Five of the best thrillers set in wild places

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-five novels that have been translated into twenty-four languages.

Her new novel is The Shadow Box.

At CrimeReads Rice tagged five top novels set in wild places, including:

The Marsh King’s Daughter, by Karen Dionne is a taut psychological thriller set in the marshlands of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Helena Pelletier grew up in captivity—her father had kidnapped her mother, and held them both in an off the grid cabin, with no other humans around. Twenty years after her father goes to prison, for kidnapping, rape, and murder, he kills two prison guards while escaping. Helena, who has made a safe and happy life for herself, knows that she is the person who understands him best, and—because she was trained by him—the only one who can track him down. Chapters alternate between past and present as Helena anticipates her father’s next moves through the marsh wilderness. The complicated relationship adds to the suspense—as terrible as her father was to her, and as much as she wants him caught—Helena loves him, and every step through the marshlands, among the swamp maples and beech, amid memories of hunting and living off the land, reminds her of what he has taught her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Marsh King’s Daughter is among Sally Hepworth's top eight dysfunctional fictional families.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about roots

Nadia Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. She was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and raised in Italy, Ethiopia, England, Ghana, and Uganda. Her first book, Aftershocks, A Memoir, topped many most-anticipated lists, including The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and TIME.

At the Guardian she tagged ten of the "the best works that explore notions of home," including:

There There by Tommy Orange

For Native Americans, Tommy Orange writes, US cities represent “buried ancestral land ... unreturnable covered memory”. There There is populated by a large cast of characters who know freeways better than they know rivers. Still, they occupy a liminal space. They are rooted to a stolen past and present. To a big powwow in Oakland, each character carries their own specific aim: self-knowledge, reunion, redemption. Some want to rob the event to repay a debt. But, they are all linked by their desire “to be recognised as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, alive”.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that will make you think twice about walking in the woods

Rachel Griffin writes young adult novels inspired by the magic of the world around her.

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Griffin has a deep love of nature, from the mountains to the ocean and all the towering evergreens in between. She adores moody skies and thunderstorms, and hopes more vampires settle down in her beloved state of Washington.

When she isn’t writing, you can find her wandering the PNW, reading by the fire, or drinking copious amounts of coffee and tea. She lives with her husband, small dog, and growing collection of houseplants.

Griffin is the author of the forthcoming The Nature of Witches.

At Tor.com she tagged "five books that will either make you want to rush in[to the woods] headfirst or run far, far away." One title on the list:

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

This stunning novel takes witchcraft and sets it against a puritanical society that’s bordered by a forbidden Darkwood. The trees are haunted by the spirits of four powerful witches, creating a world that’s as frightening and brutal as it is magical and fierce. The main character radiates a quiet strength that made me want to follow her anywhere, even into the terrifying Darkwood—I had to fight against squeezing my eyes shut out of fear, and keeping them wide open, desperate to find out what happened next. A raw, unflinching feminist fantasy that will haunt you long after you read the last page.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven books featuring flying things

Matthew Gavin Frank’s new nonfiction book, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, is about, among other things, the ways in which carrier pigeons were used by diamond smuggling rings in coastal South Africa.

At Lit Hub the author tagged his "favorite books which feature, in some form or another, flying things," including:

Parrot
Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped

Ward burnishes the proverbial caged bird and resets it amid the over-lit grotesquerie of a claustrophobic sitting room which is itself embedded into such sweeping personal, familial, and social tragedy begotten of systemic racism and an attendant cycle of poverty. Ward’s book engages the wrenching, cruel, and premature losses of five young men in her life over the span of four years in the community of DeLisle, Mississippi. In one of the book’s many memorable scenes, Ward, as a young woman, watches her mother clean the mansion of a wealthy white family, while chatting to the wife—her mother’s employer—about what she’s learning in school. Ward and the wife lounge in the mansion’s sitting room, along with “the family’s parrot… kept in a four-foot high cage in a corner [as it] squawked and spread its wings.” As the wife speaks—from her inherited privilege—about the quality of Ward’s education, Ward’s gaze oscillates from her mother to the parrot, allowing for a heartbreaking and disarming overlap: “… I had trouble paying attention to the wife. Why was my mother so silent? Why did she seem so meek? I’d never seen any of that in her. My attention was split between two worlds… The parrot stretched its wings wide again, raising its beak to the air, stretching as if it would fly, but it settled. My mother pushed and the broom shushed its way around the cage.” After the wife eventually pays Ward’s college tuition, Ward reflects on the ways in which her “eventual ascent into another class, was born in the inexorable push of my mother’s hands,” and looming over this reflection is the powerful image of that caged parrot, acknowledging its wings before dropping them.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine of the best campus novels (and one memoir)

Emily Layden is a writer and former high school English teacher from upstate New York. A graduate of Stanford University, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Billfold, and Runner's World.

All Girls, her first novel, "follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced."

