Brittany Amara

Brittany Amara is an author, screenwriter, actress, and model with a passion for science fiction and fantasy that ventures beyond space and time. She loves writing about curious aliens, morally gray protagonists, other dimensions, rifts in reality, and all things playfully wicked. When she’s not working on something new, Amara can be found stargazing, collecting stuffed animals, and baking pumpkin bread. She grew up in Bronx, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from SUNY New Paltz in 2021 with a degree in digital media production, creative writing, and theater arts. In 2024 she furthered her storytelling journey at Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, her work in various genres has been recognized by film festivals and writing competitions across the globe.

Amara's new novel is The Bleeding Woods.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Amara's reply:

Reading is such a beautiful and inspiring part of my writing process. Not only does it illuminate unexplored parts of my own imagination, but it allows me to surf the seas of endless imagination and connect with creatives outside of space and time. It is through our work that we forge bonds that would have otherwise been impossible. In some strange, inexplicable way, I can meet with Mary Shelley as she unveils the tale of Frankenstein. Centuries sit between us, and yet, we speak. I’ve never met her in person, but Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon A Broken Heart pierced my soul in a way no series has before. We are complete strangers, but in her work, I felt found.

The stories I read always become worlds I settle into, so I tend to fill my bookshelf with books that ignite in my highest happiness. I read about places I’d like to explore, places currently unavailable on our Planet Earth. I read about people I’d like to meet, befriend or fall in love with, even if they haven’t taken physical form on this plane. By some intuitive, indescribable magic, the stories I end up reading are always the ones I need most, exactly when I need them most.

I'm a feral fiction reader, just as I am a feral fiction writer. Most often, I read sci-fi, fantasy, romance, or anything that blends the three. Currently, I’m reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. In it, we follow Violet Sorrengail as she strives to survive in a cutthroat academy for dragon riders, finding strength she never thought she had and love she never thought possible in the process. Before becoming an author, I worked at my local Barnes & Nobles, and witnessed the beautiful mayhem every time a new installment in her series was released. Still, back then, I never felt quite called to dive in myself. Then, on a random, dreary Autumn afternoon… my dog started pawing at the hardcover copy. I went outside, perched on a rock, and let myself fall into Yarros’s world right away. I am so grateful I did. The explosive joy she takes in building her beautiful, complex, expansive world is exactly the kind of joy I needed to reignite in my own writing. The sweeping, swoon-worthy romance is exactly the kind of love I needed to remind myself I deserve in my own life. Violet’s journey of self-acceptance, self-empowerment and self-discovery is exactly what I needed to embrace in my own heart.

As I continue to read, Rebecca Yarros’s work speaks directly to me. She may not know it, but from miles and miles away, the story she shared years ago is helping and healing me. That’s the magic of writing so that others may read, and reading so that I may find the courage to write.

Visit Brittany Amara's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bleeding Woods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Catriona McPherson

Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland and lived there until 2010, then immigrated to California where she lives on Patwin ancestral land. A former academic linguist, she now writes full-time. Her multi-award-winning and national best-selling work includes: the Dandy Gilver historical detective stories, the Last Ditch mysteries, set in California, and a strand of contemporary standalone novels including Edgar-finalist The Day She Died and Mary Higgins Clark finalist Strangers at the Gate. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, The Crimewriters’ Association, The Society of Authors and Sisters in Crime, of which she is a former national president.

McPherson's new novel is Scot's Eggs.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. McPherson's reply:

I've been injured and dealing with immobility, surgery and physiotherapy the last few months, which had an effect on my reading. I retreated into comfort. Now, since I'm a crime writer, my idea of comfort is maybe not everyone's. I had read and adored about five of Linda Castillo's seventeen Chief Kate Burkholder, Amish country procedurals. Immediately I got back from the ER, I bought myself the other twelve. I've read eleven and am saving the most recent installment, Rage, for the Christmas holidays. Blimey, they're good. They're pretty violent and not at all cosy - don't let "Amish" or "country" mislead you, but Kate's team of officers at Painter's Mill PD are the best kind of found family. And the plots are brilliant.

In between the Castillos, I also gave myself the gift of Lisa Gardner's Frankie Elkin series, about a freelance cold-case missing-person investigator. She's a loner, a drifter, a bit of a lost soul herself but she's excellent company. There are only four of them so far, but they're an ideal gateway read into any of Gardner's longer series. These four are set in central Boston, remote Wyoming, the hardscrabble end of Tucson, and Hawaii. I opened that one, Still See You Everywhere, the day before my cancelled ten-day trip to Hawaii should have started. Oh, how I laughed.

