”) are a barrier to engagement bution begins, and Mera and Derrick Imperial annexation. Her fluency in with the unremarkable plot. (Jan.) must choose sides. Turnbull uses a beauti- Teixcalaanli language and culture (“for a fully drawn cast of black characters to barbarian”) helps her decode the messages 3 Women, 4 Towns, 5 Bodies & convey the complexity of ordinary hard- hidden in their poetry, even as it inclines Other Stories ship in extraordinary times. This is an her to the same starry-eyed admiration Townsend Walker. Deeds, $18.95 trade paper ideal story for fans of Emily St. John and involvement with the Imperial court (286p) ISBN 978-1-947309-21-0 Mandel’s Station Eleven and other literary that overcame her predecessor. Her secret Walker’s moody story collection blends science fiction novels. Agent: Martha implant of Yskandr’s memories should be elements of noir, thriller, and romance. Millard, Sterling Lord Literistic. (June) aiding her, but it is 15 years out of date Many of the 12 entries focus on dominant and, apparently, sabotaged. Mahit instead and resourceful female protagonists who ★ The Women’s War relies on her need to establish an identity utilize their wits and sexuality to avenge Jenna Glass. Del Rey, $28 (560p) ISBN 978-1- of her own while juggling an aging the men who have harmed or underesti- 984817-20-4 Emperor’s desire for technological mated them. Perhaps the best selection— Glass’s substantial debut stands out as immortality and a threatened military and the most literary in tone—is “The both social commentary on contemporary uprising to his rule. The Teixcalaanli Second Coming,” in which an underhanded issues of bodily autonomy, gender, and culture comes so fully to life that the reverend meets his match in a savvy young social power and as feminist retribution glossary in the back of the book is unneces- woman. Also notable is “Coming Home,” fantasy, made manifest through an sary. Martine allows the backstory to unroll in which a soldier in 1839 Hungary is appealing epic fantasy setting and slowly, much as Mahit struggles with her reunited with a past lover. Walker’s writing grounded in a carefully designed magic intermittent memories, walking delicately is at its finest in moments of descriptive system. The kingdom of Aaltah’s disgraced upon the tightrope of intrigue and partisan storytelling. In contrast, repetitive erotic women are exiled to the Abbey of the battles in the streets to safely bring the tale interludes often become more gratuitous Unwanted, where they sell potions and sex. to a poignantly true conclusion. Readers than integral to the plot. For example, in Three generations of a powerful bloodline— will eagerly await the planned sequels to the title novella, a female sniper, whose led by Alysoon Rai-Brynna, mother of two this impressive debut. Agent: DongWon primary targets are violent and abusive and the widowed, disinherited daughter Song, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Mar.) men, silences a potential witness by of the aging king of Aaltah and the abbess— removing her clothes. As a result, many of perform a ritual that transforms the world The Psychology of Time Travel the characters feel interchangeable and to give women the power to prevent all Kate Mascarenhas. Crooked Lane, $26.99 can, unfortunately, be reduced to sexual unwanted pregnancies and fatally retaliate (352p) ISBN 978-1-68331-944-3 stereotypes. Still, those who like to see against rapists. Alysoon becomes a target Mascarenhas’s intricately plotted debut awful men receive just retribution will be for the wrathful response of men in power, dizzies the mind with its exciting concept satisfied. (BookLife) and a leader in exploring the uses of a secret but fails to follow through. Margaret, new source of feminine magic. Palace Lucille, Grace, and Barbara are all at the intrigue clashes into open rebellion as the tops of their scientific fields, and together, SF/Fantasy/Horror women decide they have had enough of they invent the first time machine, an being chattel. Though female leads take accomplishment that ensures even the most ★ The Lesson center stage, Glass gives real depth to her biased men have to acknowledge their Cadwell Turnbull. Blackstone, $26.99 (272p) male characters as well. Personal and talents. ISBN 978-1-5385-8464-4 political aspects of the story blend grace- However, when Several residents of St. Thomas weather fully together to provide a high-energy tragedy strikes, the storms of life before and after the story with sweeping forward momentum Barbara is occupation of the alien species Ynaa in toward the next installment. Agent: Miriam pushed out of Turnbull’s rich debut novel about family, Kriss, Irene Goodman Literary. (Mar.) her career, and a love, and loyalty in turbulent times. The complex series story centers on Mera, Ynaa ambassador ★ A Memory Called Empire of events is cata- to the human residents of the Virgin Arkady Martine. Tor, $24.99 (464p) ISBN 978- pulted into Islands, who has hidden among humans 1-250-18643-0 motion. Some of for centuries, and Derrick Reed, her Debut novelist Martine sets a careful the ensuing human assistant, who persists despite course in this gorgeously crafted diplomatic complications

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go far beyond the lives of the pioneers Star Legacy futuristic romance series will bogged down in unnecessary details of themselves. The story unfolds in a capti- suit lovers of fated pairings and interga- other events. Iris, Heathcliff’s ward, provides vating way, and fascinating suggestions are lactic incidents. Aiden Banadänsk lives some shine, but her vivaciousness is not made about the effects of time travel; on a world called Rhylos, haunted by enough to carry the story. Those who Mascarenhas even hints that free will visions of his people’s future, a power he enjoyed the previous book will find this ceases to exist. Unfortunately, the plot has denied all his life. When he meets one disappointing. (Feb.) can’t make up for the lack of depth in Sula, an anthropology student on the many of the characters. Readers who value run, his whole world is turned upside ★ All In plotting and tightness of story will enjoy down. As Aiden and Sula grow closer, Shelley Shepard Gray. Blackstone, $15.99 this novel more than those who value they must also concern themselves with trade paper (308p) ISBN 978-1-5384-4088-9 empathy and characterization. Most the danger chasing Sula: a cloaked vil- Gray deals a winning hand in her unfortunately, the women whose accom- lain is wiping whole worlds clean of life, engrossing second Bridgeport Social Club plishments are at the center of the story and Sula is the only living witness to contemporary (after Take a Chance). Ace won’t be remembered when the book is this terrible act. This book has romance; Vance and his closed. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath. some explicit, sometimes technical, sex son, Finn, are (Feb.) scenes; and just enough espionage to new to the move the story forward. It also makes Bridgeport, some attempts to talk about prejudice Ohio, area, Romance/Erotica and acceptance, but these pieces are not having recently as well handled. Those who have followed moved from the The Fearless King the series will likely enjoy references to small town of Katee Robert. Forever, $7.99 mass market familiar characters, and new readers will Spartan, W.Va. (368p) ISBN 978-1-4555-9712-3 be able to join in on the fun without Ace wants to In the tense second King contemporary feeling like they’ve missed too much. give 15-year-old romantic thriller, Robert threatens the (Feb.) Finn a new start peace brokered in The Last King by plunging away from his emotionally absent mother, the King siblings into danger. Journey Escaping His Grace and he’s also pleased about a new start for King’s role in Kingdom Corp keeps her Kristin Vayden. Lyrical, $4.99 mass market himself near his old friend Kurt. centered. When her sadistic father, Elliot, (325p) ISBN 978-1-5161-0570-0 Meredith Hunt, a Pilates instructor, has returns from a long absence, intent on This tepid follow-up to Falling from spent her life protecting her heart and seizing control of the company by terror- His Grace, set in Regency-era Edinburgh, coping with her mother’s constant izing his children, a shaken Journey turns lacks the luster of its predecessor, and the expressions of disappointment. When to Frank Evans, a powerful frenemy, for romance is so thin, it’s almost nonexistent. Ace and Finn, rough-looking guys with help. Frank desires Journey but doesn’t Lady Samantha Chatterworth uses a false hearts of gold, come to her rescue after a trust the Kings. However, when an emo- identity to shield herself from being found mugging, they’re all in for some big tionally battered Journey asks him to dig by her overbearing father, a duke who’s changes—and life lessons that open their up Elliot’s secrets to protect her family, determined to force her into a loveless eyes to new possibilities and the importance Frank agrees to wade in. It quickly becomes marriage. She becomes governess to the of support networks. Packed with an apparent that the danger Elliot poses is very ward of Heathcliff Marston, Viscount enticing mix of heartening emotional real. Robert uses the gripping passion Kilpatrick, and immediately charms engagement and inspirational sweetness, between Frank and Journey to force them Heathcliff with her intellect and beauty. the light, joyous plot has just enough to confront their fears and admit they need Heathcliff has been deceived by a woman substance to provide ample food for each other. There’s nothing typical about in the past, and he vows not to get too thought. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour this damsel/knight romance, and attached to “Miss Miranda,” despite the Agency (Feb.) watching Journey learn to trust herself and rush he gets every time they kiss. He feels Frank choose to let down his guard when there’s nothing wrong with some fun as After the Gold each has so much at stake is deeply satis- long as everyone involved keeps it in Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese. Avian30, fying. This suspenseful installment stands perspective. When Heathcliff learns that $3.99 e-book (222p) ISBN 978-1-5365-0234-3 alone, but new readers will definitely want Miss Miranda is really the sister of his McRae and Maltese (A Queen from the to read the first book in the series. Agent: best friend’s wife, instead of feeling North) falter slightly with the tale of Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary. (Feb.) betrayed, he accepts her motives and agrees figure skaters Katie Nowacki and to continue to aid her, but he’s much less Brendan Reid, who win Olympic gold Mystic willing to have an affair with a highborn and then try to figure out what comes Cheryl Brooks. Sourcebooks Casablanca, lady than he was with a governess. When next in their lives. After a failed attempt $7.99 mass market (384p) ISBN 978-1-4926- her father’s men catch up to her, Heathcliff at a romance years earlier, the skaters try 6163-4 offers marriage as a form of protection. to limit their sexual chemistry to the ice. This latest addition to Brooks’s Cat The romance has a lot of potential but is Brendan’s game for another relationship