At Publishers Weekly Layden tagged "ten of her favorite books set on-campus." One title on the list:

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

Funny and madcap like its 1980s setting, Barry’s novel tells the story of a high school field hockey team whose athletes pledge themselves to “witchcraft”—a series of increasingly elaborate (and dangerous) pranks enacted upon their school and surrounding community in the name of securing victory on the field. We Ride Upon Sticks is a portrait of a team, in all its interconnectedness—and in a world where not enough books feature girls who play sports, this is a gift.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Books to combat anti-Asian racism in America

Jae-Yeon Yoo is an MA candidate in English at New York University. Stefani Kuo (郭佳怡) is a poet/playwright/performer and native of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

At Electric Lit they assembled a literary guide books to combat anti-Asian racism in America. One title on the list:

America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

In Castillo’s debut novel, Hero De Vera moves from a politically turbulent Philippines to suburban San Jose. America is Not the Heart explores social inequity and racism amidst the Filipinx American community, as well as what it means to pursue the “American Dream.” Castillo also pays careful attention to the code-switching that often happens for immigrant families; her characters speak Spanish, Tagalog, Pangasinan, and Ilocano. The title nods to Carlos Bulosan’s groundbreaking novel from the 1970s, America is in the Heart, which describes a Filipino migrant worker’s experiences with brutal racism on a California farm.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten thrillers based on real-life events

Ben McPherson’s debut novel was the highly acclaimed A Line of Blood. He is a television producer and director, as well as a writer, and for more than ten years worked for the BBC, among other outlets.

[The Page 69 Test: A Line of Blood.]

McPherson's new novel, Love and Other Lies, is partly based on terrorist Anders Breivik’s slaughter of 77 people at a Norwegian summer camp in 2011.

At Publishers Weekly the author tagged ten thrillers based on real-life events, including:

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

This book made me feel actively dirty, complicit in deeds that disgusted me, and yet I’ve read it three times. Why? Because Hannibal Lecter is a superb creation. Harris based the character on Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a prison doctor he met while conducting interviews in a Mexican jail. Dr. Treviño was in fact an inmate, a death row prisoner awaiting execution, a quietly charismatic man, and highly intelligent. Harris’s Lecter is the serial killer as brilliant mind, with a capacity far beyond anything we can imagine in ourselves. Who cares how unlikely that actually is? Lecter is so damn charismatic that a small part of me, a bad part for sure, wants to cheer him on. Thank God, then, for Clarice Starling, the moral center of the novel. Interesting, too, that Treviño’s actual crimes—a string of hitchhiker murders—are committed in Harris’s novel by the character of Buffalo Bill.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Silence of The Lambs is among E.G. Scott's best frenemies in fiction, Caroline Louise Walker's six terrifying villain-doctors in fiction, Kathy Reichs's six best books, Matt Suddain's five great meals from literature, Elizabeth Heiter's ten favorite serial killer novels, Jill Boyd's five books with the worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving, Monique Alice's six great fictional evil geniuses, sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the strange and curious world of early robots

Rebecca Morgan Frank’s fourth collection of poems is Oh You Robot Saints! (2021).

Her previous collections are Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country and The Spokes of Venus, and Little Murders Everywhere, finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

At Lit Hub she shared a reading list that is "an eclectic sampling to help you navigate the world of automata that live in libraries." One title on the list:

E.R. Truitt, Medieval Robots

I found E.R. Truitt’s book Medieval Robots on my living room coffee table, where my resident medievalist had left it, and opening it was a bit like being Alice falling into the looking glass: I discovered a whole world I didn’t know existed, one with mechanical monkeys and talking heads, with magical gardens full of automata and medieval romances in which automata guard tombs. Here you’ll find the fascinating story of Gerbert of Aurillac, his talking head, and his rise to Pope, but you’ll also find discussions of clockworks that encompass both engineering and philosophy. This is not a compendium of fantastical tales, but a scholarly deep dive into medieval automata, realized and literary, with a scope that embraces the long history of the automaton. Truitt investigates some of the most interesting questions about the human drive to create automata, for, as she notes in the introduction, automata “are mimetic objects that dramatize the structure of the cosmos and humankind’s role in it.” This was the first book on automata I read, and the questions and curiosity it instilled in me jumpstarted my own book project and sent me on a wonderful journey of further reading. If there is one book that everyone should read about early automata, Truitt’s book is it. My guess is that some of you, like me, won’t stop there.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about castaways

Lucy Clarke is the bestselling author of six psychological thrillers - The Sea Sisters, A Single Breath, The Blue/No Escape, Last Seen, You Let Me In, and The Castaways. Her debut novel was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick, and her books have been sold in over 20 territories.

Clarke is a passionate traveller, beach hut dweller, and fresh air enthusiast. She's married to a professional windsurfer and, together with their two young children, they spend their winters travelling and their summers at home on the south coast of England. Clarke writes from a beach hut, using the inspiration from the wild south coast to craft her stories.