And now I'm well on the mend and back to my usual habit of reading through the TBR in alphabetical order. (It cuts down on the agonising choice of what to read next.) I was at G for Gardner when I broke off, so I resumed with G for Guha: Puja Guha's nail biting Sirens of Memory, about a Kuwaiti refugee who has been living in Texas for twenty-five years and is about to slam hard into her own past. Both the 1990 sections in the refugee camps and the present-day Texas/DC sections are a masterclass in grinding tension.

Then came Jasmine Guillory's While We Were Dating, a delightful romance about a Hollywood actress, soooo close to A-list stardom, who enlists a fake boyfriend to tease the tabloids into a frenzy, raise her profile, and land the role of her life. Guess what happens! Yes, but watching it unfold is a joy. Don't you love what's going on with the Romance genre recently? I do.

Right now, I'm on page 143 of Tamron Hall's debut, As the Wicked Watch, about a television news reporter who becomes embroiled in the tragic case of a murdered Black child. It's a wonderful if sobering look at over-policing and under-protecting on Chicago's South Side, from one who knows. (I should say, I had no clue who Tamron Hall was when I picked the book up, but I did think her headshot looked extremely glam, for a crime writer!)"

Visit Catriona McPherson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Go to My Grave.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (November 2018).

My Book, The Movie: The Turning Tide.

The Page 69 Test: The Turning Tide.

My Book, The Movie: A Gingerbread House.

The Page 69 Test: Hop Scot.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Beneath Us.

Q&A with Catriona McPherson.

The Page 69 Test: The Witching Hour.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (September 2024).

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Scotzilla.

My Book, The Movie: Scotzilla.

The Page 69 Test: Scot's Eggs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth Hobbs

Elizabeth Hobbs is a New Englander born and bred, who spent her childhood roaming the woods, making up stories about characters who live far more exciting lives than she. It wasn’t always so—long before she ever set pen to paper, Hobbs graduated from Hollins College with a BA in classics and art history, and then earned her MA in nautical archaeology from Texas A&M University. While she loved the life of an underwater archaeologist, she has found her true calling writing historical mysteries full of wit, wickedness, and adventure. Hobbs writes wherever she is and loves to travel from her home in Texas, where she lives with her husband, the Indispensable Mr. Hobbs, and her darling dogs, Ghillie and Brogue, in an empty nest of an old house filled to the brim with bicycles and books.

Her new novel is Murder Made Her Wicked: A Marigold Manners Mystery.

Recently I asked Hobbs about what she was reading. Her reply

For a writer, reading is not just a relaxing pleasure, but an essential tool for keeping my imagination full of new and different voices and ideas and vocabulary. I usually have a few different books going at once and usually a combination of fiction and non-fiction. But the common denominator is usually a strong female protagonist. This month, I’ve read:

The Wind in the Willows

This is an annual re-read for me. During my recent downsizing, I pulled this 1908 Kenneth Grahame book out of my children’s bookshelf to put in my ‘keeper’ pile, but ended up sitting down and re-immersing myself in the pastoral children’s tale of a group of anthropomorphized animals who band together to save a feckless friend. What once seemed a charming adventure tale, now strikes me quite differently— Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr. Toad have stuck with me throughout my writing life as archetypes of the Fish Out of Water, The Loyal Stalwart Friend, the Wise Leader and the Feckless Ne’er-do-Well. I think that every protagonist I’ve ever written—male or female—is some version of Ratty, that rugged, persistent fellow who lives in the moment, packs an extravagant picnic basket, stands loyally by his many and varied friends and never, ever gives up. Beneath all that children’s charm lies a brilliant character study.

The Librarians

Sherry Thomas is one of my go-to authors in a number of different genres—mystery like this story (she also writes the Lady Sherlock historical mystery series), Young Adult Fantasy, English language versions of a Chinese Wuxia novels (with Thomas’s characteristic heroic female spin), Chinese language web novels, and several different romance genres (see below), most prominent among them historical romance. In this recently released who-done-it, four librarians working in an Austin branch library must solve the murders of two patrons of a mystery-themed game night. Like all Thomas novels, the characterizations are beautifully and insightfully drawn and the prose is measured yet propulsive. Always a great author.

Prima (After the End Collection)

Once I had read Sherry Thomas’s Librarians, I was eager to prolong my stay in her distinctive voice, so I read her most recent post-apocalyptic romance, Prima. In this novella that is part of the After the End collection, Thomas creates an evocative setting on the open ocean, where the romantic protagonists meet. The writing is lush and lyrical and the characters and romance is beautifully drawn. Honestly, I will read anything and everything Thomas writes.

