"The Hearth Witch's Guide to Spite & Spellwork"

Coming soon from Poisoned Pen Press: The Hearth Witch's Guide to Spite & Spellwork (The Hemlock Saga, 2) by Kiri Callaghan.

About the novel, from the publisher:

"I suggest you brush up on your hexes, babes. Sounds like you got a nasty one on your hands."

As the bastard child of the late Erlking, Detective Avery Hemlock is used to being alone. Two-hundred years ago, she preferred it. But after endangering Saga Trygg's life by involving her in a case, Avery must choose solitude for Saga's safety. For once, alone is starting to feel a lot more like lonely.

Following her grandmother's murder, and the discovery of the fey world, Saga is trying to find direction, heal, and figure out where she fits in in this new version of normal. Though she longs to enlist Avery's help, after jeopardizing their last case together and nearly getting herself killed, she knows it's best she stay out of the detective's way.

But when the death of a local witch might be the result of a vicious revenge hex, the enigmatic circumstances and puzzle are too curious to keep them apart. With a case bigger than it appears, the two must uncover secrets even the Winter Council wants to keep.

Nothing is initially as it seems, even the truths they themselves have held for years.

Visit Kiri Callaghan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Extra! Extra!: A History of America's Girl Newsies"

New from the University of Nebraska Press: Extra! Extra!: A History of America's Girl Newsies by Autumn Lorimer Linford.

About the book, from the publisher:

American pop culture loves newsies. The children who bawled out headlines and sold newspapers on city streets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been depicted countless times in movies, Broadway shows, books, music, and more, but somehow it’s only ever the stories of newsboys that are told. Scholarly literature too has focused mostly on boy newsies. Yet for nearly as long as there were newspapers in the United States, there were also newsgirls. Girl newsies were photographed, interviewed, studied, argued over, and eventually absorbed into the collective “newsboys” and forgotten.

Extra! Extra! A History of America’s Girl Newsies offers a corrective, demonstrating the importance of newsgirls as early news workers and as symbols of child labor and gender reform efforts. Sometimes younger than ten years old and from impoverished families, girl newsies were already vulnerable to exploitation from the newspaper publishing industry, which relied heavily on child labor during the “golden age” of journalism. However, the newsgirls of this period contributed much to news labor, and they were important to the discussions concerning childhood, child labor reform, and women’s changing societal roles. Properly integrating newsgirls into the history of newsies dismantles archetypes and enables a deeper understanding of child news labor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spellstruck"

New from Atria Books: Spellstruck: A Novel by Martha Waters.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Chemistry isn’t only for cocktails in this lightly magical, enemies-to-lovers rom-com about the owner of a speakeasy supplying magical drinks and an enforcer of the ban on magic who must team up when potions begin to go awry—from acclaimed author Martha Waters.

In an alternate version of 1920s London, vestiges of England’s magical past exist, but the use of magic has been outlawed, leading families still with powers to operate illegal speakeasies for a public still hungry for magic. Vesper Holloway runs her family club, where a dash of spell powder or an enchanted cocktail can add a little extra intrigue to the evening. But when a spate of accidents strikes these establishments, she worries patrons will flee her family’s business.

Enter Maxwell Ashbridge, a onetime friend of Vesper’s brother, who has joined the government agency tasked with enforcing the ban, and who has a personal vendetta against the magical elite. But he does not have a vendetta against Vesper; in fact, he finds her rather enticing. He promises immunity for her club if she teams up with him to investigate, which does little to quell the growing chemistry they share. As accidents continue and the fight to repeal the ban gains ground in Parliament, Vesper and Max will have to decide—is the magic between them worth fighting for?

Visit Martha Waters's website.

Writers Read: Martha Waters (April 2020).

The Page 69 Test: To Have and to Hoax.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Sophistication"

New from Princeton University Press: American Sophistication: How the Casual Became Cool by Ross Posnock.

About the book, from the publisher:

The fascinating story of sophistication in the United States, from the founding to the present

Is there such a thing as “American sophistication”—or is it a contradiction in terms? Those questions have been up for grabs since America’s founding. The idea of sophistication has always left Americans uneasy. Devoted to a self-image of sincerity and plain-dealing, Americans are suspicious of sophistication’s playfulness and ease, which look like symptoms of European elitism, snobbery, and decadence. In this entertaining and enlightening account of American sophistication from the eighteenth century to today, Ross Posnock tells the story of how Americans’ anxiety about style and elegance led them to develop their own casual and cool style of sophistication.

From the start, American sophistication has been distinctive because it is mixed, improvised, and shape-shifting: guilty and smooth, game and nervous, vulgar and poised. Each chapter of this sparkling, wide-ranging narrative examines the evolution of American sophistication by exploring key figures in the story, including Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, the Kennedys, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Eartha Kitt, Susan Sontag, Frank O’Hara, Jasper Johns, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Leonard Bernstein. The book ends by sketching the changing fortunes of American sophistication since John F. Kennedy by looking at some of his key presidential successors—Reagan, Obama, and Trump.

The first account of a compelling and timely subject, American Sophistication brings together film, fashion, literature, design, art, and musical theater to present a fresh synthesis of cultural history.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Map to Murder"

New from Minotaur Books: A Map to Murder: A Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mystery by Michelle Chouinard.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Beloved true crime tour guide Capri Sanzio returns in Michelle Chouinard’s A Map to Murder, the next book in the USA Today bestselling Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mysteries.

True crime tour guide and serial killer aficionado Capri Sanzio knows how central the Summer of Love is to San Francisco’s identity―even if she’s always had conflicted feelings about it. She’s used to weaving feel-good hippie culture and music into her Haight-Ashbury true crime tales, centering her tours around what happens when a revolution looking to lift up the best ideals humanity has to offer clashes with the darkest souls hidden among humanity’s shadows. But what she’s not used to is a guest stepping out from those shadows to drop a murder investigation directly into her lap.

A woman has gone missing in San Francisco after trying to solve her aunt’s murder: a cold case from the Summer of Love. Capri sees herself in the missing woman―both were unable to find the answers they desperately wanted as kids―and sees her own daughter in the tour guest begging for her help. Unable to turn the case away, Capri finds herself following a trail of flower-power footprints turned deadly―straight to a killer who has her in their sights.

Visit Michelle Chouinard's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life"

New from Yale University Press: Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life by Christopher Freeburg.

About the book, from the publisher:

A passionate and illuminating account of soul, the hard-won wisdom shepherded by Black people throughout generations

How did enslaved Africans turn America’s infamous failure into the greatest moral occasion of modern Western life? In this book, Christopher Freeburg answers that question with one word: soul. It was soul, Freeburg believes, which drove Black individuals and communities, grappling with horrific strife, to reimagine American life and equality in earnest.

Black cultural life contains a central and significant theme―a soul, or form of life―expressed in a variety of musical, religious, and political forms. Through the work and words of figures ranging from the poet Phillis Wheatley to President Barack Obama and musician Nina Simone to disco owner Jewel Thais-Williams, Freeburg shows how Black communities leaned time and again on soul and its four pillars: resonance, revelation, resilience, and transcendence. It is soul, what Freeburg calls a beautiful transaction between individual and community across time and place, that has allowed Black people over generations to transform feelings of defeat and alienation into moral courage and shared belonging.

Visit Christopher Freeburg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Other Side of Starting Over"

Coming November 3 from Lake Union: The Other Side of Starting Over: A Novel by Mara Williams.

About the novel, from the publisher:

When her husband’s tragic death uncovers long-buried secrets, a young mother fights to protect her family and heal her heart in an emotionally resonant novel about loss, love, and second chances.

After her husband’s sudden death, Beatrice Bell retreats to her childhood home in California’s Sierra mountains with her rebellious teenage twins in tow. Her plan is to take over her parents’ antique store, ensure it survives another generation, and build a new life from the rubble of the old one.

But Bea didn’t plan on Simon, the gruff store manager with his own ambitions for the business. As they’re forced to work together, animosity gives way to grudging respect and ignites an unexpected spark. Before Bea can find her footing, everything is upended. First by River, a local boy who bears a striking resemblance to her late husband. Then by her estranged mother-in-law, who reveals devastating secrets that will test everything Bea believed about her marriage.

As Bea navigates grief, betrayal, and an unexpected connection with Simon, she finds that it may be possible to begin again, but only if she confronts the truth of her past.

Visit Mara Williams's website.

Q&A with Mara Williams.

The Page 69 Test: The Truth Is in the Detours.

My Book, The Movie: The Truth Is in the Detours.

Writers Read: Mara Williams (August 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Epicenter of Forever.

Writers Read: Mara Williams (February 2026).

The Page 69 Test: The Epicenter of Forever.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Not Tiger Moms"

New from the University of California Press: Not Tiger Moms: Reimagining Asian American Motherhood by Miliann Kang.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reframing the cultural narrative of Asian American motherhood―through these mothers' own voices and experiences.

The high stakes of motherhood today go beyond who qualifies as a good or bad mother, to who belongs and who is other. For Asian American mothers, these judgments have often been shaped by the enduring stereotype of the strict, academically driven "tiger mother."

In Not Tiger Moms, Miliann Kang explores the racist, xenophobic roots of this trope and how it undermines Asian American mothers, silencing their voices and inhibiting their connections to their children, to each other, and to other mothers, including their own. Through deeply personal and candid interviews, Asian American mothers who were born or grew up predominantly in the United States share stories that upend perceptions of them as both model minority reproducers and foreign threats. Instead, they chart new pathways to and through motherhood, imagining more expansive possibilities not only for Asian American mothers, but for all mothers.

Miliann Kang is Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The Page 99 Test: The Managed Hand.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If Not You"

New from Berkley: If Not You by Ellen O'Clover.

About the book, from the publisher:

Five years of history. Four weeks on the road. Two rival copywriters learning love is the hardest sell of all.

Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town.

Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just…there, with his golden-boy smirk and the familiar gaze that never fails to taunt her across a crowded room.

Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him—and earn the promotion she covets.

During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious truth: the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.

Visit Ellen O'Clover's website.

Q&A with Ellen O'Clover.

Writers Read: Ellen O'Clover (February 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hollywood Renegade"

New from the University of Texas Press: Hollywood Renegade: Elaine May, Mikey and Nicky, and the Making of a Masterpiece by Todd Berliner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Examines the career and unorthodox filmmaking practices of director Elaine May, whose Mikey and Nicky, over a span of fifty years, transformed from a fiasco to a masterpiece of seventies cinema.

Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky stands out in the history of Hollywood. After a troubled production, massive cost overruns, and lawsuits between May and the studio, the film received scathing reviews and failed at the box office. But the very qualities that initially alienated viewers and reviewers led later generations to regard the film as an overlooked masterpiece.

Written and directed by the period’s only female New Hollywood filmmaker, Mikey and Nicky has not received the attention given to other unconventional films of the 1970s. But May worked for years to give each moment of the movie multiple areas of interest. She made every character, even peripheral ones, nuanced and memorable. And she designed every scene, even minor ones, as a performance event. Her lead actors, Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, thrived under her unorthodox directing style, earning acclaim even from reviewers who hated the movie. Decades in the making―years of scriptwriting, a shoot that spanned ten months, and three years spent editing―Mikey and Nicky shows us what Hollywood cinema can accomplish when talented filmmakers challenge Hollywood’s limited notion of professionalism, rejecting the harsh time pressures of commercial filmmaking in order to get the most out of every scene.

--Marshal Zeringue