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try during a post-Olympic tour, but Katie doodling with the same box of pens. This is to a cabaret/brothel and the rat-infested isn’t so sure. When the authors attempt to demented fun for gamers of all stripes. (May) sewers where adulterated penicillin is sold. show Katie’s vulnerability and flaws, she Americans, Brits, former Nazis, and comes off as a neurotic, mercurial jerk Kid Gloves: Russians play their parts as the scene who drives her steady, reliable partner crazy Nine Months Of Careful Chaos changes to Prague, a city “overtaken by a with her blame games. After Katie’s knee Lucy Knisley. First Second, $19.99 trade paper slow insurrection,” where the action rises is hurt and she opts to flee New York and (256p) ISBN 978-1-62672-808-0 to a crescendo. Hyman (The Black Dahlia) a series of business meetings rather than This funny and sometimes harrowing provides artwork reminiscent of detailed disclose the injury, readers will question memoir, in which Knisley (Relish) shares woodblock or lino prints in a palette of why Brendan is even trying to forge a her birth experience, is hampered by an dim tones to match the atmosphere of the relationship with her. But Katie redeems emotionally detached narrative style. The piece. Each image is like an exquisite still herself somewhat while working with Chicago cartoonist intersperses each life; the panels are devoid of motion indi- Brendan on her family farm—and realizes chronological step of her pregnancy with vidually but convey the action in sequence. that he is a steady partner in more ways cleverly scathing facts about the history This example of art imitating life should than one. The figure skating details feel of obstetrics as well as the superstitions captivate lovers of spy fiction or Cold War authentic, but the plot skims the surface surrounding giving birth. Knisley shines history. (Dec.) of emotion. This ice needs a bit more fire. in those segments, with her didactic (BookLife) narrative voice and clever cartooning Merry Men solutions being well suited to the material. Robert Rodi. Oni, $19.99 trade paper (152p) The stories about her miscarriages, a ISBN 978-1-62010-547-4 Comics detailed account of each trimester, and her This unremarkable collection of 12 near-death experience while giving birth issues puts a queer spin on Robin Hood. Escape from Bitch Mountain are all intense and intimate. However, her With Robin’s former lover, King Richard Edited by Hannah K. Chapman. Avery Hill, art is too clean and cheerful to adequately the Lionheart, off on crusade, usurper $13.95 trade paper (108p) ISBN 978-1- convey the intensity of these experiences. Prince John and the Bishop of Hereford 910395-44-8 The artifice of Knisley’s narrative style conspire to outlaw homosexual acts, tar- This multi-story romp is a dungeon clashes with the raw emotion of her geting Richard’s supporters and leading crawl with staff management commentary, hardships, making it feel as though she’s Robin and his gay Merry Men to take which is as ridiculous as it sounds and writing about someone else. The book’s refuge in the Sherwood Forest. A young funnier than it should be. Greasy, a yellow most affecting moment comes when woman named Scarlet seeks them out to anthropomorphized dog with punk hair, Knisley’s husband relates the story of the beg aid in finding her missing friend wakes up extremely hung over in the near-fatal birth from his point of view. If Daniel. Her presence sparks jealousy bedroom of a medusa/cephalopod war- the book sags when Knisley discusses her between Arthur and Alan, two lovers lock, apparently after having had a very own pain, it soars when she offers blunt among the Merry Men, and frustration good time the night before. So begins opinions about the myths she’s heard or from others. A gruesome discovery of Greasy’s journey, which is interspersed with the insensitive treatment she received. Daniel’s amputated hand lets Robin know her recollections of the recent past spent Despite its tonal problems, the book is they’re up against Guy of Gisbourne, an plundering a worth reading for Knisley’s fierce wit, extremely sadistic agent of Prince John’s dungeon with strong point of view, and well-paced who’s allied with the Sheriff of Nottingham. rather pitiful storytelling. (Feb.) Hunting and confronting him only leads monsters. She to more crises for the much beleaguered gains a little The Prague Coup troop. Flashbacks explore the forming and wisdom from Jean-Luc Fromental and Miles Hyman. Titan, training of the Merry Men amid homo- the Aware $24.99 (114p) ISBN 978-1-78586-887-0 phobic violence. Sharply lined characters Wolves, In this perfect intersection of film noir reminiscent of superhero comics often befriends a teen and espionage fiction, Fromental (365 stand still against solid-color backgrounds, sphinx who Penguins) imagines what might have giving the work a somewhat unfinished can’t riddle, happened on Graham Greene’s real-life and text-heavy feel. The art is just short and has a colossal battle with an armored research trip to Vienna and Prague in the of explicit in its bloody violence and raw skeleton; along the way, she learns of all winter of 1948, when he was scripting eroticism. The work stumbles over some- their various complaints against the The Third Man. His film company tasks what stilted language and arguments over dungeon’s assistant manager, whom she Elizabeth Montagu, former actress and gay identity (“Is Kenneth not a Merry must finally confront to escape. The art ex-spy, to be his guide in the occupied Man? ...How, then, came he by a wife?”). styles vary considerably, never veering Austrian capital, but she is quick to dis- This middling take on the Robin Hood too close to realism but sharing a similar cover that Greene seems to have more legend will find its most enthusiastic candy-colored scheme that unifies the clandestine business than simple film- audience among LGBTQ readers. (Dec.) look, recalling a group of skilled teens making. Montagu tags along with Greene

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of building a wall along the American Nonfiction border with Mexico breaks the nation’s tradition of “fleeing forward” to a sup- Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind posedly ever-expanding frontier, in the Harold Bloom. Scribner, $24 (176p) hope of “avoid[ing] a true reckoning ISBN 978-1-5011-6425-5 with its social problems.” He recounts Acclaimed critic Bloom (How to Read that, in the 1760s, the British Crown’s and Why) once again plumbs the refusal to allow white settlers to move depths of a Shakespeare play to reveal across the Appalachian Mountains new insights, this time offering a richly became one of the many grievances detailed character sketch of Macbeth. that sparked the American Revolution. In a close, scene-by-scene reading, As the U.S. became ever more indus- Bloom presents Macbeth as an ambi- trial and capitalist, the supposedly tious visionary driven by a “prophetic empty lands to the west promised imagination,” while leaving death and prosperity and freedom for poor white destruction in his wake. Referring to men and expansionary opportunities Macbeth’s vision of the bloody dagger, for the sons of Southern planters, as Bloom frames the character’s too- well as new uses for surplus slaves. In active imagination as a “dagger of the the wake of the Civil War, white mind,” and his tragic flaw as the “fan- Americans could look westward to tasy-making power” that allows him rejuvenate the nation, and some to easily picture himself as king after African-Americans created new lives hearing the witches’ prophecy. As the In Zaitoun,Yasmin Khan shares such Palestinian recipes as this in all-black farming communities pudding with apricots and rose water (reviewed on p. 87). play progresses, Bloom finds Macbeth isolated from the threat of racism. To growing ever more frustrated by his failure Leopoldo’s wife, Felicidad, who endured Grandin, Trump’s rhetoric about physically to achieve his desires, and remarks that it their troubled marriage—despite pro- closing the southern border symbolizes is “difficult not to sympathize with a claiming that “family is sacred!” Leopoldo the end of centuries of belief that ongoing powerful representation of outrage,” had many affairs—through an intense, geographical or trade-based expansion causing the audience to identify with albeit platonic, relationship with another will ensure resources are plentiful enough Macbeth despite his crimes. Even Lady poet. Of their three sons, the oldest, Juan that “everyone can be free”; without that Macbeth, as Bloom describes her, possesses Luis, sought, with limited success, to mind-set, he argues, there’s nowhere in a “negative exuberance of shuddering assume his father’s role after Leopoldo the U.S. for Americans to go to escape the beauty,” though this diminishes after the died in 1962; the middle son, Leopoldo country’s internal problems. This is a play’s early scenes as the passion between Maria, was arrested after urging people deeply polemical work, and should be her and her husband wanes and her own not to vote in a pro-Franco referendum in read as such, but it offers a provocative desires become frustrated. As he has so 1967 and later attempted suicide; while historical exploration of a contentious often done, Bloom will shift the reader’s the youngest, Michi, suffered from current issue. (Mar.) perceptions of a literary classic. (Apr.) mental illness. In 1976, the year after Franco’s death, a documentary, The A Human’s Guide to Machine ★ The Age of Disenchantments: Disenchantment, depicted the surviving Intelligence: How Algorithms The Epic Story of Spain’s Paneros grappling with Leopoldo’s Are Shaping Our Lives and Most Notorious Literary legacy; a viewing of the film inspired How We Can Stay in Control Family and the Long Shadow Shulman to write this book. Prodigiously Kartik Hosanagar. Viking, $27 (272p) of the Spanish Civil War researched and beautifully written, ISBN 978-0-525-56088-3 Aaron Shulman. Ecco, $29.99 (496p) ISBN 978- Shulman’s work reveals a remarkable Hosanagar, a Wharton professor of 0-06-248419-2 family of “refreshing weirdness, poetic technology and digital business, attempts, In this sweeping, ambitious debut, obsessions, and [a] sacrilegious taste for with mixed success, to explain his field to journalist Shulman offers a group biog- destruction” as a microcosm of Spain’s a lay audience impacted by “algorithmic raphy of a family indelibly marked by the tortured 20th century. (Mar.) decision-making.” He covers overly familiar Spanish Civil War. He begins with the terrain to begin with, discussing the family’s patriarch, Leopoldo Panero, a The End of the Myth: increasing role of artificial intelligence in noted poet who abandoned the left-wing From the Frontier to the Border online commerce, social media, and news Republicans to defect to the right-wing Wall in the Mind of America reporting to demonstrate the topic’s impor- Nationalists during the war, eventually Greg Grandin. Holt, $30 (384p) ISBN 978-1- tance. Where he adds value is in using his rising high in General Franco’s regime 250-17982-1 expertise to discuss how algorithms work, to assume the role of unofficial poet lau- As New York University historian and how the designs of some, such as reate. Shulman also profiles in depth Grandin observes, President Trump’s aim Amazon and Netflix’s personalization

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algorithms, reduce diversity of choice for consumers. The inherent complexity of algorithms, however, presents an obstacle [Q&A] to comprehension that Hosanagar never fully overcomes. In a concluding section, PW Talks with Edward Humes Hosanagar proposes a bill of rights for people affected by algorithms (that is to CSLie? say, almost everyone), a well-intentioned idea that comes across as impractical. In Burned: A True Story of Murder and the Case That Wasn’t Making accessible to the average person a (Dutton, Jan.), Humes offers a searing critique of the use of forensic “description of the data used to train” science in criminal trials. algorithms and “an explanation regarding the procedures used by the algorithms,” How did you first learn of the murder- lic’s imagination by such television to pick two of his suggestions, would be by-arson case the book is centered on? franchises as CSI have very little real a daunting task. Nonetheless, Hosanagar I began spending time at the science behind them. Bite mark deserves credit for valiantly attempting, California Innocence Project so I matching, hair and fiber comparisons, throughout this thoughtful treatise, to could observe how an innocence law fire pattern analysis, even fingerprint widen understanding of a technology practice works from the inside. I analysis have been shown to be error central to modern society. (Mar.) found the setting and the people fas- prone in ways that were long hidden cinating from the start, and Jo Ann from judges and juries. Regardless of ★ The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Parks’s case soon drew me in. I saw what readers conclude about Parks’s Hollywood Monsters and the Lost in it all the elements of a innocence or guilt, I Legacy of Milicent Patrick great true crime tale: a expect most will be Mallory O’Meara. Hanover Square, $26.99 mysterious fatal fire, the shocked and con- (336p) ISBN 978-1-335-93780-3 horror of being a grieving cerned that scientifi- In this captivating and exhaustively parent accused of mur- lbbotson linda © cally dubious forensics researched biography, screenwriter and dering her own children, have led to many producer O’Meara chronicles the largely the original investigators’ wrongful convictions, unknown story of artist and actress Milicent fear that a stone-cold bad arrests, and even Patrick, designer of the monster in the 1954 killer could elude justice, denial of fire insurance film Creature from the Black Lagoon. O’Meara the new evidence that claims that have left traces Patrick’s journey from precocious could set Parks free. And thousands of families art student to her tenure as one of the first combined with all that is and businesses in female animators at Disney and her dis- a powerful, larger story financial ruin. covery by Universal Studios’ head of makeup, and context: the justice Bud Westmore. After designing the crea- system’s crisis of confidence in Why is it that such evidence still ture for the hit film and being sent on a forensics. makes it to juries? whirlwind press tour, Patrick became the Judges and the court process itself target of Westmore’s jealousy, was fired, and You don’t offer an opinion about have proven to be quite inept when it subsequently was denied credit for her work. whether Parks’s murder conviction comes to differentiating reliable sci- O’Meara also shares her own filmmaking was justified. Why? ence from snake oil. A technique or experiences in modern-day Hollywood, I wanted readers of Burned to make expert can be completely discredited including being accused of getting a job that call for themselves. My job is to in one case, yet be used to send by sleeping with the boss and being sexu- do justice to the story of Jo Ann Parks another person to death row a week ally harassed by a voice actor, to highlight and her family, the fire that killed her later. The legal tests judges use to the continuing challenges for women in children, and the two arson-murder evaluate a scientific theory or expert the film industry. These personal anecdotes investigations and trials separated by are complex and ambiguous. Modern may initially appear a distraction from 28 years and one forensic revolution. science continually changes and Patrick’s story, but O’Meara’s enthusiasm for her subject soon overcomes all objections. updates itself, but legal precedent can This is a fascinating slice of Hollywood How widespread is the practice of last for decades or centuries. One history with a feminist slant, correcting a using questionable forensic science prominent jurist I quote observes that sexist wrong from decades ago and restoring in the justice system? if judges had their way, the world Patrick to her rightful place of esteem. It turns out that many of the forensic would still be flat. Agent: Brady McReynolds, JABberwocky science miracles lionized in the pub- —Lenny Picker Literary Agency. (Mar.)