A Botanist’s Guide to Rituals and Revenge

After the romance, I needed the cozy reality of Kate Khavari’s most recent Saffron Everleigh mystery. This academic-set historical mystery series is set in 1920’s University College London and the English countryside. The protagonist, Saffron Everleigh, is a crime-solving botanist who uses her specialist knowledge and scientific process to solve a series of murders. A Botanist’s Guide to Rituals and Revenge, the fourth book of the series, is brilliant catnip for my mystery-solving soul.

Real Tigers

Once I was reading about historic London, I wanted a little more of the grit of the present-day metropolis, so I turned to Mick Herron’s third Slough House novel, Real Tigers. Now that the anti-heroic Slow Horses of Slough House are on our TV’s, the characters need no introduction. But if you’ve only watched the TV series, you’re missing a vast deal of the superb language and acerbic wit of Herron’s writing. In this story, one of the Slow Horses themselves is abducted and the team have to navigate a deep web of intrigue and betrayal within MI5 to ensure their cohort’s safety. Such gritty fun.

The Sway of the Grand Saloon

I do have to write myself, so my reading always includes a vast deal of research and non-fiction histories. At the moment, my reference book of choice is The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic by John Malcolm Brinnin, which I hope will give readers a hint as to the setting of the next Marigold Manners Mystery.

Mythology

And last, but certainly not least, my constant companion during the writing of my Marigold Manners Mysteries has been Edith Hamilton’s classic Mythology. Concentrating on the classical myths of Ancient Greece and Rome, Hamilton was a classics scholar who, after an illustrious career in women’s education, retired to write her seminal works, which remain standard reading for all classical studies scholars—just like my Marigold Manners. I often recommend this book because the myths that Hamilton translated are repeat with archetypes and themes that every working author should know.

Visit Elizabeth Hobbs's website.

Q&A with Elizabeth Hobbs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kim DeRose

Kim DeRose writes dark, magical stories about strong, magical girls for teens and former teens. She is the author of Hear Her Howl and For Girls Who Walk Through Fire, which was selected for ALA’s 2025 Rise: A Feminist Book Project List, received a starred review from School Library Journal, praise from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, and was the recipient of the 2024 Millikin Medal for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction.

She grew up in Santa Barbara, California, earned her MFA in film directing from UCLA, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY as a recovering Catholic and ex-good girl. When she’s not writing or reading, she can be found listening to endless podcasts, taking long walks through the woods (of Prospect Park), and teaching her children how to howl.

Hear Her Howl is her most recent book.

Recently I asked DeRose about what she was reading. Her reply:

I’m one of those people who has a giant TBR stack beside their bed and normally has 3-5 books I’m simultaneously reading at once (which never stops me from acquiring more books!). Here’s what I’m currently reading and enjoying:

Winter White by Annie Cardi

I loved Annie Cardi’s previous YA book, Red, (a retelling of The Scarlet Letter) and did several panels with Annie discussing the importance of accurately and sensitively representing sexual assault in YA fiction. So when she asked if I’d blurb Winter White I was thrilled. Once again she’s written another beautiful retelling (this time of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale) that this time sensitively portrays a difficult dynamic within a family system. Her characters are always beautifully wrought and there’s a tenderness within her stories that I very much appreciate.

A Curious Kind of Magic by Mara Rutherford

If you’re looking for a cozy and delightful book this fall or winter, this is the one. Mara Rutherford is a writing friend and I had the privilege of hearing her read the first chapter of A Curious Kind of Magic at a writing retreat last fall (we’re in the same writer’s group, which Laini Taylor started). I was immediately hooked by this YA romantic fantasy and am so thrilled I finally have my own copy. It’s got witchy vibes, a magic curiosity shop, and a slow burn romance. All of which is to say, perfect for the season.

Beasts of Carnaval by Rosália Rodrigo

Rosália Rodrigo is another writer friend from Laini Taylor’s writing group, and this gorgeous book is her debut. It’s a Caribbean/Latino adult fantasy with themes of decolonization and reclamation, indigenous Taíno mythology, and an atmospheric island setting. Though the island in question is not exactly what it seems. I'm thoroughly enjoying this one and love both the strong characters and the lush writing.

An Amateur Witch’s Guide to Murder by K. Valentin

Yet another writing friend from Laini Taylor’s writing group (are you seeing a trend here?!). I just got my copy of K Valentin’s debut in the mail and already this queer YA romantic fantasy is laugh out loud funny. Even if she wasn’t a writing friend, I’d want to read this book stat - I mean, with a tagline like “Mateo Borrero has 99 problems - and all of them hinge on his missing bruja mother and the demon she trapped inside his body," how could I not?

