When New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter and her longtime London-based editor Kate Elton met last year for their annual two-day brainstorming binge to plot Slaughter’s 25th book “We Are All Guilty Here” (hitting shelves Aug. 12), neither one remembered to bring sticky notes.
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The Hunting Wives author May Cobb didn’t know where grocery money was going to come from when a phone call changed her life.
Cobb started her writing journey 25 years ago, with a nonfiction book about a jazz musician she admits she “still has to finish,” but after loving books like Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, decided to try her hand at thrillers. Her debut, Big Woods, came out in 2018 and while it was well reviewed, sales weren’t enough to make a dent in their finances.
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A philosopher and professor at the University of Memphis, Stewart brings scholarly rigor and literary sensibility to a lesser-known part of American history: the role played by conjure women, matriarchal figures of magic and healing, in Black history and American culture writ large. Stewart traces the influence of the concept, and the Black women who experienced it, along branching paths through seemingly distant — yet surprisingly linked — historical landmarks, such as the Civil Rights Movement, VooDoo and even Vicks VapoRub.
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In Water Mirror Echo, the journalist tells the story of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee’s rise to fame alongside the cultural history of Asian America.
You write that Lee is “perhaps the most famous person in the world about whom so little is known.” What do you mean by that?
People knew Bruce and they knew his screen presence, but they didn’t really know who he was off-screen. Bruce Lee is the picture that people have of Asian Americans, but people don’t have that picture filled in.
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We Are All Guilty Here
Karin Slaughter
In New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter’s latest mystery, Officer Emmy Clifton faces a personal reckoning when two teenage girls go missing in the small town of North Falls. As Emmy investigates, she discovers the girls had secrets that may have led to murder — sending her on a race to uncover the truth in her seemingly close-knit community.
Release date: August 12
Crime writing phenomenon Karin Slaughter reveals all about her latest page turner, We Are All Guilty Here, on the Ryan Tubridy Show.
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A portion of this BBC “Woman’s Hour” features an interview with Karin Slaughter.
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We Are All Guilty Here
Karin Slaughter (William Morrow)
The blockbuster author of the Will Trent books is kicking off a new series with this mystery set in a small town called North Falls.
When two teenage girls go missing, Officer Emily Clifton vows to find her daughter’s friends, but the teens are hiding unexpected secrets. Aug. 12.
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Our Mothers’ Names: Love in Many Languages
Uma Menon, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2250-0. Ages 4–8. A child’s investigation into the many different words for mother opens up the world of languages in this cross-cultural reflection. Jomepour Bell’s mixed-media illustrations show mothers and children dancing, crafting, baking, and celebrating throughout this fond accounting of maternal monikers.
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Our Mothers’ Names: Love in Many Languages
Uma Menon, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2250-0
A child’s investigation into the many different words for mother opens up the world of languages in this cross-cultural reflection. A pajamaed narrator begins, “When I wake up, the first person to greet me is my mother”—known as Amma, in Malayalam. Playing with bilingual friend Angelina, whose family is from Mexico City, the narrator learns that Mamá is the Spanish word for mother. And through other friends, the protagonist learns how mothers are addressed in countries around the world. The canvas like surface of Jomepour Bell’s heavily textured mixed-media illustrations are a backdrop for crisp-edged mothers and children dancing, crafting, baking, and celebrating throughout this fond accounting of maternal monikers. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Language facts conclude. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)
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Casualties of Truth, by Lauren Francis-Sharma (Atlantic Monthly). “Memories were dangerous things, grenades with shaky pins,” Prudence—a wealthy housewife, and the central character of this pointed novel—reflects, after a man from her past reappears and forces her to relive long-suppressed experiences. Twenty-two years earlier, Prudence spent time in South Africa, observing Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. The horrors she was made to confront, however, transcended the courtroom in which the sessions were held. The story, alternating between two time lines, tests the limits of forgiveness and explores the boundary between resistance and revenge. “Violence? What is violence?” Prudence once asked her therapist. Now, faced with an impossible decision, she learns how “very violent a person might become to maintain their hold on life.”
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Lauren Francis-Sharma was a young law student interning in Johannesburg in 1996 when she was given the opportunity to observe portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Amnesty Hearings, which were set up to expose the horrors of apartheid in South Africa.
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Interview by Karin Slaughter
Three decades into a long and varied writing career, Briscoe's latest reinterprets du Maurier's "Rebecca" for a modern audience.
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Chloe: A Novel of Secrets and Lies
Connie Briscoe (March 18)
The New York Times bestselling author puts a new spin on Daphne Du Maurier’s classic novel 'Rebecca.' A spirited woman named Angel marries a Black billionaire only to be haunted by the spirit of his first wife, who may have died under nefarious circumstances.
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Author of OFF THE BOOKS Soma Mei Sheng Fraizer's EAT BITTER ANASTASIA, about a would-be photographer and museum curator who inherits her grandfather's Victorian home in Oakland's Chinatown, along with all of its needed repairs, and will have to decide if she is going to "eat bitter" and take care of her grandfather's legacy, or leave it all behind for grad school, to Micaela Carr at Holt, with Andy Tan-Delli Cicchi editing, by Victoria Sanders at Victoria Sanders & Associates (world).
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Chloe, Connie Briscoe
This one had me at “‘Rebecca,’ but make her Black.” Angel is working as a private chef for a family in an exclusive Black enclave on Martha’s Vineyard when a visiting billionaire falls for her. But he’s mourning the death of his wife, Rebecca — er, Chloe — and anyone who has read Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic “Rebecca” knows things will be much more complicated than they seem. Briscoe also includes a creepy housekeeper, named Ida instead of Mrs. Danvers, and it will be fun to see how she deals with the fact that most readers already know the devious “Rebecca” twist. The “Chloe” subtitle, “A Novel of Secrets and Lies,” offers a few clues. March 11
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Book Marks provided a nice compilation of review links of Casualties of Truth, listing it as one of its best reviewed fiction books of the week.
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Casualties of Truth moves briskly between two timelines and settings: Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1990s and Washington, D.C. in 2018. It opens in post-apartheid South Africa where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings are underway, allowing victims and perpetrators to confront the brutal history of apartheid. The narrative then shifts to Washington, D.C., where Prudence Wright, a former McKinsey consultant, lives a comfortable, affluent life with her husband and young son. When she encounters Matshediso, a man she met decades earlier as a law student in South Africa, the secrets and consequences of the two timelines merge, threatening to upend everything that Prudence cares about.
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