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As I recently mentioned, Donis Casey will be at the Poisoned Pen on Saturday, February 24 at 2 PM, joining fellow authors Dennis Palumbo and Priscilla Royal. Casey is the author of the Alafair Tucker mysteries. Her latest one is Forty Dead Men.

Signed copies of Forty Dead Men are available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2F9BIwo

Here’s the description of the book.

Some people who have experienced a shocking, dangerous, or terrifying event develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is recognized today as a debilitating but potentially treatable mental health condition. Military veterans are a vulnerable group. But PTSD can deliver a knockout blow to anyone, as the remarkable unfolding of the tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, Forty Dead Men, shows.

World War I is over. Alafair is overjoyed that her elder son, George Washington Tucker, has finally returned home from the battlefields of France. Yet she is the only one in the family who senses that he has somehow changed.

Gee Dub moves back into his old bunkhouse quarters, but he’s restless and spends his days roaming. One rainy day while out riding he spies a woman trudging along the country road. She’s thoroughly skittish and rejects his help. So Gee Dub cannily rides for home to enlist his mother in offering the exhausted traveler shelter.

Once made comfortable at the Tucker farm, Holly Johnson reveals she’s forged her way from Maine to Oklahoma in hopes of finding the soldier she married before he shipped to France. At the war’s end, Daniel Johnson disappeared without a trace. It’s been months. Is he alive? Is she a widow?

Holly is following her only lead – that Dan has connected with his parents who live yonder in Okmulgee. Gee Dub, desperate for some kind of mission, resolves to shepherd Holly through her quest although the prickly young woman spurns any aid. Meanwhile, Alafair has discovered that Gee Dub sleeps with two cartridge boxes under his pillow – boxes containing twenty “dead men” each. The boxes are empty, save for one bullet. She recognizes in Gee Dub and Holly that not all war wounds are physical.

Then Holly’s missing husband turns up, shot dead. Gee Dub is arrested on suspicion of murder, and the entire extended Tucker family rallies to his defense. He says he had no reason to do it, but the solitary bullet under Gee Dub’s pillow is gone. Regardless, be he guilty or innocent, his mother will travel any distance and go to any lengths to keep him out of prison.

*****

Michael Barson recently interviewed Donis Casey for Bookreporter.com.

Here’s a teaser.

“Question: FORTY DEAD MEN is your 10th Alafair Tucker novel. When you wrote the first book in the series, THE OLD BUZZARD HAD IT COMING, did you ever foresee that you would reach 10 books, and counting?”

“Donis Casey: When I created Alafair and her family, it seemed natural that each book in the series be based around one of Alafair’s nine (and later, 10) children, so I started out with the idea of writing 10 novels. I’m lucky that I’ve had the opportunity to carry on with the series as long as I have. I love historical novels and novels set in exotic locations, because when I read, I like to go to a place and live there for a while. I wanted to write a series of historical mysteries that contained all the things I love to read myself. I wanted the books to have a great deal of humanity, a warm central character, a detailed evocation of the time and place. But in order to make the world as real as I could, I “wrote what I know” — my own family background. Many of the details of farm life, such as using kerosene-soaked corn cobs to start a fire, I learned from my mother, who grew up on a subsistence farm in Oklahoma during the Depression. The characters began as composites of family members, but they have become their own people.

“FORTY DEAD MEN is the 10th book in the series, and now we’ve reached the end of the 1910s. But I can see that there is more of the Tuckers’ story to be told. All kinds of wild things happened in the 1920s that I could use as a basis for a rollicking mystery, so there will be more Alafair Tucker novels in the offing.”

*****

If you want to read the rest of Barson’s interview with Donis Casey, you can find it here. https://bit.ly/2EHCtB2

Dennis Palumbo will join fellow authors Donis Casey and Priscilla Royal at the Poisoned Pen on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 2 PM. Palumbo will be signing his fifth Daniel Rinaldi mystery, Head Wounds. Can’t make it? You can still order a signed copy. https://bit.ly/2ETsAQ5

For now, I’m going to skip the description. Instead, I want to turn the blog over to Dennis Palumbo. He has a fascinating piece to share with us.