Visit Kim DeRose's website.

Q&A with Kim DeRose.

The Page 69 Test: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

My Book, The Movie: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

The Page 69 Test: Hear Her Howl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tessa Wegert

Tessa Wegert is the critically acclaimed author of the Shana Merchant mysteries, as well as the North Country series, beginning with In the Bones. Her books have received numerous starred reviews and have been featured on PBS and NPR Radio. A former journalist and copywriter, Tessa grew up in Quebec and now lives with her husband and children in Connecticut, where she co-founded Sisters in Crime CT and serves on the board of International Thriller Writers (ITW).

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Wegert's reply:

I always have three books on the go at once — one in print, one ebook or NetGalley arc, and one audiobook — so I’ll share a recent favorite from each bucket.

In print, I adored Jennifer Fawcett’s Keep This for Me, a stunning and atmospheric mystery set in Upstate New York. This re-imagining of the serial killer thriller examines the aftereffects of murder on both the victim’s daughter and the son of the convicted killer with prose that’s lyrical and lush.

I just finished reading an early copy of Darby Kane’s Such a Clever Girl, a domestic thriller set in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It’s about what happens when a member of the Tanner family, which disappeared more than a decade ago and is presumed dead, returns to confront the three local women with connections to the case. Inheritance games, exposed secrets, and twisted family dynamics make this upcoming novel a must-read.

My most recent audiobook was Wendy Walker’s The Room Next Door, which expertly juggles a vast cast of narrators along with music and special effects (think of it as a modern radio play). The dual timelines and multiple points of view make this a riveting, multi-layered mystery, and Wendy’s rendering of teenage girls and their complex inner lives was incredibly effective.

Visit Tessa Wegert's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Dead Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Season.

Q&A with Tessa Wegert.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Wind.

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (April 2022).

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (December 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Devils at the Door.

The Page 69 Test: The Coldest Case.

--Marshal Zeringue

R.T. Ester

Originally from Nigeria, R.T. Ester moved to the United States in 1998 and, catching the creative bug early on, studied art with a focus on design. While working full time as a graphic designer, he began to write speculative fiction in his spare time and, since then, has had stories published in Interzone and Clarkesworld.

Ester's new novel is The Ganymedan.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Ester's reply:

I started a novel recently called Extremophile by Ian Green. It's one whose very bold cover design I had been captivated by for months. So far, I've enjoyed the book's vision of a near-future London that sort of reminds me of the gritty, neon-streaked streets that make up much of the Night City setting of William Gibson's Neuromancer. It's also written in a prose style that doesn't use dialog markers and often has me feeling like a fly on a wall to the story's proceedings, which is something I generally enjoy when I read books in the cyberpunk genre. There are times when I prefer a 'guided tour' when I'm reading, but this book has such a familiar setting from so many other stories in the genre that it almost made no sense not to try something bold and maybe even new. I would say it delivers on both. It's also a very layered story about eco-terrorism and biohacking, and the central characters are as captivating as you would find in some of the genre's most memorable examples.

Visit R.T. Ester's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards has been described by Richard Osman as "a true master of British crime writing." His novels include the eight Lake District Mysteries and four books featuring Rachel Savernake, including the Dagger-nominated The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge. He is also the author of two multi-award-winning histories of crime fiction, The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder. He has received three Daggers, including the CWA Diamond Dagger (the highest honour in UK crime writing) and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. He has received four lifetime achievement awards: for his fiction, short fiction, non-fiction, and scholarship. He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics and since 2015 has been President of the Detection Club.

Edwards's newest novel is Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

I read all the time, and much of my reading is crime fiction, because that is what I love. I also need to research books for the British Library Crime Classics series of reprints, for which I’m the consultant. Because I’ve been heavily involved with writing and then promoting Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife for the past two years, I’ve read a huge number of detective stories with a puzzle element of one kind or another. Lately I’ve become rather obsessed with the books of a Scottish writer called D.M. Devine, who also wrote as Dominic Devine. He wrote in the 1960s and 1970s and he was very good at writing traditional mysteries with an ingenious puzzle to be solved. Agatha Christie was a fan of his work, but although his serial killer mystery The Fifth Cord was filmed, as an Italian giallo, he is now more or less forgotten. This is partly because he wrote standalone mysteries rather than a series, and also partly because the type of puzzle he specialised in was rather unfashionable in those days. I recently read another serial killer mystery of his, Three Green Bottles, and it was excellent – tense, clever, and well-characterised.

Learn more about the book and author at Martin Edwards’s website.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards (April 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Frozen Shroud.

The Page 69 Test: Dancing for the Hangman.