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★ See You in the Piazza: Perhaps all of them?) in arguably too great reform, such as the “neurohumanities”— New Places to Discover in Italy detail. Once the history, theories, and a fusion of the humanities and neurosci- Frances Mayes. Crown, $27 (448p) ISBN 978- counter-theories are dispatched, Wells ence—to accommodate this paradigm 0-451-49769-7 hits his stride and takes readers to, among shift. But Malabou underdelivers as a Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun) gives a other places, the annual gumbo cook-off in philosopher and neuroscientist, providing sparkling and irresistible view of Italy in New Iberia, La., where cooking and copious very little new insight to the topics her eighth book, in which she and her drinking begin before dawn; a factory that addressed. (Feb.) husband explore the country from north churns out gumbo by the ton for super- to south. Mayes begins in Piedmont and markets; plenty of gumbo-serving restau- No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying ends in Catania, Sicily. Along the way she rants—from neighborhood joints to the True Story of the Champawat Tiger, treats readers to esteemed Commander’s Palace in New the Deadliest Animal in History “oh-pull-over” Orleans; and into his family history and, Dane Huckelbridge. Morrow, $26.99 (304p) views, looks specifically, his mother’s kitchen. In Wells’s ISBN 978-0-06-267884-3 inside glorious telling, for every cook in Louisiana, there’s Historian Huckelbridge (The United churches, a different gumbo recipe, and each can States of Beer) showcases his storytelling descriptions of only hope to be second best in the world. skills effectively in this suspenseful look innumerable The best, of course, is mama’s. Wells at “the most prolific serial killer... the meals (in clearly knows his stuff, and his enthusiasm world has ever seen,” a Royal Bengal tiger Sardegna “the for the region and cuisine is palpable, that purportedly killed more than 400 seafood fritto though he can veer into Rockwell-on- people in Nepal and India in the early misto comes to the-bayou style nostalgia overkill. This 20th century. The narrative’s dramatic us hot and crisp, is required reading for gumbo aficionados impact is lessened by endemic specula- and the grilled fish under a heap of chopped and addicts, and those who aspire to be. tion, including celery and tomatoes”), and recipes for the (Feb.) attributing dishes they ate (e.g., gnocchi with wild thoughts to the hare from Friuli-Venezia Giulia). Mayes Morphing Intelligence: From IQ animal itself. weaves into her narrative historical back- Measurements to Artificial Brains The facts ground (in mid-11th-century Puglia, Catherine Malabou, trans. from the French by require no such Frederick II “built castle, mint, treasury Carolyn Shread. Columbia Univ., $28 (224p) embellishment and... brought twenty thousand Arab ISBN 978-0-231-18736-7 to hold the Muslims from Sicily” as troops) and prac- French philosopher Malabou (Before reader’s atten- tical travel tips, such as not checking lug- Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality) con- tion: a single gage on planes and packing gold-colored tinues to ponder the ever-evolving defini- tiger, prevented sandals (they transform casual to dressy). tion of intelligence at the dawn of AI in a by a mouth Mayes has a wonderful eye for detail as she directionless and unprovocative analysis. wound from subsisting on its normal, lyrically describes her surroundings, like a This slender volume centers on what more agile prey, began hunting people in river that’s “a long skein in the moonlight, Malabou dubs the three “metamorphoses” 1900, kicking off a reign of terror as though a woman has unfurled her sil- of intelligence throughout recent history, throughout the Himalayan foothills that very gray hair.” Travel, she explains, pro- from the innatist view, which prevailed was ended in 1907 by Jim Corbett, a vides a chance to see life anew and helps for much of the 20th century, through the railway employee and noted hunter form rich memories. Readers will want to era of epigenetics in the 1980s, which retained by the British government to kill take their time, savoring this poetic trav- demonstrated the role and importance of the beast. Huckelbridge conducted much elogue like a smooth wine. (Mar.) neuroplasticity, to the present moment, of his research using Corbett’s own book, which finds humanity on the cusp of arti- and corroboration of many details is Gumbo Life: ficial intelligence. Quoting heavily from lacking; Huckelbridge even presents an Tales from the Roux Bayou such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jean epilogue that attempts to validate the Ken Wells. Norton, $26.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0- Piaget, she argues that at this moment it Champawat Tiger’s body count. He is more 393-25483-9 must be conceded that human intelligence convincing, and intriguing, in con- Journalist and novelist Wells (Crawfish is no different from artificial intelligence, tending that the bloody episode resulted Mountain) serves up a piquant history of as “a set of dispositions that are exposed, from the British Empire’s “irresponsible gumbo, a quintessential Cajun dish and fragile, open, and contingent in their forestry tactics, agricultural policies, and “the Zen food of an otherwise un-Zenlike topological organization and that do not hunting practices,” and was thus an culture.” There are few rules about what reflect any predestination or plan.” As such, avoidable disaster. Despite its flaws, this makes a gumbo a gumbo, and Wells covers Malabou wonders why serious thinkers do is a gripping page-turner that also con- myriad origin stories and myths (was it not “give up intelligence as an indepen- veys broader lessons about humanity’s brought by the Acadians or slaves? Or dent philosophical question.” She hastily relationship with nature. (Feb.) derived from Native American cuisine? outlines some vague ideas for educational

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Hero Dogs: How a Pack of Rescues, Rejects, and Strays Became America’s Greatest [Q&A] Disaster-Search Partners Wilma Melville, with Paul Lobo. St. Martin’s, PW Talks with Michael Mewshaw $28.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-17991-3 Melville, a canine search-and-rescue All About Pat Conroy handler who was inspired to launch the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation In The Lost Prince: A Search for Pat Conroy (Counterpoint, Mar.), (SDF) after volunteering to help look for Mewshaw explores a close but fraught bond with the late author Oklahoma City bombing survivors in 1995, of The Great Santini. shares the struggles of establishing and maintaining the organization. She details How did you come up with the title? As Pat put it, “Connections don’t the rigorous work that goes into preparing The title alludes to The Prince of Tides, come much more intimate than that.” the dogs and their handlers, emphasizing and to Pat and how he was lost to me her good fortune in meeting with Pluis after our falling out. As he grew more You don’t sugarcoat Pat’s or your own Davern, the SDF’s gifted trainer. Melville famous, he also seemed increasingly flaws. How important and how diffi- doesn’t pull any punches, sharing tales of lost to himself. I wanted to show how cult was it to look that deeply? needless infighting among competing he was at the beginning. At the end of his life, Pat publicly search-and-rescue organizations (dog declared that he wanted to be remem- trainers tend to be type-A, since “they’re Before his death, Pat asked you to bered and written about “warts and used to being obeyed”), as well as within write this book. Do you think you all.” He insisted his life was an open her own group. The organization made would have written book, and that his great strides in terms of producing highly it without his archive at the trained animals, but struggled to attract urging? University of South

support until 9/11 showed the necessity of I doubt it. Even after mewshaw sean © Carolina should be its work. Melville skillfully recounts how Pat extended me a accessible to all. the dogs assisted with the nail-biting written invitation, Rather than make the search for survivors in lower Manhattan’s there were Conroy memoirist’s and vast wreckage. That experience, for both friends and family biographer’s task animals and handlers, became crucial when members who easier, this required a Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, and then refused to be inter- delicate balancing of when an earthquake leveled Haiti in 2010. viewed for the book. my deep affection for It makes for a harrowing, often heart- I feared pushback Pat with an obliga- breaking, yet inspirational tale as Melville from his fans and tion to be candid eloquently explores the small victories and perhaps some critics. about what I discov- wrenching losses of the dogs’ much-needed But it gave me confidence to go on ered in my research. Of all my books, work. Agent: Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, knowing I had not just Pat’s permis- this one was by far the most painful to McIntosh & Otis. (Jan.) sion but his encouragement. complete.