A DARK MIRROR: Crime Fiction As a Reflection of Society by Dennis Palumbo

                                        
The author Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of the Vanities) once said that the purpose of fiction was, among other things, to chronicle a society’s “status details.” In other words, to give the reader a felt sense of the social, cultural and political realities of the world the novel portrays.

Usually, this task has been seen as primarily the province of the “literary” novel, such as Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, or Updike’s “Rabbit” novels. But I believe that, in a similar manner, the best crime fiction has been exploring and illuminating the contours of American society for years.

For example, to get a sense of how Los Angeles worked in the 30’s and 40’s—how money and power actually operated in the lives of both the privileged and the desperate —you need only read Raymond Chandler. The “mean streets” that private eye Phillip Marlowe walked took the reader from the monied mansions of robber barons to the back alleys of two-bit hustlers and the chumps they made their prey.

Just as, fifty years later, nobody provides a clearer view of contemporary L.A. than Michael Connelly, particularly with his Harry Bosch novels. From the O.J. trial to the Ramparts police scandal, from the self-inflicted woes of the wealthy and influential to the municipal response to torrential rains, Connelly uses his dogged police detective to dissect life in the City of Angels.

For a wry, amused and knowledgeable look at Boston society, high and low, you’ll find few better guides than the late Robert B. Parker’s character Spenser. Or equally few authors who capture the self-delusions and broken-hearted dreams of petty criminals as well as Elmore Leonard. And I can’t think of a writer who better reveals the dark, noirish heart of the ostensibly laid-back surfer scene than Kem Nunn.

My point is, great crime fiction offers what no sociology text can provide. To feel the living, breathing essence of New Orleans, both pre- and post-Katrina, check out the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke. In similar fashion, Tony Hillerman brought the Native Americans of the modern Southwest to life in his novels about Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. Just as Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski gave fictional heft to the idea of a strong female protagonist, and Walter Mosley’s “Easy” Rawlins gave us perhaps our most well-known African-American one. Since its inception as a genre, crime fiction has both mirrored and commented on society’s often-tumultuous change. In short, it told the truth about it.

So forget FrontLine. If you want to get the straight dope about the thriving gun trade going on along the border between the US and Mexico, look no further than T. Jefferson Parker’s thriller of a few years back, Iron River. 
If you want to know what it’s really like to be a cop, read Joseph Wambaugh. If you want to hear the authentic street rhythms of New York’s Lower East Side, read Richard Price.

What all these fine crime novelists have in common is their use of suspense and intricate plots to underscore the conflict among vivid, fully-realized characters; and, moreover, how that conflict is inevitably intensified by the social context these fictional men and women inhabit. Utilizing the high stakes and narrative drive of crime fiction, these writers demonstrate how issues of class and status, and the yearning to re-invent oneself, continue to define the American character.

In the case of my own Daniel Rinaldi series, I use the exploits of my intrepid psychologist and trauma expert to illustrate a number of contemporary issues, not least of which is the current state of mental health treatment in America. Moreover, as a consultant to the Pittsburgh Police, Rinaldi treats people traumatized by violent crime—those who’ve survived a kidnapping, sexual assault or armed robbery, but still suffer the after-effects of their experience. Symptoms we associate with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As noted psychoanalyst Robert Stolorow has pointed out, we live now in an Age of Trauma, exposed almost daily to the threat of pandemics, natural disasters, terrorism—and, at the most personal level, violent crime. As I’ve tried to demonstrate in the five Rinaldi books published so far, the dedicated, determined and admittedly head-strong psychologist will never lack for patients.

Then there’s the city of Pittsburgh itself, which has undergone a startling transformation in the past two decades, morphing from a blue collar, industrial powerhouse into a white collar hub of technology and state-of-the-art medicine. Or, as I like to term it, a shot-and-a-beer town that’s collided with the Information Age. Since Rinaldi was born into a blue collar world, yet through ambition and schooling became a jacket-and-tie professional, he—like the city itself—has a foot in both Pittsburgh’s storied past and gentrified present..

However, in the latest Rinaldi thriller, Head Wounds, it’s Daniel’s personal past that reaches out to torment his present. Launching an intense, terrifying cat-and-mouse game with an obsessed killer who threatens not only the psychologist’s own life but that of those closest to him.  During the course of these events, the reader encounters many of the dangers associated with our current computer technology, highlighting issues as pertinent as Internet privacy and the limits of personal security, as well as the challenge to a rational mind when faced with an irrational one.  