The Page 99 Test: The Arsenic Labyrinth.

The Page 99 Test: Waterloo Sunset.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Finley Turner

Finley Turner is a thriller writer. Initially convinced she wanted to be a professor, she got her master's in religious studies at Wake Forest University, focusing on new religious movements, cults, and religious violence. During her program, she applied for a student position in the university library and quickly realized she would rather be an academic librarian than be at the front of a classroom teaching. She worked as an archivist at Wake Forest University for six years after getting her master's in library and information science from UNC Greensboro. She now writes and parents full time.

Turner's new novel is The Tarot Reader.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I'm currently reading The First Witch of Boston by Andrea Catalano and listening to Ruth Ware's newest novel The Woman in Suite 11. In the fall months, especially as Halloween approaches, I always love to read something witchy. What I'm loving about The First Witch of Boston so far is its critique of misogyny in the late 1600s. The woman in question is a talented healer with a loose tongue and a passion for life. These factors, along with her success as a local healer make her an easy target for accusations of witchcraft. Social commentary makes a good story even better and although I'm only halfway through, I'm enjoying myself!

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a huge Ruth Ware fan. I buy all her books without even reading the description and as always, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. It feels fairly rare for thrillers to be a part of a series, so I'm always intrigued to see where authors take the story for a follow-up. For those that don't know, The Woman in Suite 11 is a sequel to The Woman in Cabin 10 and I’m loving seeing the character later in her life, married with children, yet still finding herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Some things never change!

Visit Finley Turner's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party.

Q&A with Finley Turner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ian Chorão

Ian Chorão is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice in Brooklyn, New York. He lives with his wife, who is a filmmaker and professor; they have two children.

Chorão's new novel, When We Talk to the Dead, is his first book of horror.

Like his main character, Chorão appreciates that the space between feeling and creation, reality and imagination is often ambiguous at best.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

I'm reading three books at the moment.

The Shining by Stephen King. I know, strange that I've never read it. Usually my experience is seeing a movie of a book I love, but this is the reverse--I know the movie by heart, so I have to actively push it out of my head, so I can read the actual book. What is really great about it is how down to earth the characters and tone of the story are. Planting the supernatural in a very naturalistic setting makes the impact of the horror so much more intense. And I love how much he enjoys giving space to the inner lives of all his characters.

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie. Being a Beatle fanatic, I promised myself I wouldn't read another book about the Beatles, but this one is different. For the fully indoctrinated, there might not be new factual revelations, but this book is about the emotional psychology between these two men and how it was not just their talent but their relationship and their intense connection that forged the greatest catalog of popular songs. The love they had for one another was on par with a dizzying romantic love. And as happens with love, there were all the other emotions, hurt, anger, envy, but always, always returning to a commitment and companionship and trust that worked like a fortress, protecting and bringing out each others' best parts.

The Unfolding by A.M. Homes. Like reading The Plague during Covid, reading Home's book, which follows the intense negative backlash to Obama's win, and watching like a fly on the wall, how that anger and fear organizes the right, might seem like a hard pill in these times. But actually it has the opposite effect. She nestles the macro planning of the powerful men looking to yank back the power they feel is theirs inside a family drama, where even the most powerful are shown to be painfully mortal. And how she writes dialogue, fast, economical, sharp, and her humor, and her delight in the dark absurd venture that is being a human, it just leaves you breathless.

Follow Ian Chorão on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Delany lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Delany's new novel is O, Deadly Night: A Year-Round Christmas Mystery.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Delany's reply:

I rarely read a book twice, even one I’ve enjoyed enormously. But somehow this fall I found myself returning to a couple of old favourites.

Keeping Watch by Laurie R King came out originally in 2003 and it had an enormous impact on me at the time. I decided to re-read it again and found it just as powerful as on first reading. King is best known for her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books, but she’s written quite a few others as well. This is now called Book 2 of a series, but it’s much more of a standalone. The protagonist is a Vietnam War vet, traumatised by an atrocity he took part in, and all these years later still trying to find redemption. It deals with the trauma of war, what survivors have to deal with, and how they try to rebuild shattered lives. Very moving and highly recommended.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (translated from the Spanish). This is the first book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, set in Barcelona in the 1920s to 50s. Moody and atmospheric, it’s about the power of books to transform lives. It’s also a powerful message about what it’s like for ordinary, genuinely good, people living under Fascism. The entire collection is highly recommended.

A new book pick was Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch. I’ve been reading the Rivers of London series from the beginning. They’re about a wizard police officer in London, his colleagues, and mentor. By this book he’s married to a River Goddess (yes). The books are fun and clever, as is the world of magic existing alongside ours created by Aaronovitch.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (July 2025).