At the Guardian she tagged ten favorite books about castaways, including:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a 16-year-old boy ends up drifting in a lifeboat for 227 days with only a hyena, zebra, orangutan and Bengal tiger for company. How’s that for an unlikely bunch of castaways? Pi’s journey is as an allegory for the spiritual journey of finding faith and belief in one’s self. It’s one of the best loved works of modern fiction and has garnered many fans, including Barack Obama, who wrote a letter directly to Martel, describing Life of Pi as “an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling”.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Life of Pi is on Katy Yocom's list of the ten best tigers in fiction, Jodi Picoult's recommended list, Martyn Ford's top ten list of fantastical pets in children's literature, Off the Shelf's list of eight great books told by child narrators, Janis MacKay's top ten list of books set on the ocean, Kathryn Williams's list of six notable novels set in just one place, Scott Greenstone's list of seven top allegorical novels, Sara Gruen's six favorite books list, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on castaways, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best zoos in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 queer protagonists in crime fiction

Russ Thomas grew up in the 80s reading anything he could get his hands on, writing stories, watching television, and playing videogames: in short, anything that avoided the Great Outdoors. After a few ‘proper’ jobs, he discovered the joys of bookselling, where he could talk to people about books all day. Now a full-time writer, he also teaches creative writing classes and mentors new authors.

Thomas's new novel is Nighthawking.

At CrimeReads he tagged his "top ten list of the most memorable queer protagonists of crime fiction." One title on the list:

Tom Ripley

Patricia Highsmith’s eponymous anti-hero first appeared in The Talented Mr Ripley (1955). As protagonists go they don’t come much more disreputable than Ripley. He’s a conman, a thief, and eventually a serial killer. But despite his morally dubious persona, he is at least the star of the show. Ripley’s sexuality, in the novels at least, is understated: the sex scenes go no further than the suggestive lighting of a cigarette, or a lingering gaze over a cocktail. He explicitly states that he isn’t homosexual, but his obsession with Dickie Greenleaf, and his tendency towards unreliable narration more than suggest otherwise. He’s far from sympathetic, yet Highsmith manages an incredible feat—to have you rooting for him anyway. He’s nothing if not memorable.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Talented Mr Ripley is on Paul Vidich's list of five of the most enduring imposters in crime fiction & espionage, Lisa Levy's list of eight of the most toxic friendships in crime fiction, Elizabeth Macneal's list of five sympathetic fictional psychopaths, Laurence Scott's list of seven top books about doppelgangers, J.S. Monroe's list of seven suspenseful literary thrillers, Simon Lelic's top ten list of false identities in fiction, Jeff Somers's list of fifty novels that changed novels, Olivia Sudjic's list of eight favorite books about love and obsession, Roz Chast's six favorite books list, Nicholas Searle's top five list of favorite deceivers in fiction, Chris Ewan's list of the ten top chases in literature, Meave Gallagher's top twenty list of gripping page-turners every twentysomething woman should read, Sophia Bennett's top ten list of books set in the Mediterranean, Emma Straub's top ten list of holidays in fiction, E. Lockhart's list of favorite suspense novels, Sally O'Reilly's top ten list of novels inspired by Shakespeare, Walter Kirn's top six list of books on deception, Stephen May's top ten list of impostors in fiction, Simon Mason's top ten list of chilling fictional crimes, Melissa Albert's list of eight books to change a villain, Koren Zailckas's list of eleven of literature's more evil characters, Alex Berenson's five best list of books about Americans abroad John Mullan's list of ten of the best examples of rowing in literature, Tana French's top ten maverick mysteries list, the Guardian's list of the 50 best summer reads ever, the Telegraph's ultimate reading list, and Francesca Simon's top ten list of antiheroes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine novels about gossip

Priyanka Champaneri received her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts numerous times. She received the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for The City of Good Death, her first novel.

At Electric Lit, Champaneri tagged "nine books to quell your appetite for a good gossip." One title on the list:

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

After a storm kills all the men on a Norwegian island in 1617, the women left behind have only themselves to rely on. While they grieve, some get to work manning the fishing boats, others take care of storing winter provisions—and a handful decide to busy their tongues with whispers that quickly ignite into something uglier. Taking inspiration from a real-life storm that preceded the 1620 witch trials, this book is a dark and brooding exploration into how women can shift roles, form bonds, and light the match that sets the whole thing ablaze. Gossip takes a dark and sinister turn, as one character observes:

“But now she knows she was foolish to believe that evil existed only out there. It was here, among them, walking on two legs, passing judgement with a human tongue.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The novels of the Dark Academia canon

Amy Gentry is the author of the feminist thrillers Good as Gone, Last Woman Standing, and Bad Habits, as well as Boys for Pele, a book of music criticism in the 33 1/3 series.

At CrimeReads she tagged the books of “'Dark Academia,' after the gothic, bookish online aesthetic that adopts The Secret History as its foundational text." One title on the list:

Good Girls Lie, JT Ellison (2019)

J.T. Ellison’s standalone entry into the Dark Academia genre, Good Girls Lie, starts off with a bang—a presumed suicide dangles from the wrought-iron front gates of The Goode School, an all-girls “Silent Ivy” in Virginia where the usual secret societies and mean girls abound—only to dive into the perspective of an avowed sociopath. Or is she? Ellison’s boarding-school suspense novel is packed with masterful twists that unpack lie after lie, starting with the first: “Goode girls are always good.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Good Girls Lie is among Avery Bishop's five thrillers that explore "mean girl" culture.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

--Marshal Zeringue