Which brings me back to my point: no genre of fiction illuminates the “status details” of our evolving, conflicted society better than crime fiction. Where and how that conflict is played out, and how realistically it’s depicted, determines how powerfully the novel affects us. 

In a line stretching from Dashiel Hammett to Dennis Lehane, from James M. Cain to George Pellicanos, from Ed McBain to Gillian Flynn, the best crime fiction—like all great fiction, period—shows us who we are. 

                                                                  END

BIO:

Dennis Palumbo is a former screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), now a licensed psychotherapist in private practice and author of the Daniel Rinaldi mysteries. For info, please visit www.dennispalumbo.com.

Steven Saylor appears at The Poisoned Pen tonight (February 20) at 7 PM to discuss The Throne of Caesar. It’s the Hot Book of the Week. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2FflWS7

It comes with a signed bookmark designed by Saylor to commemorate the conclusion of the Gordianus the Finder series.

Here’s the summary of The Throne of Caesar.

“What a marvel!…Saylor’s masterful storytelling puts you right there, wonderstruck and wide-eyed. Deliciously immersive, captivating entertainment from a justly celebrated writer.” —Margaret George

In The Throne of Caesar, award-winning mystery author Steven Saylor turns to the most famous murder in history:It’s Rome, 44 B.C., and the Ides of March are approaching.

Julius Caesar, appointed dictator for life by the Roman Senate, has pardoned his remaining enemies and rewarded his friends. Now Caesar is preparing to leave Rome with his legions to wage a war of conquest against the Parthian Empire. But he has a few more things to do before he goes.

Gordianus the Finder, after decades of investigating crimes and murders involving the powerful, has been raised to Equestrian rank and has firmly and finally decided to retire. But on the morning of March 10th, he’s first summoned to meet with Cicero and then with Caesar himself. Both have the same request of Gordianus—keep your ear to the ground, ask around, and find out if there are any conspiracies against Caesar’s life. And Caesar has one other matter of vital importance to discuss.Gordianus’s adopted son Meto has long been one of Caesar’s closest confidants. To honor Meto, Caesar plans to bestow on Gordianus an honor which will change not only his life but the destiny of his entire family. It will happen when the Senate next convenes on the 15th of March.

Gordianus must dust off his old skills and see what plots against Julius Caesar, if any, he can uncover. But more than one conspiracy is afoot. The Ides of March is fast approaching and at least one murder is inevitable.

Join Joanne Fluke at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, Feb. 27 at 7 PM to celebrate the release of her 22nd Hannah Swenson mystery, Raspberry Danish Murder. You can pre-order signed copies at the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2o5JYqA

In Fluke’s books, baking goes hand-in-hand with the mysteries. She has a new series of videos out to go with this book.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0O6aKcXmIs&w=560&h=315]

And, here’s the link on Joanne Fluke’s website if the video doesn’t take you to the next in the series. https://bit.ly/2GdNc2L

*****

Here’s the summary of Raspberry Danish Murder.

Thanksgiving has a way of thawing the frostiest hearts in Lake Eden. But that won’t be happening for newlywed Hannah Swensen Barton—not after her husband suddenly disappears . . .

Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving-themed treats while endless holiday orders pour into The Cookie Jar. Hannah even introduces a raspberry Danish pastry to the menu, and P.K., her husband’s assistant at KCOW-TV, will be one of the first to sample it. But instead of taking a bite, P.K., who is driving Ross’s car and using his desk at work, is murdered. Was someone plotting against P.K. all along or did Ross dodge a deadly dose of sweet revenge? Hannah will have to quickly sift through a cornucopia of clues and suspects to stop a killer from bringing another murder to the table . . .

Well, Mark Greaney really isn’t the “Agent in Place”. That’s the name of the seventh book in Greaney’s Gray Man series. He’ll be here Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 7 PM to talk about that international thriller, Agent in Place. You can pre-order your signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2o92azg

Here’s the summary.