The Page 69 Test: Tea with Jam & Dread.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.W. Buffa

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Here is Buffa's take on "The Use And Abuse Of History" by Friedrich Nietzsche:

Everyone now understands that nothing in the past was what it should have been. No one in the past, none of those whose names are still remembered, measured up, fully measured up, to what we today understand are the standards all decent, right thinking people should meet. Washington and Jefferson, all the others who were once given credit for their commitment to the cause of freedom, either owned slaves themselves or did nothing to bring slavery to an end. History, especially American history, the history that was taught to children in schools and to everyone else in Fourth of July orations, was, if not a conscious lie, a failure to see things as they really were.

What everyone now understands, what everyone now thinks he knows, is not, surprising as it may seem, a new discovery, an original insight of the present age; it is what Friedrich Nietzsche went to war against a hundred fifty years ago. In "The Use And Abuse Of History," the second of four essays known collectively as Thoughts Out Of Season, Nietzsche complained about “unreflective people who write as historians in the naive faith that, according to all popular opinions, their age is right, and that to write in conformity with this age amounts to exactly the same thing as being just.” It is worse than that; the historians want more than to criticize, they want to condemn. “Measuring past opinions and deeds according to the widespread opinions of the present moment is what these naive historians call ‘objectivity.’ It is there that they discover the cannons of all truth; their aim is to force the past to fit the mold of their fashionable triviality.” And as to the worth of these historians, the worth, we must add, of our own over-confident historians, he remarks, “every man’s vanity is directly proportional to his lack of intelligence.” They believe, mistakenly, that, in the present, they stand higher than those in the past, when, instead, they “merely come after them.”

The belief that the present is in all important respects superior to the past would once have been thought a mark of ignorance. The Greeks, the Romans, the Bible, spoke, if in different ways, of a golden age, a time in the past from which there had been, not just a decline, but a departure so great that, looking back, the loss was nothing less than tragic, and history, if it was worth reading at all, nothing more than failed attempts to recapture, reclaim, something of what had once been achieved. The Roman historian, Tacitus, writing in the second century about the sequence of Roman emperors from the death of Augustus to the death of the last of the Caesars, remarked that in the rebellions and civil wars that had taken place the actual course of events was more often than not “dictated by chance,” as if this were a fact too obvious to require any further explanation.

The belief in the superiority of the past, that what was older was better, that what was most ancient deserved not only respect but reverence, first began to be doubted in the seventeenth century when Thomas Hobbes, in a sentence that has become as famous, and perhaps even more famous, than anything written by Greek or Roman writers, described the earliest human beings as living no better than beasts, their lives, “nasty, brutish, solitary and short.” A century later, Rousseau, insisted that, instead of an unchanging nature, man was able to become what he wanted to be, that the human being was perfectible. The French Revolution, inspired by what Rousseau had written, seemed to prove that what he had written was true. Everyone, or almost everyone, now agreed that the rights of man, the equal right to life and liberty, were the basis of legitimate government and the only praiseworthy way of life. The perfectibility of man had been achieved.

But if that were true, Hegel argued at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the past had been nothing more than stages of development. The suffering, the wars, the conflicts and violence, the rise and fall of empires, were nothing but the means by which the human race could, finally, obtain knowledge of itself, and everyone could live in freedom, protected by a powerful but benevolent state. History had reached its long sought end, because, with Hegel, history now understood itself. Nietzsche, at the end of the nineteenth century, thought this nothing short of insanity. History had with Hegel become “a compendium of factual immorality,” in which the development of the world is seen “as occurring for the everyday utility of the modern human being.” Worse yet, with Darwin following Hegel, “the history of humanity is merely the continuation of the history of animals and plants.” Taught all this, modern man looks “with amazement on the miracle” of “the distance traveled,” and tells himself: “We have reached our goal; we are the goal; we are nature perfected. Overproud Europeans of the nineteenth century you are stark raving mad!”

Nietzsche was serious. It was madness to believe, as much of the world believed, and still believes, that the present is the desired culmination of everything that has happened in the past. “In truth, the belief that one is the late born offspring of prior ages is paralyzing and upsetting, but it must seem horrible and destructive when one day, in a brazen inversion, such a belief deifies this late born offspring as the true meaning and purpose of all previous historical events; when his knowing wretchedness is identified with the culmination of world history.”

What, precisely, is the reason - if there is a reason - for the “wretchedness” of the “late born offspring,” i.e. the contemporary man, what Nietzsche would later call “the last man?” He has become an abstraction, his instincts expelled by history, history as taught by Hegel and the historians who came after him, history that “takes the great drives of the masses to be what is important and paramount,” and views all great men “merely as their clearest expression, as if they were bubbles that become visible on the surface of the flood.” The result is that everyone disguises himself behind a mask of the cultivated man, “the scholar, the poet, the statesman,” all of them together “anxiously disguised universal human beings.” There is reason to doubt whether they are human beings at all, or only “merely machines who think, write, and speak,” spectators with an “acquired knowledge that has no outward effect, of learning that fails to become life.” Everyone exists in a state of universal haste and a “universal addiction to comfort.” We moderns “have nothing that we have drawn from ourselves alone; we become something worthy of attention - namely, walking encyclopedias….”

The remedy, the way to escape the “paralyzing education spell cast upon the present age,” is to study the history, and write the history, of “great men,” what Nietzsche calls “monumental history.” Unlike antiquarian history, which finds everything, even the smallest details, interesting about the past; or critical history, which condemns everything that does not meet the standards, however misinformed, of the present; monumental history is concerned with what is great: the life, the “beautiful life,” of those fortunate few who did not believe that simply staying alive was the most important thing. This is the kind of history that should be read by those who need teachers and examples that cannot be found among their contemporaries or in the present age. Nietzsche himself can be explained - he explains himself - as having found what he needed in what had been done, and what had been written, in the past, the very distant past: “it is only to the extent that I am a student of more ancient times - above all, of ancient Greece - that I, as child of our times have had such unfashionable experiences.”

The study of ancient times, the study of Greek history and Greek philosophy, makes it possible - and is perhaps the only thing that can do this - to break with the present and all its false assumptions. Instead of the last man who believes that the highest level of civilization is physical comfort and something to entertain him in the arid emptiness of his meaningless existence - the last man who, Nietzsche insists, is contemptible precisely because he does not know how contemptible he has become - the example of men and women who did great things in the past will cause at least a few others to attempt something great themselves. “With a hundred such unmodernly educated human beings - that is, human beings who have matured and grown accustomed to the heroic - the entire noisy sham cultivation of this age could now be silenced once and for all. -” It has happened before, a rebirth of ancient learning, and with it, a return to the ancient understanding of what human excellence really means. “Suppose someone believed that no more than one hundred productive human beings, educated and working in the same spirit, would be needed to put an end to the cultivatedness that has just now become fashionable in Germany; would he not be strengthened by the recognition that the culture of the Renaissance was borne on the shoulders of just such a band of one hundred men?”

The serious study of history, the history of what great men have done, proves for Nietzsche that men can do great things again. History proves that history has not come to an end; history proves Hegel wrong. But if history does not end with Hegel, neither does it end with Darwin. For Hegel, and the historians who followed him, everything is derived from what went before and becomes, in its turn, the basis for everything that comes after; everything in the past is provisional. Marx, following Hegel, agreed that history comes to an end. Man becomes what he called the ‘species’ animal, able to do, and to be, everything - a hunter for a fisherman in the afternoon, a literary critic in the evening. This is Nietzsche’s last man, the human being with no aspirations to anything higher than himself, content with what he is, convinced that there is nothing beyond himself. Hegel and Marx trace human history from the earliest human beings, unprotected in a state of nature, to the civilization of the industrial age. Darwin traced the development of the human being from its origin as a species. But anyone who takes Darwin seriously has to admit that by its own logic evolution does not stop with the human being. There has to be something higher than the human being, something beyond the last man, something Nietzsche called the “superman.” The last man is not last after all; he is only a brief transition, whose only importance is as the material from which the superman, who has both the knowledge and the will, will create something better.

This was Nietzsche’s hope, a hope based on what from his unsurpassed understanding of Greek philosophy he believed human beings could become again, a hope that vanished when he, and the world around him, descended into madness. The last man now dreams of an even more comfortable existence, spared from all effort by the thoughtless guidance of an artificial intelligence that does not, because it cannot, recognize either human excellence or the mystery of human existence. The need for monumental history has never been more urgent.

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen S. Allen

Kathleen S. Allen is a young adult writer of gothic horror, historical, fantasy, and speculative fiction. She has published poems, short stories, novellas, and novels. She prefers dark to light, salty to sweet, and tea to coffee. She is a fan of K-Pop, classic rock, and British detective shows. She loves gray, foggy, cool, rainy days; unfortunately she lives in Los Angeles which is usually sunny and warm.

Allen's new novel is The Resurrectionist.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Allen's reply:

I am currently reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. I’ve read all her books so she’s an automatic buy for me. I started with Babel and was intrigued by the history she wove into her story. I then read the three books in The Poppy War series, again the history intrigued me.