★ How to Date Men When You What do you feel distinguished your Our review called the book a love Hate Men friendship with Pat from other rela- story. Would you agree with that? Blythe Roberson. Flatiron, $19.99 (224p) tionships? Yes, The Lost Prince is a love story. But ISBN 978-1-250-19342-1 I’ve never known anyone, even in my like a lot of the most moving ones, it Roberson, a researcher at the Late Show family, with whom I had so much in doesn’t have an entirely happy ending. with Stephen Colbert, looks through a mil- common. Irish Catholics from homes Ours burned bright for 14 years. Then lennial lens at modern love in this laugh- troubled by alcoholism and abuse, we the embers smoldered for the next 20 out-loud commentary on dating and her lack of success at it. Peppering her narra- survived our childhoods through bas- years. What made Pat’s absence bear- tive with references to sociological studies ketball and a love of books. It emerged able and prevented me from giving up and quotes from literature (on unrequited that during [Conroy’s] father’s Marine was the role he allowed me to play in love, for instance, she looks to Walt Corps deployment at the Pentagon, his reconciliation with his daughter Whitman: “I loved a person ardently, and my stepfather, who ran the Anacostia Susannah. Through her, my god- my love was not/returned”), Roberson Naval Receiving Station laundry, daughter, the love story lives on. emphasizes her main point that dating is washed the Conroy family’s clothes. — Rona Wilk equally painstaking endeavor and joyful venture. She lays it all out on the table—

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including a list as wife; once she became a mother, she argues that the of men who she ceded government and family business to internet and believed to be Albert. Widowed in 1861, it took a decade social media flirting with and the near death of her eldest son before are enacting a her, but later Victoria adjusted to ruling on her own “social annihila- found out, in again, which she did for another 40 years. tion” that leaves one example Worsley’s command of the material and individuals iso- with a guy who elegant writing style make this a must- lated, alienated, liked all her read for anyone interested in the British addicted to tweets, that he monarchy. Illus. (Jan.) screens, vulner- was “just on my able to consum- phone a lot” The Restless Kings: erist propaganda, checking Twitter. Mixed in with the Henry II, His Sons and the and imbued with a computer-flavored amusing anecdotes are thoughtful obser- Wars for the Plantagenet Crown worldview that makes them “experience vations on the classic pitfalls of dating— Nick Barratt. Faber & Faber, $33 (320p) people as dehumanized replications of like the fallacy of the “you deserve better ISBN 978-0-571-32910-6 memes” and “treat one another as than me” breakup line or the misogynistic Medieval fiscal historian Barratt argues machines.” These notions, along with anti- connotations behind being told that love that in the 12th and early 13th centuries, capitalist posturing, frame a disjointed will come “when you least expect it.” This the highly contentious British royal rehash of leftish sociocultural concerns, is a perfect book for women of all ages who family oversaw the foundation for the from the looming robot takeover to the have found that, despite their best efforts, British bureaucratic system, including the inauthenticity of digital sound compared dating men rarely works out in their favor. Magna Carta, which helped shape much to vinyl. Rushkoff’s theorizing is more (Jan.) of the modern Western world. During this free-associative metaphor than serious anal- period, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine ysis—he contends that “politicians of the Queen Victoria: schemed with and against each other and digital media environment pull out of Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow their four surviving sons, Henry, Geoffrey, global trade blocs and demand the con- Lucy Worsley. St. Martin’s, $32.50 (432p) Richard the Lionheart, and the incompe- struction of walls” because of the one- ISBN 978-1-250-20142-3 tent John. Henry’s long reign garners the versus-zero character of binary computer The latest from historian Worsley (Jane most attention, with an especially clear code—and yields claims about the real Austen at Home) is an insightful, sympa- account of his disastrous power struggle world that are often ill-informed or just thetic, and vividly written examination of and falling-out with Thomas Becket, the plain absurd (“We will need a major, civi- the “good woman” who ruled England for archbishop of Canterbury; the resulting lization-changing innovation to occur on 64 years. Worsley argues that the new role assertion of papal authority over the a monthly or even weekly basis in order Victoria created for the monarchy, one English crown remained until the 16th- to support the rate of growth demanded that relied more on influence than power, century English Reformation. Barratt’s by the underlying [capitalist economy’s] stemmed from moniker of “restless” certainly fits, but the operating system”). People seeking a more her ability to subtitle’s reference to kings neglects the connected, sustainable future should look cultivate the significantly influential Plantagenet for a better game plan than Rushkoff’s people’s respect women noted in the text. Scholarly and screed. (Jan.) despite their well written, Barratt’s history serves up unease with a operatic action punctuated with wry ★ Halfway to Halfway and Back: woman on the comments. Between the bickering and More River Stories throne, which bloodshed, Barratt’s focus on a remarkable Edited by Dick Linford and Bob Volpert. she did by royal branch, which used its fondness for Halfway Publishing, $19.95 trade paper relying on familial warfare to make substantial con- (318p) ISBN 978-0-692-13625-6 instinct and tinental acquisitions, yields a fascinating With this second assortment of stories emotion to tale. (Jan.) about river guiding in the U.S. and the guide her decisions, as her culture people who do it for a living, Linford and expected women to do, rather than the Team Human Volpert deliver a raucous and delightful logic and intellect culturally associated Douglas Rushkoff. Norton, $23.95 (256p) collection. The editors have a rare talent with men. When she inherited the throne ISBN 978-0-393-65169-0 for picking stories with opening sentences in 1837, she immediately distanced her- Digital technology is destroying social that capture the reader’s attention instantly self from her controlling mother, choosing bonds with wide-ranging and dire conse- (“I suppose the goats might have been an her own advisers. Victoria kept the word quences, according to this scattershot omen”; “We were both naked”). What obey in her 1840 marriage vows to Prince jeremiad. Rushkoff (Program or Be nearly every selection also does is create Albert, and she struggled to reconcile her Programmed), a professor of media theory quick but lingering character sketches public role as queen with her private one and host of NPR’s Team Human podcast, that convey the guides’ resilience, flair

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for innovation, she includes photos of Palestinian people tional vegetables to a diet or transition to and “relentless and landscapes, giving the reader a deeper a vegan lifestyle, Logan provides an array pursuit of and welcome glimpse into life there. of ways to successfully feed families vegan laughter.” Many (Palestinians, for instance, are urged not dishes. Tasty breakfast options include contributors to buy herbs grown in Israeli settlements eggless french toast, roasted pear parfaits, joined the river in the West Bank, as it “gives the settle- and chocolate baked oats with blistered life “almost by ments a sense of viability and permanence.”) berries; for meals on the go, there are no- accident,” often Khan’s cookbook is a thoroughly enjoyable sausage rolls with rosemary and chestnut starting with a exploration of the region’s food and culture. mushrooms, and cheesy vegetable muffins summer job. (Feb.) made with vegan parmesan. For the Many found vegans looking to branch out from more partners equally Keto Cooking with Your Instant Pot traditional fare, Logan offers a dairy-free in love with this unique avocation, and Karen S. Lee. Page Street, $21.99 (192p) milk and vegan butter béchamel–based some, like both Linford and Volpert, had ISBN 978-1-62414-697-8 lasagna that includes lentils, red wine, children who grew up to also pursue lives Lee (Paleo Cooking with Your Air Fryer) fresh sage, ; a tofu katsu burger crusted on the river. Not every story is light- offers 75 low-carb, high-fat recipes tai- in panko; and an inventive watermelon hearted—there are a few sad ones, too, lored to use both the slow- and pressure- sushi. Logan offers those new to vegan such as a tribute to a friend and fellow cooking abilities of the Instant Pot. One eating some easy dishes such as a pot pie guide who, afflicted by PTSD from his of Lee’s keys to keto is substituting vege- made with oyster mushrooms, dairy-free service in the Vietnam War, died by sui- tables for grains. So, there are zucchini stovetop mac and cheese (made with cau- cide. There’s also a brief look at how, with noodles in a bowl of pho, and florets of liflower, white beans, and vegan butter), some difficulty, women were gradually cauliflower that fill in for the macaroni in and chocolate brownies. More complex accepted as river guides. Every story in lobster mac and cheese. Her variation on but equally satisfying meals include the book is well worth one—or two— granola is simply a mix of nuts, seeds, and Chinese takeout noodles with cubes of thoughtful reads. (BookLife) coconut chips slow-cooked for two and a creamy tofu, cauliflower fried rice with half hours; a curious noodle-free lasagna, kimchi, and vegan miso-butter roasted while definitely hearty, is served as a stew vegetables. This is a reliable, family- Lifestyle of layered cheese and beef sauce. In several friendly entry point for those looking to of the entries, the Instant Pot requires an explore the vegan diet or expand their Food & Drink assist: for the culinary repertoire. (Dec.) ★ Zaitoun: Recipes from the standing Palestinian Kitchen herb-crusted Korean Paleo: 80 Bold-Flavored, Yasmin Khan. Norton, $29.95 (256p) prime rib Gluten-and-Grain-Free Recipes ISBN 978-1-32400-262-8 roast, the Jean Choi. Page Street, $21.99 (192p) Food writer Khan (The Saffron Tales) cel- meat needs to ISBN 978-1-62414-633-6 ebrates the vibrant flavors of Palestinian be seared in Choi, a nutritional therapist and cuisine in this excellent new work. She the oven, founder of the What Great Grandma Ate provides a marvelous array of mazzeh while the blog, shares flavorful and creative Korean (Palestinian mezze), including different Texas-style paleo recipes. Korean food, she writes, is varieties of hummus and falafel, as well as barbecue baby back ribs are broiled first. rich with fresh vegetables and meats, and asparagus with eggs and za’atar, and spinach Stews and meat dishes are the book’s relies on traditional preservation methods and feta parcels. Salads, a staple in the centerpiece, with international options like pickling—all of which translates Palestinian diet, are unfussy, with such ranging from ratatouille to spicy Korean easily to the protein-heavy, low-carb offerings as fattoush and tabbouleh. chicken stew. Standouts amid the 22 meat paleo diet with just a few tweaks. Hers Soups—including a roast pumpkin, sage, entrees include Mongolian beef and easy are straightforward, traditional dishes: and maftool soup and a lentil soup with beef bourguignon. If not exactly instant, bulgogi, galbi (barbecued short ribs), walnut and cilantro paste—are tantalizing, these meals are global in scope and thrive bibimbap, japchae (stir-fried sweet rich, and comforting. Main course dishes under pressure. (Jan.) potato noodles), spicy barbecue pork, and include roasted eggplant with spiced bossam—boiled pork belly wrapped in chickpeas and tomatoes; a spicy shrimp Great Vegan Meals for the cabbage and topped with kimchi. Choi and tomato stew; and lemon, cumin, and Carnivorous Family calls for a few low-carb substitutions, green chili sea bass. Desserts are also Amanda Logan. Page Street, $21.99 (176p) such as cauliflower sticky rice to serve superb; there’s a pomegranate passion ISBN 978-1-62414-670-1 with doenjang-beef stew and using cas- cake and banana and tahini ice cream with Meat-eaters needn’t be apprehensive sava flour and tapioca starch for making date syrup. Khan also provides a helpful about trying vegan recipes from food dumpling wrappers for a mandu guk list of pantry staples to keep on hand (dried blogger Logan’s excellent debut cookbook. soup. Home cooks will eagerly dig into fruit, nuts, yogurt, za’atar). Throughout, Whether one wants to introduce addi- sweet and spicy shrimp and ginseng

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chicken soup, and will likely find the Plant-Based Meats: Hearty, plete one item. For example, the button- labor-intensive spicy Korean ramen with High-Protein Recipes for Vegans, down Jaina cape requires three different spiralized sweet potatoes (acting as stand- Flexatarians, and Curious Carnivores sizes of circular needle, a cable needle, and ins for the typical noodles) to be worth Robin Asbell. Countryman, $23.95 (192p) a spare needle to complete the project. the effort. Choi’s crispy zucchini pan- ISBN 978-1-68268-221-0 Others, such as the Melina and Luna, require cakes, meanwhile, are a terrific way to Opening with a strong, persuasive multiple strands of different colored yarns include veggies for kids. Choi advises argument for going meatless without get- knitted into intricate Fair Isle patterns. keeping on hand homemade doenjang, ting into the weeds of food politics or a However, skilled knitters looking for a gochujang (chili paste), and kimchi, but debate about vegan vs. vegetarian diets, rewarding challenge will want to pick up most recipes come together fairly quickly cooking teacher Asbell (Great Bowls of Food) this collection of runway-ready stylish once the prep is done. This is a terrific and does a fine job of making meatless meals garments. (Feb.) flavorful addition to the ever-expanding approachable and enticing: “The biggest paleo/Whole30 library. (Dec.) myth is that you can’t get protein without String Frenzy: animal-based foods, “Asbell writes. “Forget Strips, Strings and Scrappy Things! ★ Pastry School: that. Protein is in everything from spinach 12 More String Quilting Projects 100 Step-by-Step Recipes to bananas.” Asbell shows how vegan ver- Bonnie K. Hunter. C&T, $27.95 (96p) Chefs at Le Cordon Bleu. Grub Street, $59.95 sions of hot dogs (made with tofu, carrots, ISBN 978-1-61745-732-6 (512p) ISBN 978-1-91162-120-1 and miso paste), hamburgers (with seitan Hunter (Addicted to Scraps) gives new The chefs at Le Cordon Bleu cooking and wheat gluten), baloney (firm tofu, beet meaning to the concept of leftovers with school distill their baking expertise into powder), empanadas, and bulgogi ribs this smart, savvy crafter’s guide to using this comprehensive collection of exqui- (wheat gluten and yeast) can be just as fla- scrap materials to piece together beautiful site recipes vorful and satisfying as the real thing. Asbell quilts. “Too insignificant for clothing con- coupled with provides plenty of recipes that can be pre- struction, too tiny for household linens— succinct pared in an hour or less and with ingredi- these were the bits destined for the trash instruction. ents that can be easily found. While meat- bin,” Hunter remarks about her choice The book less pepperoni and bacon formed from king of materials. Noting that quilters are a includes 85 trumpet mushrooms might be best reserved resourceful group, she writes that the confections for weekend cooking, walnut cauliflower foundations (the beginning material on along with beef for tacos, a mushroom paté, and seitan which quilt pieces are built) used for string recipes for 15 Kung Pao stir fry are ready in half an hour. piecing can include muslin, printed cotton, key prepara- Asbell’s surprisingly doable recipes are per- batiste, lawn, sheet music, church bulle- tions for French pastries. Recipes span the fect for those interested in creating meaty- tins, newspaper, and family letters. Hunter classics, but also include modern creations, feeling meals with vegetables. (Nov.) recommends paper foundations, as sewing and all recipes include illustrated step-by- straight strips of fabric across the bias of a step instructions to guide cooks through Crafts & Hobbies fabric foundation can cause warping and the entire process. Each recipe lists times 30 Knit Ponchos and Capes rolling and a foundation that won’t lay flat. for preparation, baking, chilling, freezing, Rita Maassen, trans. from the German by “Paper is sturdy in every direction, having and cooling; a difficulty rating; and details Katharina Sokiran. Stackpole, $22.95 trade no bias,” she counsels. With the basics out on how long the item can be stored. Each paper (112p) ISBN 978-0-8117-3709-8 of the way, Hunter’s easy-to-understand, component in the finished products has Knitwear designer Maassen presents a step-by-step instructions demonstrate how its own ingredient list, including decora- beautiful collection of patterns capable of to construct such beautiful designs as tions, and a note of necessary equipment. inspiring experienced and advanced knit- Crumb Jumble and Emerald City. Short The school offers mouth-watering recipes ters to take their work to new levels. She on fluff and long on useful information, for cakes (Black Forest gateau), pastries features 30 designs deploying lace, cables, this slim volume offers abundant, well- (chocolate and raspberry eclairs), tarts colorwork, bell sleeves, and other design stated advice for creating unique heirloom (rhubarb and saffron), and cookies. Mango techniques that most will find challenging quilts. (Dec.) fruit jellies and soft-centered chocolate but rewarding. For the experienced knitter, fondants are on the easier end of the spec- this book is a treasure trove of appealing Home & Garden trum, while chocolate tonka bean–and– ideas for one of fashion’s trendiest looks. The Gardener Says: Quotes, berry prestige and tropical fruit tart with Examples include intricate lacework in Quips, and Words of Wisdom raspberries are more complex. Chocolate the Ava pattern, cable work for the “deli- Edited by Nina Pick. Princeton Architectural and blackcurrant domes, apricot short- cate and romantic” Mila, and Fair Isle work Press, $15.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-61689-776-5 bread biscuits, and fig tartlets with sug- on the afghan-like Smilla requiring four Assembling quotes from a wide variety ared almonds round out the volume. This colors, two different types of needles, and of gardeners, including writers, philoso- is a stellar array of confectionery options six buttons. Almost all of the patterns phers, and former First Lady Michelle for home bakers of any level. (Nov.) require circular or double-pointed needles, Obama, Pick’s anthology provides a light sometimes with several sets needed to com- reading experience that can be started on

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any page at any time. Some quotes are short The Martha Manual: ONLINE and sweet, like Thoreau’s “I have great faith How to Do (Almost) Everything www.publishersweekly.com in a seed,” and C.Z. Guest’s “Without Martha Stewart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, NOW flowers, I’d find life very dismal.” Others $35 (400p) ISBN 978-1-328-92732-3 FICTION are more thought-provoking, such as Lifestyle maven Stewart (Martha’s Arkad’s World James L. Cambias. Baen, ISBN 978-1-4814-8370-4, Jan. Beverly Nichols’s quip that the flowers in Flowers) offers an easy-to-navigate and her garden “are in their present places attractive guidebook covering a wide The Storm David Drake. Baen, ISBN 978-1-4814- because they have personally informed me, array of topics, from organizing the 8369-8, Jan. in the clearest possible tones, that this is entrance to one’s home to traveling with Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Vol. 4, edited by where they wish to be.” The quotes speak pets. The book addresses common and Rob Rosen. Cleis, ISBN 978-1-62778-284-5, Dec. to the patience required of a gardener, to several not-so-common how-to questions Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Vol. 3, the beauty of planting and nourishing a (“ ‘how-to’ could be my middle name,” edited by Sacchi Green. Cleis, ISBN 978-1-62778- living thing, and to the healing, soothing she writes) and is—not surprisingly— 286-9, Dec. qualities a garden delivers to its caretaker. exceedingly well-organized. The dozen Rough Trade Sidney Bell. Carina, ISBN 978-1- “Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot major sections address how to “Organize,” 335-77711-9, Dec. heal,” states John Muir, while Mahatma “Fix and Maintain,” “Refresh and Gandhi reflects that “to forget how to dig Embellish” (e.g., by re-covering a chair), ★ Ten Kisses to Scandal Vivienne Lorret. Avon, the earth and tend the soil is to forget our- “Clean,” “Launder,” “Craft and Create” ISBN 978-0-06-268550-6, Dec. selves.” Filled with humor, reflection, and (embroidering a pillow), “Garden and The Bead Collector Sefi Atta. Interlink, ISBN 978- a love of plants and planting, this breezy Grow,” “Host and Entertain,” “Enjoy” 1-62371-985-2, Nov. collection may just remind horticultural- (hanging a hammock or practicing sun The Highlander Who Protected Me Vanessa ists why they seek and find solace in their salutations), “Cook,” “Celebrate” Kelly. Zebra, ISBN 978-1-4201-4115-3, Nov. gardens. (Feb.) (birthdays, etc.) and “Care for Pets.” Accompanying visuals further clarify ★ The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception With an Unlikely Earl Victoria Alexander. HQN, The Inspired Houseplant: the instructions: for example, readers will ISBN 978-0-373-80406-1, Nov. Transform Your Home with Indoor find diagrams on how to fold “oddball Plants from Kokedama to Terrariums fitted sheets” for neat placement in a ★ The Fall of Gondolin J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, illus. by Alan Lee. Houghton and Water Gardens to Edibles linen closet; the utilitarian “how to fix Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 978-1-328-61304-2, Aug. Jen Stearns. Sasquatch, $24.95 (208p) toilets” section includes a rudimentary ISBN 978-1-63217-177-1 “anatomy of a toilet” diagram—as well This book will transform the mind-sets as the warning, “don’t panic.” “Martha and, by extension, the surroundings of Must” comments throughout amplify “multidirectional, nonlinear intersection” people who worry that their ministrations Stewart’s personal touch, evoking a cozy of modern childhood and the digital world. are murderous to houseplants. Gardener yet pragmatic mind-set (keep a basket of His analysis places early-21st-century and entrepreneur Stearns, who owns a plant nonskid socks by the entrance for visitors tools in the context of older concepts, store in greater Seattle, proves the perfect as part of a no-shoe policy). Visually showing how the game Minecraft pro- coach for the houseplant-challenged. Her appealing and packed with inspiring ideas motes imaginative play and peer connec- simple 101-style guide discusses the basics and lucid instructions, this delightfully tion just as playing outside does, or how of potting, watering, pruning, and feeding, useful manual will be a shoo-in for inclu- virtual locations can meaningfully and and wisely sticks to the basics, selecting sion in any Stewart fan’s home library. healthily provide public spaces. Shapiro and organizing into groups plants that (Jan.) works backward as well as forward, diving will reward beginners. Those same neo- into the cultural history of older modes phytes may find challenging a number of Parenting to show how they are not timeless but the plant projects she offers. Enthusiastic The New Childhood: Raising Kids grounded in outdated ideas; notably, he DIY types will have the staple gun needed to Thrive in a Connected World argues the monastery-based model of for the Living Herb Frame; the less well- Jordan Shapiro. Little, Brown Spark, $28 school bells and quiet desks no longer equipped may want to stick to something (320p) ISBN 978-0-316-43724-0 matches the diversified attention required simpler, like thumbtacking philoden- Shapiro, a coordinator of child develop- by modern workplaces. He admonishes dron vines in graceful patterns on a wall. ment research at Sesame Workshop, parents and educators not to give tech- Beautiful photography of lush, plant- presents a well-formulated, deeply nology “autonomy and credit,” but to filled spaces convincingly makes Stearns’s insightful point of view on the place of treat it as a helpful tool. Placing modern points. First-time homeowners or new technology in raising kids. Avoiding child-rearing in the context of the long apartment dwellers who long for green being either a Luddite or technology story of human cultural adaptation, this but lack confidence in their plant-tending cheerleader, Shapiro explains that adults manual makes the challenges of screens abilities will be greatly helped by this must still take responsibility for guiding more approachable, and the adult role in volume. (Feb.) child cognitive and social development, meeting them clearer. (Dec.) despite their possible discomfort at the