The Gray Man is back in another nonstop international thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels

Fresh off his first mission back with the CIA, Court Gentry secures what seems like a cut-and-dried contract job: A group of expats in Paris hires him to kidnap the mistress of Syrian dictator Ahmed Azzam to get intel that could destabilize Azzam’s regime.

Court delivers Bianca Medina to the rebels, but his job doesn’t end there. She soon reveals that she has given birth to a son, the only heir to Azzam’s rule–and a potent threat to the Syrian president’s powerful wife.

Now, to get Bianca’s cooperation, Court must bring her son out of Syria alive. With the clock ticking on Bianca’s life, he goes off the grid in a free-fire zone in the Middle East–and winds up in the right place at the right time to take a shot at bringing one of the most brutal dictatorships on earth to a close…

*****

As an additional teaser, here’s a link to a terrific recent interview with Greaney in “The Real Book Spy”. https://bit.ly/2F4lBl7

Award-winning author Brad Parks will be at The Poisoned Pen on Wednesday, March 7 at 7 PM, on book tour for his latest thriller, Closer Than You Know. Release date is March 6. You can pre-order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2GcYCUm

Here’s the summary.

Brad Parks delivers another riveting, emotionally powerful stand-alone domestic suspense thriller perfect for fans of The Couple Next Door and What She Knew.

Disaster, Melanie Barrick was once told, is always closer than you know.

It was a lesson she learned the hard way growing up in the constant upheaval of foster care. But now that she’s survived into adulthood–with a loving husband, a steady job, and a beautiful baby boy named Alex–she thought that turmoil was behind her.

Until one Tuesday evening when she goes to pick up Alex from childcare only to discover he’s been removed by Social Services. And no one will say why. It’s a terrifying scenario for any parent, but doubly so for Melanie, who knows the unintended horrors of what everyone coldly calls “the system.”

Her nightmare mushrooms when she arrives home to learn her house has been raided by sheriff’s deputies, who have found enough cocaine to send Melanie to prison for years. The evidence against her is overwhelming, and if Melanie can’t prove her innocence, she’ll lose Alex forever.

Meanwhile, assistant commonwealth’s attorney Amy Kaye–who has been assigned Melanie’s case–has her own troubles. She’s been dogged by a cold case no one wants her to pursue: a serial rapist who has avoided detection by wearing a mask and whispering his commands. Over the years, he has victimized dozens of women.

Including Melanie. Yet now her attacker might be the key to her salvation . . . or her undoing.

*****

What’s better than a summary? Hearing the author present a teaser. Here’s Brad Parks reading the first chapter of Closer Than You Know.

https://www.facebook.com/BradParksBooks/videos/10156052771435629/

You might want to mark your calendar now for March 7. It’s “closer than you know”.

Walter Mosley, author of Down the River Unto the Sea, will be at The Poisoned Penn on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 7 PM to discuss his latest book. Signed copies can be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2EpZSHb

Here’s the summary of the book.

“Mosley writes with great power here about themes that have permeated his work: institutional racism, political corruption, and the ways that both of these issues affect not only society at large but also the inner lives of individual men and women.” —Booklist (starred review)

Matt Haig, author of How to Stop Time, just appeared at The Poisoned Pen for the first time. You might want to pick up a copy now because it has already been optioned for a movie with Benedict Cumberbatch supposed to star and be the executive producer. Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2nZA76a

You can watch Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, interview Haig on Facebook. It’s a fascinating interview.

https://www.facebook.com/238297496213972/videos/1705899049453802/

Here’s the summary of How to Stop Time.

“The first rule is that you don’t fall in love,’ he said… “˜There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.'”

“A quirky romcom dusted with philosophical observations….A delightfully witty…poignant novel.” —The Washington Post

“Haig’s novel offers a wry, intriguing meditation on time and an eternal human challenge: how to relinquish the past and live fully in the present.” —People

Named one of the most anticipated books of 2018 by Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, HelloGiggles, and Bustle.

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history–performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher–the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city’s history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society’s watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can’t have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages – and for the ages – about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.

*****

Matt Haig is the author of number of fiction and nonfiction book for children and adults. You can learn more about him on his website, www.matthaig.com.

In fact, one of his children’s books, written for his son, is A Boy Called Christmas. The American Library Association just named that book as an Odyssey Honor Audiobook. It was narrated by Stephen Fry.