I’m a fan of historical fiction and I especially like Asian history/mythology so picking up Katabasis was an easy decision for me. She uses quite a lot of historical references in Katabasis, which I enjoy. Her writing can be dense at times but it’s worth it to plough through it. As a former professor I can appreciate the academic atmosphere she weaves into her stories. Do I recommend this book? I do!

Visit Kathleen S. Allen's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Resurrectionist.

My Book, The Movie: The Resurrectionist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Randee Dawn

Randee Dawn is a Brooklyn-based author and journalist who writes speculative fiction at night and entertainment and lifestyle stories during the day for publications like the New York Times, NBCNews.com, Variety, The Los Angeles Times, and Emmy Magazine. Her debut novel, Tune in Tomorrow, was published by Solaris. Publishers Weekly said of Tune in Tomorrow: "Dawn balances over-the-top drama and comedy with genuine intrigue to create a fun story with plenty of heart." Lightspeed praised it as "an excellent read if you're looking for something to make you smile... well worth your time."

Dawn's new novel is Leave No Trace.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Dawn's reply:

I have several stacks or shelves of to-be-read material, all of which has good intentions behind it – but much of which gathers dust. I am often attracted by the latest shiny new acquisition, but I also derive great pleasure from finally getting to that thing I've been staring at longingly for so long. One of these days, N.K. Jemisin and your Broken Earth trilogy, one of these days!

All of which means there's rarely rhyme or reason to what I pick up – but here are the last several titles I've torn (not literally! Don't tear books!) through.

The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

This legend of the horror genre had mostly passed me by until I attended a panel at ArmadilloCon (in Austin, TX) in which friends, fans and Lansdale's literary son talked about what made his stories so visceral, scary, and often funny. (Among many other things, Lansdale is the author of the short story "Bubba Ho Tep," about an old man who may just be Elvis battling a mummy.) The book is not for the squeamish; Lansdale goes there and a few steps beyond in ways that made me chuckle darkly, but might not be dinner reading for others. I picked up this book right after the panel in the dealer's room of the convention, and finished it up just a few weeks later, delighted at having found a new (to me) author whose work I wanted to chase down more of.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Picoult is important, in that she gets big ideas and moral quandaries into mass-market novels that are widely read, and I applaud her for that. But this one, oh, man, this one … in essence, it's a tale of elephant behavior, grieving rituals and mother-child bonding. Oh, and there's also a human daughter looking for the mother she believes abandoned her, a disenchanted former cop, a failed psychic (or is she) and a massive twist at the end you won't see coming unless you think throughout the whole thing, this teenage daughter does not behave like a 13 year old at all. Oh, and elephants. Did I mention the elephants? So many elephants. Maybe too many elephants. I'm fairly sure I picked this one up for free from a giveaway pile, but I don't recall where.

The Mind Worms by Nicholas Kaufmann

Kaufmann's a friend, so I picked this up from him when he read at a reading series I run in New York City called Brooklyn Books & Booze. This is the third in his trilogy of Dr. Laura Powell books (all of which are worth reading), and all of which involve in some form or the other corporations infecting locals with their toxins. People die in horrible ways, but it's also a mystery – how will the curious coroner Dr. Powell (who also has the worst luck in the world) figure out this particular disaster?

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

When my friend Lynda tells me "this one's a rough ride" in a bookstore as we pass a book, I know it's the one for me. In a futuristic world where animals develop a transmissible virus that prevents them being eaten, it's vegetarian/vegan heaven! Except, it's not: Human desire for flesh means cannibalism is not only fashionable, it's trendy. I'd like to think the world where we decide that eating people (and raising them in herds, as well as hunting and experimenting on them) is more sensible than just becoming vegans is too awfully fanciful to happen, but I live in this world, right now, where people are now deciding that established, verifiable, effective science experiments now need to be tried all over again, like vaccines and fluoride in the water and pasteurization. A rough ride, indeed.

If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw

A simple premise – what if a genii (or djinn) set up a shop in a mall to dispense wishes (at a reasonable price)? It's much harder than you'd think to get people what they wish, as it turns out, even when he has a helper in 17-year-old Alex, who has one wish of her own: To get out of town and go to college. Auston, who also read with us at Brooklyn Books & Booze, was kind enough to hand me an advanced reading copy of this when we chatted at WorldCon in Seattle in 2025, and I love finding a truly funny author and premise. Not a lot of books make me laugh aloud (even if I enjoy them) and this one has at least one gag that did exactly that.

Visit Randee Dawn's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tune in Tomorrow.

Q&A with Randee Dawn.

My Book, The Movie: Tune in Tomorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue