"Great War Prostheses in American Literature and Culture"

New from Oxford University Press: Great War Prostheses in American Literature and Culture by Aaron Shaheen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Drawing on rehabilitation publications, novels by both famous and obscure American writers, and even the prosthetic masks of a classically trained sculptor, Great War Prostheses in American Literature and Culture addresses the ways in which prosthetic devices were designed, promoted, and depicted in America in the years during and after the First World War.

The war's mechanized weaponry ushered in an entirely new relationship between organic bodies and the technology that could both cause, and attempt to remedy, hideous injuries. Such a relationship was also evident in the realm of prosthetic development, which by the second decade of the twentieth century promoted the belief that a prosthesis should be a spiritual extension of the person who possessed it. This spiritualized vision of prostheses proved particularly resonant in American postwar culture. Relying on some of the most recent developments in literary and disability studies, the book's six chapters explain how a prosthesis's spiritual promise was largely dependent on its ability to nullify an injury and help an amputee renew or even improve upon his prewar life. But if it proved too cumbersome, obtrusive, or painful, the device had the long-lasting power to efface or distort his 'spirit' or personality.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Girl Gone Mad"

New from Lake Union: Girl Gone Mad: A Novel by Avery Bishop.

About the book, from the publisher:

They say everything is fun and games until someone gets hurt. Well, someone did—and now the game has changed…

Emily Bennett works as a therapist in Pennsylvania, helping children overcome their troubled pasts—even as she struggles to forget her own. Once upon a time, Emily was part of a middle school clique called the Harpies—six popular girls who bullied the new girl to her breaking point.

The Harpies took a blood oath: never tell a soul what they did to Grace Farmer.

Now, fourteen years later, it seems karma has caught up to them when one member of that vicious circle commits suicide. But when a second Harpy is discovered dead shortly after, also from apparent suicide, the deaths start to look suspicious. And when Emily starts seeing a woman who looks a lot like Grace Farmer lurking in the shadows, she’s forced to wonder: Is Grace back for revenge? Or is Emily’s guilt driving her mad?

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but the Harpies are about to find out just how much words can hurt you.

Visit Avery Bishop's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Revolution and Non-Violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela"

New from Oxford University Press: Revolution and Non-Violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela by Imraan Coovadia.

About the book, from the publisher:

The dangers of political violence and the possibilities of non-violence were the central themes of three lives which changed the twentieth century--Leo Tolstoy, writer and aristocrat who turned against his class, Mohandas Gandhi who corresponded with Tolstoy and considered him the most important person of the time, and Nelson Mandela, prisoner and statesman, who read War and Peace on Robben Island and who, despite having led a campaign of sabotage, saw himself as a successor to Gandhi.

Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela tried to create transformed societies to replace the dying forms of colony and empire. They found the inequalities of Russia, India, and South Africa intolerable yet they questioned the wisdom of seizing the power of the state, creating new kinds of political organisation and imagination to replace the old promises of revolution. Their views, along with their ways of leading others, are closely connected, from their insistence on working with their own hands and reforming their individual selves to their acceptance of death. On three continents, in a century of mass mobilization and conflict, they promoted strains of nationalism devoid of antagonism, prepared to take part in a general peace.

Looking at Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela in sequence, taking into account their letters and conversations as well as the institutions they created or subverted, placing at the centre their treatment of the primal fantasy of political violence, this volume reveals a vital radical tradition which stands outside the conventional categories of twentieth-century history and politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Debt of Loyalty"

New from 47North: Debt of Loyalty by Christopher G. Nuttall.

About the book, from the publisher:

An uncivil war in space sends a planet spinning out of control in the next thrilling Kat Falcone novel by bestselling author Christopher G. Nuttall.

The Commonwealth has fractured, its interstellar order breaking down into civil war. On one side is Hadrian, the outlaw king of Tyre, driven from his homeworld and forced into a fragile alliance with the colony worlds; on the other sits a parliament determined to restrain him at all costs. The time for talk is over. The matter can be settled only by war.

Loyal to the king, Admiral Kat Falcone leads her fleets into battle, joined by allies with motives of their own. But her friend and former comrade Commodore William McElney has chosen to join the Houses of Parliament. They now find themselves on opposing sides of a civil war, trapped into waging a series of battles that neither wants to fight but that they dare not lose. And as shadows and secrets come to light, they may find themselves watching helplessly as the war tears the universe they fought for apart.

Visit Christopher G. Nuttall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lionhearts"

New from Forge Books: Lionhearts: (Nottingham, Volume 2) by Nathan Makaryk.

About the book, from the publisher:

History and myth collide in Nathan Makaryk's Lionhearts, a riveting story of vengeance, redemption and war, perfect for fans of Game of Thrones.

All will be well when King Richard returns . . . but King Richard has been captured.

To raise the money for his ransom, every lord in England is raising taxes, the French are eyeing the empty throne, and the man they called, “Robin Hood,” the man the Sherriff claims is dead, is everywhere and nowhere at once.

He’s with a band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest, raiding guard outposts. He’s with Nottingham’s largest gang, committing crimes to protest the taxes. He’s in the lowest slums of the city, conducting a reign of terror against the city's most vulnerable. A hero to some, a monster to others, and an idea that can't simply be killed.