*****

Just a couple photos taken during the book signing, Matt Haig with fans.

Bill Crider died on Monday, Feb. 12. His brother, Cox Robert Crider made the announcement. “Cox Robert Crider: My brother, Bill Crider, passed away this evening at 6:52 PM CST, Monday February 12, 2018. It was a peaceful end to a strong body and intellectual mind. Services pending and will be announced later.”

Crider, the award-winning author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries, wrote other mysteries as well as westerns, horror novels, and children’s books. On his blog, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine, he discussed music, classic mysteries and science fiction, and even ads. He brought many blogs to the attention of the mystery community in his column, “Blog Bytes” for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

When I ran a series about favorite Christmas mysteries, Bill was the first author to say he’d write a piece. His Dec. 1, 2016 column featured Timothy Hallinan’s Fields As They Lay. On July 24, 2017, we celebrated the August release of Bill’s 24th Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery, Dead, To Begin With.

Bill Crider was always willing to help a blogger or fellow writer. That kindness is just one reason the mystery community mourns the loss of another author.

Rest in Peace, Bill Crider.

The Reading List Council has announced the 2018 selections of the Reading List, an annual best-of list comprising eight different fiction genres for adult readers. A shortlist of honor titles was also announced. The list was announced during the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting held in Denver.

Each category consists of a winning title, read alikes for those who enjoyed the winning title, and the shortlist of honor titles. Check for these books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

The 2018 selections are:

Adrenaline

Winner
“Fierce Kingdom” by Gin Phillips. Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Joan and her four-year-old son, Lincoln, are enjoying an afternoon outing at the zoo when the unthinkable happens”“a mass shooting. Trapped and in tremendous danger, Joan must rely on her bravery and survival instincts to make it out alive. This terrifyingly plausible thriller unfolds in real time.

Read alikes
“Lockdown” by Laurie R. King.
“The Quality of Silence” by Rosamund Lupton.
“This Is Where it Ends” by Marieke Nijkamp.

Short List
“The Marsh King’s Daughter: A Novel” by Karen Dionne. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
“She Rides Shotgun: A Novel” by Jordan Harper. Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Lola: A Novel” by Melissa Scrivner Love. Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.
“The Force: A Novel” by Don Winslow. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Fantasy

Winner
“Down Among the Sticks and Bones” by Seanan McGuire. A Tor.com Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates.

Twin sisters Jack and Jill discover a portal that leads them to the Moors, a dark and unsettling world that reveals their true selves. But will their conflicting desires tear them apart?

Read alikes
“The Book of Lost Things” by John Connolly
“The Magicians” by Lev Grossman
“Birthright” by Joshua Williamson (graphic novels)

Short List
“Winter Tide” by Ruthanna Emrys. A Tor.com Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates.
“Passing Strange” by Ellen Klages. A Tor.com Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates.
“The Witches of New York: A Novel” by Ami McKay. Harper Perennial.
“A Gathering of Ravens: A Novel” by Scott Oden. Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

Historical Fiction

Winner
“The Half-Drowned King: A Novel” by Linnea Hartsuyker. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Betrayed and left for dead, Viking raider Rangvald seeks revenge and his inheritance, while his sister Svanhild’s path to freedom lies with Rangvald’s mortal enemy. This epic tale of uneasy alliances, set in 9th century Scandinavia, offers action, intrigue and historical detail.

Read alikes
“The Sagas of Icelanders” by Robert Kellogg
“Saxon Tales” (series) by Bernard Cornwell
“Vikings” (TV series)

Short List
“The Confessions of Young Nero: A Novel” by Margaret George. Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
“Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee. Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group.
“Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York” by Francis Spufford. Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
“Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions: A Kopp Sisters Novel” by Amy Stewart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Horror

Winner
“Kill Creek” by Scott Thomas. Inkshares.

An homage to horror and the authors who write it, “Kill Creek” features four prominent authors who are lured into spending the night in a famous haunted house as a publicity stunt. The aftermath is both unexpected and terrifying.

Read alikes
“Hex” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
“The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson
“The Family Plot” by Cherie Priest

Short List
“Little Heaven” by Nick Cutter. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“In the Valley of the Sun: A Novel” by Andy Davidson. Skyhorse Publishing.
“A God in the Shed” by J-F Dubeau. Inkshares.
“Ararat: A Novel” by Christopher Golden. St. Martin’s Press.

Mystery

Winner
“The Dime” by Kathleen Kent. Mulholland Books/Little, Brown.

Dallas detective Betty Rhyzyk comes from a family of cops. She’s nearly six feet tall, has flaming red hair, a New Yorker’s sharp tongue, and a girlfriend. When her investigation into a Mexican drug lord goes sideways, she must salvage the operation while dealing with a highly disturbed stalker.

Read alikes
Mallory Novels (series) by Carol O’Connell.
“Cop Town” by Karin Slaughter.
“Revolver” by Duane Swierczynski.

Short List
“The Dry: A Novel” by Jane Harper. Flatiron Books.
“Magpie Murders: A Novel” by Anthony Horowitz. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore: A Novel” by Matthew Sullivan. Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“Casualty of War: A Bess Crawford Mystery” by Charles Todd. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Romance

Winner
“An Extraordinary Union: A Novel of the Civil War” by Alyssa Cole. Kensington Books.

Elle Burns, a free black woman, voluntarily leaves the North to work in the Confederacy as a slave and a spy. When she uncovers a possible plot she also encounters Malcolm, a white Union spy. Their intense attraction places their lives in danger in this tale of forbidden love.

Read alikes
“The Spymaster’s Lady” by Joanna Bourne.
“Indigo” by Beverly Jenkins.
“His at Night” by Sherry Thomas.

Short List
“The Sumage Solution: San Andreas Shifters #1″ by G.L. Carriger. Gail Carriger LLC.
“Wild at Whiskey Creek: A Hellcat Canyon Novel” by Julie Anne Long. Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Hate to Want You” by Alisha Rai. Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Lawrence Browne Affair” by Cat Sebastian. Avon Impulse, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Science Fiction

Winner
“The Collapsing Empire” by John Scalzi. Tor, a Tom Doherty Associates Book.

In the Interdependency, each planet relies on its far-flung neighbors for survival. Now a galactic change is transforming the universal order, a new empress has been crowned, a rival is plotting a revolution, and a foul-mouthed captain is caught in the middle.

Read alikes

Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
“The Cold Between” by Elizabeth Bonesteel
“The Wrong Stars” by Tim Pratt

Short List
“The Power” by Naomi Alderman. Little, Brown and Company.

“A Closed and Common Orbit” by Becky Chambers. Harper Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

“Paradox Bound” by Peter Clines. Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.

“An Oath of Dogs” by Wendy N. Wagner. Angry Robot, an imprint of Watkins Media, Ltd.

Women’s Fiction

Winner
“The Almost Sisters” by Joshilyn Jackson. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Geeky Leia is pregnant after an encounter with a sexy, anonymous Batman. Pondering when to tell her Southern family she is expecting a biracial child, her life is upended by the implosion of her half-sister’s marriage, her grandmother’s dementia, and a skeleton in the attic in this humorous tale.

Read alikes

“June” by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
“Six of One” by Rita Mae Brown
“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” by Fannie Flagg

Short List
“Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman. Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
“The Woman Next Door: A Novel” by Yewande Omotoso. Picador.
“Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk: A Novel” by Kathleen Rooney. St. Martin’s Press.
“The Garden of Small Beginnings: A Novel” by Abbi Waxman. Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The winners were selected by the Reading List Council whose members include eleven expert readers’ advisory and collection development librarians. The eight genres currently included in the Council’s deliberations are adrenaline, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, and women’s fiction. However, the Council is adaptable to new genres and changes in contemporary reading interest.

The Council consists of Nanette Donohue, Champaign Public Library, chair; Meagan Day, High Plains Library District; Michele Drovdahl, King County Library System; Matthew Galloway, Douglas County Libraries; Edward Kownslar, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University ““ Corpus Christi; Daryl A. Maxwell, Los Angeles Public Library; Tammy Ryan, Phoenix Public Library; Lisa Schimmer, NoveList; Estella Terrazas, Altadena Library District; Barry Trott, Williamsburg Regional Library; and Joy Walk, Milan-Berlin Library District.