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players to create something wonderful. Children’s/YA Ages 3–5. Author’s agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Jen Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Mar.) Picture Books ★ The Bell Rang Pony Poems for Little Pony Lovers James E. Ransome. Atheneum/Dlouhy, Cari Meister, illus. by Sara Rhys. Beach Lane, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4424-2113-4 $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4814-9814-2 Bold, painterly spreads by Ransome Aren’t ponies the best? The apple- (Before She Was Harriet) give shape to the cheeked children in this collection of lives of a slave family whose days are ruled short poems certainly think so. “My pony by the overseer’s bell. On Monday, “The knows me./ He hears me when I come,” bell rings,/ and no sun in the sky./ Daddy says a girl pushing a wheelbarrow full of Willems and Ren offer an homage to the people and gathers wood./ Mama cooks.” Daddy; carrots into a barn. “He lifts his head./ He events behind inspiration and creation in Because Mama; their son, Ben; and the narrator, neighs my name./ He is my Sugar Plum.” (reviewed on this page). Ben’s little sister, sit close and share a Except for one rambunctious pony (who meal. On Wednesday, Ben gives his sister “bucked me off—/ twice!”), the group with good humor and sympathetic charac- a kiss and a handmade doll, whispering exudes a serenity and confidence that comes ters, drawn in her signature scraggly style, “Good-bye” before walking away with with being unequivocally cute and which is as expressive of harried domestic two companions. Thursday, the family unconditionally adorable: “I am a pretty life as the text itself. She also ends with a realizes that Ben is really gone. “Overseer little pony,/ as pretty as can be,” says the satisfying role reversal—after Mama hops comes/ to our cabin./ Then dogs come./ narrator of the only poem not voiced by a on the bandwagon, it’s little Bella who tells Overseer hits Mama,/ then Daddy.” The human. All the girls at riding school/ are Mama it’s time to go home. Ages 2–7. (Feb.) other boys are found, but not Ben: “We crazy over me!” The pony paeans by pray/ Ben made it./ Free like the birds.” Meister (the Fairy Hill series) lack a con- ★ Because In an image of startling force, a flying sistently smooth lilt yet offer enough Mo Willems, illus. by Amber Ren. Hyperion, swallow is seen darting off the last, blank pleasing singsong rhythm to hold the $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-136801901-9 page. Stories about escaping slaves often attention of very young readers. Debut A quiet Willems book traces a child’s follow the journeys of those leaving; this illustrator Rhys renders her chunky path to her musical vocation as the con- one imagines what life was like for a equine subjects as if from a single template sequence of a string of events and contri- family left behind. The recurring image of (they all sport rounded faces, cute pony butions: “Because a man named Ludwig the bell throughout each day under- bangs, and a hint of a smile), but genuine wrote beautiful music—/ a man named scores the way slaves’ lives were continu- individuality seems beside the point here. Franz was inspired to create his own.” For ally regimented and surveilled. In pony love, the heart knows what it the love of Schubert, present-day musicians Ransome’s gracefully sculpted figures wants: more ponies. Ages up to 8. (Feb.) form an orchestra. They practice and give Ben’s family heroic stature; his story schedule a concert, and because “someone’s makes their hunger for freedom palpable. In a Minute, Mama Bear uncle caught a cold,” a brown-skinned Ages 4–8. (Jan.) Rachel Bright. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, girl in a red sweatshirt gets a ticket, and $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-374-30578-9 the experience changes her. She floats out My Heart Mama Bear is short on time and has a of the concert hall; vignettes show her Corinna Luyken. Dial, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978- long to-do list, but all her daughter Bella practicing multiple instruments diligently. 0-7352-2793-4 wants to do is dawdle—even on the potty, Because “she worked very hard”—and Rhyming verse and sweet-tempered Bella will not be rushed. By the time because “she was also very lucky”—she artwork by Luyken (The Book of Mistakes) they’re finally in the car, Mama Bear’s becomes a composer, and the performance explore childhood emotions through patience is gone, and she’s turned into a of her work joins the chain of events that images of the heart. Children of different shouting, honking driver. Then she notices change lives. Willems’s story celebrates ages and colors are seen playing, exploring. that her daughter is genuinely alarmed: making music while acknowledging When they’re overtaken by sadness or strapped into her car seat, her averted eyes those whom celebrations of high culture loneliness, they find comfort in the as big as saucers, the slowpoke who was so sometimes ignore: “Because workers company of others: “My heart is a window,/ frustrating suddenly seems small and checked the lights and the seats....” Debut my heart is a slide./ My heart can be closed/ vulnerable. Mama chucks the list (“This illustrator Ren takes the sprightly energy or opened up wide.” One remorseful- doesn’t have to be a race”) and heads to the of The Philharmonic Gets Dressed and adds looking girl shows her mother a vase. It’s park: “No classes, errands, rush, or fuss./ depth, with distinctive expressions for each broken—and so is her heart. A page turn Slides and swings and snacks,/... all day— diverse face and a wonderful vision of the reveals the restored vase on a table. The just the two of us!’” Bright handles the powerful emotions that music evokes— girl opens the blinds to let the sunshine very real issue of the overscheduled family building on the idea that it takes multiple in, finding that “broken can mend,/ and a

90 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_CHILDREN’S Review_CHILDREN’S

heart that is closed/ can still open again.” Fences, stains, and quiet whispers become ★ Another metaphors for feelings. Accepting com- Christian Robinson. Atheneum, $17.99 (56p) ISBN 978-1-5344-2167-7 panionship heals and helps children grow: “Closed or open... I get to decide,” the aldecott Honor artist Robinson’s wordless solo book finishes, with a spread of a smiling debut opens in the middle of the night, when a girl, arms thrown wide. Flashes of brilliant brown-skinned girl with beaded braids is woken yellow illuminate smudgy black-and- by a disturbance: a black cat that looks just like hers white drawings, and heart forms can be Cslinks through a glowing hole in her bedroom wall, takes found everywhere, in ironwork, tiny her cat’s mouse toy, and exits. As she and her cat follow, seedlings, and stars. The abstract nature spot illustrations on white spreads show the two in a of Luyken’s meditation will draw readers topsy-turvy journey through portals, over a conveyer receptive to thoughtful examination; belt and Escher-like stairs, and into a ball pit. Eventually, others may be left puzzled. Ages 4–8. (Jan.) they arrive at a place where children of many ethnicities and appearances play. Each child has “another,” readers see—a double, a twin. Soon, the girl and her cat Under My Hijab meet their own doubles, who enter upside down on the opposite page. The girl’s Hena Khan, illus. by Aaliya Jaleel. Lee & Low, similar returns the toy and the two part happily, order restored. Simple geometric $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-62014-792-4 shapes and expanses of empty space make the spreads easy to consider, and Robinson The narrator, a Muslim girl, has many nails the pacing, using each page turn for a comic or conceptual beat. Almost all impressive women in her life: her children wonder whether there are others exactly like them somewhere out in the grandmother is a baker, her mother is a universe, doing the same thing at exactly the same time. By playing with that idea doctor, her cousin Iman excels at karate. while juxtaposing similarity and difference, Robinson creates an almost mystical In public, each of these women wears a Droste effect of a story that is all mirrors and windows for the group of various hijab in a style that’s as individual as they are; at home or with other women or children who are offered portals to reach one another. He also creates a speculative girls, they uncover their heads, and their world with its own logic, and an adventure that will both puzzle and amuse. Ages chosen hairstyles are equally expressive. 4–8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.) When the girl’s aunt, an artist, works in her public studio, “her silky hijab towers up high,/ pinned with a handmade jewel.” of the five Baxter siblings in childhood. ★ Dragon Pearl But when Auntie is in her own home with Narrated by middle sisters Ashley, 10, Yoon Ha Lee. Disney-Hyperion/Riordan, the narrator, she shows off an edgy haircut and Kari, 11, the slice-of-life story $16.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-368-01335-2 and pink and purple dye. Simple begins in Ann Arbor, Mich., just before In this highly original novel by Lee (the rhyming text by Khan (Amina’s Voice) is a Valentine’s Day. Exuberant Ashley is Machineries of Empire series for adults), bit on the nose (“Jenna’s our fearless thrilled to be organizing her class’s 13-year-old Min must venture to the stars troop leader./ She makes us the gooiest party. Kari, meanwhile, is dreading the of the Thousand Worlds in order to find her s’mores!/ Her hijab is topped with a sun holiday—her classmate has a crush on older brother, Jun, who is suspected of hat/ whenever we hike outdoors”), and her, and she’s concerned that his atten- deserting the Space Forces to search for the debuting illustrator Jaleel matches this tions will result in an embarrassing situa- legendary Dragon Pearl. Min’s quick wits straightforward approach with lifelike tion. The girls share their joys and con- and technical prowess come in handy, but tableaus. But their matter-of-fact cerns with their family because, as their it’s her abilities as one of the fox people to approach accomplishes what it sets out to mother always says, “Your very best shape-shift and charm others that prove do: celebrate the diversity and autonomy friends are the ones around the dinner vital after she leaves her home planet of Jinju of contemporary Muslim women. Ages table each night.” After Valentine’s Day, aboard the freighter Red Azalea. When her 4–8. Author’s agent: Matthew Elblonk, Ashley feels left out on a family vacation brother’s former ship rescues the vessel DeFiore & Co. (Feb.) and wonders if she should be more like from mercenaries, she poses as slain cadet older sister Brooke, who excels at math. Bae Jang, promising his ghost that she And the whole family struggles with will avenge his death in exchange for Fiction their father’s announcement that they impersonating him on the ship. Disguised will move at the end of the school year as the dead cadet, Min is able to continue Best Family Ever for his new job. The Baxters pray and both quests, enlisting the aid of two of Bae’s Karen Kingsbury and Tyler Russell. S&S/ find solace in God while navigating friends—female dragon Haneul and Wiseman, $17.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-5344-1215-6 relatable and realistic life changes in nonbinary goblin Sujin—all the while With her son, bestselling Christian this slice-of-life tale. Ages 8–12. Agent: avoiding the scrutiny of Captain Hwan as author Kingsbury adapts her bestselling Rick Christian, Alive Literary Agency. the ship heads to the Ghost Sector, the Baxter Family series for adults to suit a (Feb.) probable location of the Dragon Pearl. Lee younger audience, bringing readers stories offers a perfect balance of space opera and continued on p. 94

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In Good Faith

Books celebrate the gifts of world religions.

Loved: The Lord’s Prayer Hats of Faith Sally Lloyd-Jones, illus. by Jago. Zonderkidz, $9.99 (20p) ISBN 978-0- Medeia Cohan, illus. by Sarah Walsh. Chronicle, $9.99 (12p) ISBN 978- 310-75761-0 1-4521-7320-7 Lloyd-Jones’s padded board book contains a gentle adapta- This inclusive board book familiarizes readers with religious tion of the Lord’s Prayer. Diverse children play together in a headpieces: “many religious people share the custom of covering verdant seaside meadow, reciting a quiet prayer to God: their heads to show their love for God.” Walsh’s thick and “Hello Daddy!/ We want to know you./ And be close to you./ painterly portraits represent figures Please show us how.” They climb a hill, step through wild- from diverse religious backgrounds— flowers, and traverse a fallen log in single file. They request a Muslim woman wears a pink hijab; a God’s attention and care (“make everything in the world right Rastafarian man wears a hat knit with again./ And in our hearts too”) and forgiveness “for doing red, yellow, and green; an Orthodox wrong or hurting you.” Two friends are pictured in a dis- Jewish woman wears a floral-patterned agreement, then forgiving one another. The play day concludes tichel; and a South Asian Muslim man at twilight, as they return home to a welcoming house. Lloyd- dresses in a topi. Soothing, jewel-toned backgrounds con- Jones’s sincere verse (which first appeared in the Jesus Storybook tribute warmth to the representations of gentle, smiling Bible) and Jago’s cozy, child-centered art sends an assuring, figures. They appear all together on a final spread, a visual down-to-earth message about God’s love. Ages up to 4. (Sept.) representation of the story’s underlying message: “learning about each other makes it easy to be more understanding. Ecclesiastes: To Everything There Is a Season Being understanding helps us spread love and peace.” Ages Cynthia Rylant. Beach Lane, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4814-7654-6 2–4. (Aug.) In a companion to Creation and Nativity, Rylant offers a stirring picture book rendering of Ecclesiastes. Each portrait- My First Book of Prayers oriented spread includes a single phrase Illus. by Gillian Flint. Worthy, $6.99 (20p) ISBN 978-0-8249-1683-1 from the paean, presented with spare, Ten simple prayers accompany tranquil images of children brightly colored acrylics in a naïf style. outdoors and in cozy indoor scenes. A toddler and two older One image shows a child figure reaching girls exuberantly play a xylophone, tambourine, and into a planter box (“a time to plant”), recorder, while a prayer reads “thank you, God, for all your then bringing flowers to an elderly gifts;/ thank you for your graces./ Thank you for your loving woman: “and a time to pluck up that/ care/ about us in all places.” A boy and girl stand by a which has been planted.” Elsewhere, flowing river: “Thank you for the fish that swim;/ I really like family members wave goodbye to one to look at them./ Thank you for the birds that sing./ Thank another, a broad distance already seeming to expand between you, Lord, for everything.” An image of a child in blue star them (“a time to weep”). In the following spread, they reunite: pajamas closes out this tender collection: “Now I lay me “and a time to laugh.” Through her childlike images, Rylant down to sleep/ I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Ages 2–5. conveys the emotional rawness of the cherished verse. Ages (Sept.) up to 8. (Sept.) Lift-the-Flap Bible Stories for Young Children First Words in the Bible Andrew J. DeYoung and Naomi Joy Kreuger, illus. by Megan Higgins. Ideals, $9.99 (20p) ISBN 978-1-945470-71-4 Beaming Books, $12.99 (16p) ISBN 978-1-5064-4684-4 This padded board book introduces basic vocabulary In a sturdy board book, DeYoung and Krueger stage words loosely associated with Bible stories, along with a familiar stories of Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Jesus’s small selection of biblical passages. Cartoon scenes present birth, the Resurrection, and others. Passages offer simpli- the stories of God’s creation, Noah’s Ark, Jonah, and the fied descriptions: “A big crowd of people came to see Jesus birth of Jesus. Following each of the scenes based on the one day. But they didn’t have anything to eat! And they stories, are sections that clearly label and identify colors, were getting hungry. Jesus had a plan.” Higgins has a light, foods, animals, “things to wear,” and objects found “around appealing art style, with jewel-toned buildings, kind the house” and “on the farm.” Though the relationship human and animal figures, and playful visual textures. between the story scenes and the listed objects is sometimes Liftable flaps contribute dimension to the scenes, revealing unclear, readers will gain familiarity with biblical icons. surprise images and additional story passages. A welcoming Ages 1–3. (Sept.) introduction to biblical tales. Ages 2–6. (Sept.)

92 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_CHILDREN’S Review_CHILDREN’S

In Good Faith

Books celebrate the gifts of world religions.

When I Pray for You sun, moon, and stars created by God on the fourth day, and Matthew Paul Turner, illus. by Kimberly Barnes. Waterbrook, $11.99 the shapes of bears, horses, and lions on the sixth day. Zager (48p) ISBN 978-0-525-65058-4 brings uncommon artistry to the proverbial story, inviting A mother with wide, emerald eyes cradles her blanketed readers to peer more closely. Ages 3–8. (Oct.) infant: “from the moment I saw you,/ I started to pray./ Big prayers and small ones/ I have sent God’s way.” As the child The News About Jesus and How He Saved the World grows from a baby to a girl, the mother is encouraging yet Benjamin Morse. Orson & Co., $30 (80p) ISBN 978-0-9858135-2-9 watchful: “I pray you grow strong, have passion and fight./ Morse’s second title in the Bible Beautiful series takes And stand up for what’s good with all of your might.” an inventive approach to the New Testament. Events in the Barnes’s ebullient artwork shows the child at a pool party, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are recounted in reading to her peers in a book nook, and playing in a band. “Good News Daily,” a fictionalized A final spread shows that the child has not yet grown up; newspaper. Morse includes condensed instead, the mother holds her baby on a hilltop under a gentle tellings of the gospels, the acts and sky, projecting a life to come. New moms will welcome the letters of the apostles, and the vision wistful tone and scenes of a child’s joyful discoveries. Ages of John of Patmos, which are con- 3–7. (Feb.) veyed through abstract word-and- collage montages crafted from paper, The World Needs Beautiful Things fabric, ribbon, and other ephemera. Leah Rachel Berkowitz, illus. by Daniele Fabbri. Kar-Ben, $17.99 Snappy headlines summarize pivotal (32p) ISBN 978-1-5124-4448-3 events: “Trouble in Jerusalem” leads into an account from The humble protagonist in this allegorical story is based Matthew 26, in which “Jesus warned his disciples that his on Bezalel, who, in the book of Exodus, is selected by God to time on earth was coming to an end.” Morse’s frequently design the ark. Bezalel—whom Fabbri renders with bushy abstract compositions integrate rich patterns, contrasting eyebrows, lively curls, and an expression of sheer wonder— colors, and moments that feel both stationary and fluid. is a collector of discarded objects, insisting that “each of While the newspaper concept is an effective organizational these things is beautiful in its own way, and the world needs tool, it’s outshone by the alluring visuals, which provide beautiful things.” After being freed by the Pharaoh, Bezalel an imagistic understanding of the layered stories. Ages and the Israelites leave Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and 4–7. (Oct.) desert. When God requests that the Israelites make a house made of “beautiful things,” God is struck by Bezalel’s sense Who Believes What? for beauty. Fabbri’s paintings—featuring a sweeping desert Exploring the World’s Major Religions landscape, motifs of fire and water, and statuesque figures in Anna Wills and Nora Tomm, trans. from the German by Shelley Tanaka. trailing robes—enrich Berkowitz’s story of a lesser-known Owl Kids, $19.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-77147-333-0 biblical character. Ages 3–8. (Oct.) In a frank, lively, and informative guide to the world’s religions, Wills and Tomm explore the central tenets of ★ And There Was Evening, and There Was Morning Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Ellen Zahan Zager and Harriet Cohen Helfand, illus. by Zager. Kar-Ben, For each faith, the text covers its history, origins, and $17.99 (24p) ISBN 978-1-5124-8364-2 system of belief, and accompanying Zager and Helfand tell the creation story from the book vibrant, wordless pages are busily filled of Genesis in the Torah. Rhyming couplets describe the acts with the religion’s iconic structures, of creation throughout six days, beginning with words set symbolic objects, and practitioners in against pitch darkness: “The world moments of worship or celebration. began when God said ‘light,’/ And Spreads that resemble flowcharts iden- changed the world from dark to tify many of the items from the illustra- bright./ Dark in the night and light in tions, describing their significance the day,/ Our beautiful world was within each faith (and offering a fun underway.” Zager’s dynamic illustra- seek-and-find element): “In Buddhism, the dragon pos- tions utilize Hebrew letters (as well as sesses special powers and stands for rebirth, change, and some English letters, punctuation marks, and shapes) to renewal.” It’s a hearty celebration of belief and tradition create the objects appearing in each scene—they form the around the globe. Ages 7–10. (Sept.)

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House of Leaves

Four books focus on the lives and legends of trees and plants.

★ Trees: A Rooted History of a single resource. Ages 4–8. (Oct.) Piotr Socha, illus. by Wojciech Grajkowski. Abrams, $24.99 (80p) ISBN 978-1-4197-3723-7 Perfectly Peculiar Plants This expansive volume takes a holistic approach to the Chris Thorogood, illus. by Catell Ronca. Words & Pictures, $17.95 topic of trees in nature, history, and the imagination, (64p) ISBN 978-1-78603-286-7 moving from strictly botanical content into tangential Thorogood introduces 28 species of extraordinary plants. topics. The oversize spreads identify and Many of the colorful names match their unique attributes, compare tree species and tree-dwelling including the tree shew toilet pitcher, which obtains nutrients animals; substantive sidebars accompany from tree shrew droppings, and the dead horse arum, which each section. An illustration of tree rings has hair-covered blooms and “smells like a rotten animal!” Less places human history into perspective: stinky plants include the queen of the night cactus, with “very “During the lifetime of this one tree, the beautiful flowers which open only at night.” Informative sections Olmec, Aztec, and Maya civilizations address plant communication, plant and animal coexistence, blossomed and died out.” Spreads explore and protecting plants, among other topics, while Ronca’s human uses for wood, show a fictionalized family tree, and textural collage-style art provides flashy colors and up-close depict tree monsters within mythology and literature. perspectives on the subjects. From coconuts to vampire plants, Grajkowski’s illustration style vacillates between naturalistic readers will be struck by the range of biodiversity—and and playful; humans have exaggerated, cartoonish features, strangeness—within the botanical world. Ages 5–8. (Sept.) while trees and insects resemble specimens from vintage natural history tomes. Through the multiangled perspective, The Universe Is a Tree Socha and Grajkowski subtly allude to the way that branches Laura Filippucci. Creative Editions, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-56846- of knowledge cross-pollinate and interconnect. All ages. (Apr.) 304-9 This thoughtful celebration of trees explores their mytho- Bamboo and Me: logical, biological, and spiritual significance, devoting each Exploring Bamboo’s Many Uses in Daily Life page to an idea and a tree species that supports it (and sharing Xu Bin, illus. by Yuan Yahuan. Tuttle, $16.95 (42p) ISBN 978-1-60220-454-6 a quotation for and information about In this bilingual story told in English and Chinese, a each). Yew trees serve as “gates to the child describes the ways that his family uses bamboo after beyond” in Norse stories of Yggdrasil, a harvesting it. They feed bamboo skin to the cows and prepare tree with roots that “[extend] to different “delicious dried bamboo shoots,” which the family later realms.” Trees can also be “givers”—the enjoys on “Chinese New Year’s eve.” They also use sections baobab “provides food, medicine, water, of bamboo to catch flowing water and to make a broom and and precious shade”—while the olive dustpan and baskets—items that the family sells at a tree has long represented wisdom and market. The boy, though, dreams of a present that he will peace. In Filippucci’s ornate watercolor-and-ink art, the find in the bamboo forest—a premonition that comes true trees are cavernous, imposing, and divine (the face of the as he uses bamboo sticks to craft the frame for a fish kite. Buddha peers from the gnarled trunk of the banyan tree), Yahuan has a soft art style that captures the gentle, dim emphasizing how they have nurtured myths, legends, and light of a bamboo forest. Through a warm depiction of a the well-being of humans and animals throughout time. Ages family’s day-to-day life, Bin demonstrates the versatility 12–up. (Sept.)

continued from p. 91 Korean mythology with enough complexity perfect gymnast younger sister, and after initially desperate not to gain weight, but to appeal to teens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jennifer a mean girl mocks Riley as “overweight” she slowly faces her past and finds the Jackson, Donald Maass Literary Agency. (Jan.) following a school BMI testing, a voice strength to believe the healthy voice telling inside her, which Riley dubs “Ed” (short for her to take care of herself. Petro-Roy (P.S. I Good Enough “eating disorder”), tells her that she needs Miss You), an eating disorder survivor, offers Jen Petro-Roy. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 to eat less and lose weight. Riley struggles an intimate and realistic portrayal of Riley’s (272p) ISBN 978-1-250-12351-0 against the voice with the help of her destructive thinking patterns as well as her Twelve-year-old Riley chronicles her therapist, Willow, as well as the girls in her victories and setbacks. A powerful, well- two-month stay in the hospital, where she therapy group; her roommate, Ali, mean- told, and authentic story. Ages 8–12. is being treated for anorexia. Before her while, secretly does crunches at night to stay Agent: Brianne Johnson, Writers House. (Feb.) hospitalization, Riley felt secondary to her thin and challenges Riley to join her. Riley is

94 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 19, 2018 Review_CHILDREN’S Review_CHILDREN’S

★ The Lost Girl Camille’s love interest is an aeronaut of ONLINE Anne Ursu. Walden Pond, $16.99 (368p) French and Indian descent—too much www.publishersweekly.com ISBN 978-0-06-227509-7 attention is given to the minutiae and NOW Twin sisters Iris and Lark are “identical, intrigue of court life, leaving themes of FICTION but not the same.” Iris is down-to-earth; diversity under-explored. Nevertheless, Beneath the Citadel Destiny Soria. Amulet, ISBN 978-1-4197-3146-4, Oct. Lark has her head in the clouds. The girls Camille’s desire to be a voice of change for have always looked after each other, and the oppressed will resonate. Ages 12–up. The Camelot Code: The Once and Future when they are placed in different class- Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, the Bent Agency. (Feb.) Geek Mari Mancusi. Disney-Hyperion, ISBN 978- 1-368-01084-9, Nov. rooms and after-school activities (art camp for Lark, a library girls’ group for Iris) The Art of Losing Gamer Army Trent Reedy. Scholastic/Levine, during fifth grade, they are devastated. Lizzy Mason. Soho Teen, $18.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-338-04529-1, Dec. Nothing feels right to Iris, whose dismay ISBN 978-1-61695-987-6 More Than a Princess E.D. Baker. Bloomsbury, is exacerbated by a series of unsettling Harley’s younger sister, Audrey, is in a ISBN 978-1-68119-771-5, Nov. events: meeting the peculiar owner of an coma. After 17-year-old Harley walks in The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club Alex Bell, illus. antique shop who claims he’s doing magic, on Audrey kissing Harley’s drunk boy- by Tomislav Tomic. Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978- noticing objects gone missing from the friend, she storms out of the party; when 1-5344-0646-9, Nov. twins’ home, and being followed by a he drives Audrey home later, they get Salt Hannah Moskowitz. Chronicle, ISBN 978-1- giant crow. The occurrences connect to a into a car accident. It sounds a bit like a 4521-3151-1, Oct. dark secret that proves dangerous to Iris soap opera, but debut author Mason and could separate the twins forever. As deftly moves between past and present to Speechless Adam P. Schmitt. Candlewick, intriguing as it is eerie, this imaginative realistically portray Harley’s anger, guilt, ISBN 978-1-5362-0092-8, Nov. tale by Ursu (The Real Boy) is told from and shame, and her complicated feelings The Truth About Martians Melissa Savage. the point of view of the crow, who about her younger sister, whom she sees as Crown, ISBN 978-1-5247-0016-4, Oct. observes Iris’s actions and emotions as prettier and kinder than her, but also not ★ Your Own Worst Enemy Gordon Jack. she faces life and peril, for the first time as smart. Harley’s neighbor and childhood HarperTeen, ISBN 978-0-06-239942-7, Nov. without her sister. This suspenseful best friend, Raf, is in AA, and though she’s mystery offers a story of empowerment, conflicted about having another addict in NONFICTION 1919: The Year That Changed America showing how one girl with the help of her life, Raf is different from her ex: he is Martin W. Sandler. Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1- others can triumph. Ages 8–12. Agent: facing his problems, and he remembers 68119-801-9, Jan. Tina Wexler, ICM. (Feb.) Harley back when she was feisty and ★ Attucks! Oscar Robertson and the confident. As Audrey regains the ability to Basketball Team That Awakened a City Enchantée speak and walk, Harley moves forward as Phillip Hoose. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Gita Trelease. Flatiron, $18.99 (464p) ISBN 978- well, learning to trust herself and her feelings ISBN 978-0-374-30612-0, Oct.

1-250-29552-1 and to speak up when she needs to. The A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen On the cusp of the French Revolution, interwoven stories of many kinds of love— of the Soviet Union in World War II 17-year-old Camille Durbonne and her between friends, sisters, and possible Elizabeth Wein. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 15-year-old sister are struggling to survive romantic partners—give this well-paced ISBN 978-0-06-245301-3, Jan. after being orphaned, then robbed by their book a depth that makes it more than just abusive alcoholic brother. Camille has been another recovery tale. Ages 14–up. Agent: internship in Knoxville—something she’d using la magie ordinaire to transform metal Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Jan.) have to quit the show to do. When the girls scraps into coin, but getting caught when get a flyer to ShiverCon in Orlando, Fla., it changes back is a constant threat, and the ★ Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite they agree to attend. If they can persuade rent is far past due. With the help of more Matinee creature-feature legend Jack Devine to help dangerous magic, her mother’s enchanted Jeff Zentner. Crown, $17.99 (400p) ISBN 978- them take their show to the next level, Josie dress, and a few drops of blood, Camille 1-5247-2020-9 will go to college close to home. But things infiltrates Marie Antoinette’s court in In Jackson, Tenn., best friends and high go awry in Orlando, and Delia learns her disguise. There, her talent for manipu- school seniors Josie and Delia host a public father is also in Florida. Zentner (The Serpent lating cards fills her pockets with cur- access show called Midnight Matinee. Every King) expertly channels the voices of two rency. Rebellion is in Camille’s blood, and Friday night, their alter egos, Rayne young women, one convinced she will always she’s shocked to find herself befriending Ravenscroft and Delilah Darkwood, screen be left behind and one certain she is destined young nobles despite their politics of low-budget horror films, hamming it up for greatness. Written in alternating privilege. But as she becomes addicted to in comedic segments. Delia’s father left perspectives, Zentner’s quick-witted, the magic and the opportunities it affords, the videos behind when he abandoned charming characters tackle real-life issues Camille begins to wonder about the price the family, and she’s eager to both track with snappy dialogue and engaging levity. of freedom. While debut author Trelease’s him down and make the show a success. Ages 14–up. Agent: Charlie Olsen, Inkwell twist on the Cinderella story offers some Meanwhile, Josie’s family is pressuring her Management. (Feb.)■ diversity with gay and biracial characters— to attend college and accept a television

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 95 Soapbox

“The Kindle Unlimited page reads give me a full third of my writing income— and for many indies, it’s well over half.”

print if you’re offering the What Fiction Decline? same thing at next to nothing in e-form? An indie author finds his fiction selling Next there’s marketing. The bricks-and-mortar world very well at Amazon loves media splash, whether that’s Fifty Shades or Go Set a By Harry Bingham Watchman. Those things will drive online sales, too, but In America and Britain, fiction is said to shift in play, but a generational shift online-only authors work hard with be in decline. PW recently called atten- would play out over 20 years, not five. mailing lists and online ads and deploy tion to the 16% (or $830 million) decline For me, there are other factors at those tools in the context of a supportive in the sales of adult fiction reported by the work—and the common thread is that series pricing structure. An industry Association of American Publishers corporate publishing is asked to simul- focusing on traditional publicity—and during the 2013–2017 period. In Britain, taneously ride two trains running on pricing for print—can’t use those other the Publishers Association reports a ever-diverging tracks. tools as intensively or as successfully. slightly larger drop over a similar period. The first issue is that the bricks-and- Last, there’s Kindle Unlimited. Data These are figures you’d associate with a mortar industry is simply not as sup- Guy (a man who analyzes Amazon data) product in long-term decline: landlines in portive of old-school brand building as it estimates KU to be as big, roughly, as all a mobile age, horses in the age of Ford. once was. Its long-serving captain, non-Amazon e-tailers combined. Like an Barnes & Noble, is too enfeebled; the increasing number of indies today, I’ve f course, there’s a problem with independents are too scattered; the super- got all my books, bar the first in the the data here: Where are the self- markets just don’t care. Huge standalone series, exclusive to Amazon. The Kindle Opublishers? Where are Amazon’s bestseller successes are still possible, but Unlimited page reads give me a full third own imprints? But more broadly, and building a brand has never been harder. of my writing income (the vast majority speaking as a novelist, I can’t help feeling Amazon is the exact opposite. It doesn’t, of which comes from e-books)—and for that these AAP numbers simply don’t in a way, know what to do with standalone many indies, it’s well over half. How can reflect what’s happening with readers. books by debut authors or authors whose a traditional publisher fight that? What (And, as an author with extensive experi- previous sales were relatively modest. beats free? (And sure, quality is always ence with both self-publishing and tradi- Without sales data, Amazon doesn’t good, but my own work has been kindly tional publishing, I’m able to speak from know how to market a book, so its tools reviewed in numerous publications, both sides of the curtain.) work much better with series fiction and including this one. The traditional The fact is that nothing at all in my authors who work hard to instill series industry no longer has a lock on quality.) interactions with readers makes me feel loyalty. There’s a dark message in this, but also like I’m selling horses to car owners. Then there’s pricing. Competent indie a bright one. The dark one is that the Indeed, if my email inbox is anything to authors will price the first books of their publishing industry has its work cut go by, I’m selling horses to people who series at pretty much nothing: either out—but that’s hardly news. The bright really, really like horses. The appetite for “permafree” or a giveaway 99¢. But no one is that readers still read and fiction good, absorbing, well-written fiction sane indie author would price that first still compels. The art form we love is feels to me as intense now as it ever did. book at $11.99. Why make it hard for migrating, perhaps, but not mutating in Nor do most of those “fiction in decline” readers to get into a series? The first book any deep way. theories make sense to me. For sure, is merely bait; the rest of the series is Fiction in decline? Not from my point Netflix has upended the business model where the money lies. of view. Fiction’s doing just fine. ■ of traditional TV companies over the past That logic has driven plenty of indie few years, but a cop show is still a cop careers, including mine, but its hopeless- Harry Bingham is the author of the Fiona show. Who cares about business models? ness as a strategy for print books is Griffiths series and runs Jericho Writers, an There may, admittedly, be a generational obvious. And how do you sell full-priced online writers club.

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