But who's really under the hood?

Visit Nathan Makaryk's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Day I Disappeared"

New from Lake Union: The Day I Disappeared by Brandi Reeds.

About the book, from the publisher:

A terrifying crime reunites a mother and daughter in a novel of psychological suspense by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Trespassing.

Three months after four-year-old Holly Gebhardt was kidnapped, she was inexplicably returned to the same park from which she’d vanished…with no memory of the ordeal. Though a local handyman was convicted, suspicion also fell on his friend—Holly’s mother, Cecily. The troubling doubts about her involvement shattered the family, forever driving a wedge between mother and daughter.

Twenty years later, another girl goes missing under eerily similar circumstances. It’s just the latest in a series of kidnappings that Detective Jason Guidry thinks Holly can help solve. Though Holly has tried to move on with her life, a young girl’s life hangs in the balance. All she has to do is try to remember…

With her memory still mostly blank, Holly is missing vital pieces of the puzzle, and she believes her mother can put them in place. In desperation and fear, Holly and her mother come together again. But in a chilling rush toward the past, Cecily still has secrets she’s yet to share with her daughter. Should she dare to breathe a word, she could lose Holly all over again.

Visit Brandi Reeds's website.

My Book, The Movie: Third Party.

The Page 69 Test: Third Party.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Even If We Break"

New from Sourcebooks: Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp.

About the book, from the publisher:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp comes a shocking new thriller about a group of friends tied together by a game and the deadly weekend that tears them apart.

FIVE friends go to a cabin.

FOUR of them are hiding secrets.

THREE years of history bind them.

TWO are doomed from the start.

ONE person wants to end this.

NO ONE IS SAFE.

Are you ready to play?

Visit Marieke Nijkamp's website.

The Page 69 Test: This Is Where It Ends.

The Page 69 Test: Before I Let Go.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shook"

New from the University of New Mexico Press: Shook: An Earthquake, a Legendary Mountain Guide, and Everest's Deadliest Day by Jennifer Hull.

About the book, from the publisher:

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of sixteen Sherpas. Dave and his team—sherpa sirdar Chhering Dorjee, assistant guide JJ Justman, base-camp manager Mark Tucker, and the eight clients who had trained for the privilege to attempt to summit with Dave Hahn—spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on the morning of April 25, 2015. Shook tells their story of resilience, nerve, and survival on the deadliest day on Everest.

Visit Jennifer Hull's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Silent Conspiracy"

Coming September 15 from Harper Paperbacks: The Silent Conspiracy: A Novel by L. C. Shaw.

About the book, from the publisher:

The past is about to catch up to Jack Logan and Taylor Parks in this gripping follow-up to The Network—praised by Steve Berry as “mandatory reading for any thriller aficionado.”

It’s been almost two years since investigative reporter Jack Logan and television producer Taylor Parks brought down the Institute—the secret facility responsible for indoctrinating a generation of America’s political and media power players. Their lives are just getting back to normal, and Jack and Taylor have settled into married life with their young son, Evan.

But soon a series of bizarre, seemingly random murder/suicides captures Jack’s attention as a disturbing pattern emerges. Could someone be intentionally causing people to become homicidal? At the same time, Taylor is producing a story about a class action suit against a national insurance company that has reached the Supreme Court.

As Jack and Taylor start to suspect that their stories are connected, they realize there is something far more insidious at play that could not only directly threaten them—but the very future of the country…

Visit L. C. Shaw's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Lynne Constantine & Greyson.

Writers Read: L.C. Shaw (December 2019).

The Page 69 Test: The Network.

My Book, The Movie: The Network.

--Marshal Zeringue

"#NoEscape"

New from Freeform: #NoEscape by Gretchen McNeil.

About the book, from the publisher:

The #murder and mayhem continue in this prequel companion novel to the grisly, campy social media insanity that is #MurderTrending and #MurderFunding. Gretchen McNeil brings her signature wit and merciless kills to this gruesome yet hilarious, wildly topical young adult novel.

Seventeen-year-old Persey feels worthless much of the time. Her parents prefer her smarter, more enigmatic big brother to her, and she can't quite seem to succeed-let alone fit in-at school. But there is one thing she's good at: escape rooms. So when she's invited to compete in an escape room competition that carries a prize worth millions, Persey is all over it.

Persey enters the competition along with seven other young contestants, but while most escape rooms are about teamwork and collaboration, this one is all about being cut-throat-literally. When contestants start getting killed off, Persey must solve a series of bizarre and gruesome puzzles, riddles, and games to make it out alive. Along the way she learns the contestants are mysteriously related-and someone is out for vengeance.

Twenty years before Dee Guerra and the Death Row Breakfast Club took down The Postman and Alcatraz 2.0 in #MurderTrending, long before Becca survived The Juggernaut and Who Wants to Be a Painiac? In #MurderFunding, the murder games first began with one awful day at Escape-Capades, Ltd.? And there's no telling who might have made it out alive, or what they may have later become.

You won't want to escape this wickedly campy prequel companion novel to Gretchen McNeil's viciously suspenseful #MurderTrending series.

Learn more about the book and author at Gretchen McNeil's website.

Writers Read: Gretchen McNeil (November 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue