Featuring: Charlotte Bond, Stephen Breyer, Rex Chapman, Anna Dorn, Jesse David Fox, Eugenie Montague, Robin Peguero, Alexis Soloski, Richard Swan, Kara Swisher, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Teddy Wayne, Hugh Wilford

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Charlotte Bond, THE FIREBORNE BLADE (TorDotCom)

Kill the dragon. Find the blade. Reclaim her honor.

It’s that, or end up like countless knights before her, as a puddle of gore and molten armor.

Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff.

A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it’s that “die trying” is where to wager your coin.

Maddileh’s tale contains a rich history of dragons, ill-fated knights, scheming squires, and sapphic love, with deceptions and double-crosses that will keep you guessing right up to its dramatic conclusion. Ultimately, The Fireborne Blade is about the roles we refuse to accept, and of the place we make for ourselves in the world.

This has been on my radar since TorDotCom unveiled the cover, which is very nice, but it was the synopsis that caught my eye, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it ever since. Hopefully, I’ll get around to it very soon. The Fireborne Blade is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK, on May 28th, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Rex Chapman w. Seth Davis, IT’S HARD FOR ME TO LIVE WITH ME (Simon & Schuster)

A powerful memoir from the University of Kentucky basketball legend, NBA veteran, and social media influencer about his recovery from addiction.

He is considered by many the greatest basketball player ever produced by the hoops-crazy state of Kentucky. In two years at the University of Kentucky, he scored over 1,000 points, led the Wildcats to a Sweet Sixteen appearance and was nicknamed “King Rex.” The first player ever drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, he spent twelve seasons in the NBA, dazzling in dunk contests and sinking one of the most memorable buzzer-beaters in league history. But by the end of his career, Rex Chapman was harboring a destructive secret.

Years before America’s opioid crisis would become national news, Chapman developed a dependency on Vicodin and Oxycontin, ultimately ingesting fifty painkillers a day. In addition, he developed a severe gambling addiction, once nearly losing $400,000 at a Las Vegas blackjack table. All this would cost him his family as well as most of the $40 million fortune he’d made in basketball, leaving him to live in his car and shoplift to support his addictions. Only when he was arrested — and his mugshot made national news — did he finally commit to getting clean.

In It’s Hard for Me to Live With Me, Chapman — who has amassed millions of social media followers for his relatable and uplifting posts — tells the story of his addiction and recovery in unflinching detail. With equal frankness, he describes his history with depression; the racism he witnessed growing up and how that shaped his outspokenness on matters of social justice; and his complex and volatile relationship with his father, also a former professional basketball player. Cowritten with New York Times bestselling author Seth Davis, Chapman’s memoir is an equally devastating and inspiring story about the human struggle for self-acceptance.

Thought this sounded interesting. It’s Hard For Me to Live With Me is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author: Goodreads, Twitter
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Anna Dorn, PERFUME AND PAIN (Simon & Schuster)

A controversial LA author attempts to revive her career and finally find true love in this hilarious nod to 1950s lesbian pulp fiction.

Having recently moved both herself and her formidable perfume bottle collection into a tiny bungalow in Los Angeles, mid-list author Astrid Dahl finds herself back in the Zoom writer’s group she cofounded, Sapphic Scribes, after an incident that leaves her and her career lightly canceled. But she temporarily forgets all that by throwing herself into a few sexy distractions — like Ivy, a grad student researching 1950s lesbian pulp who smells like metallic orchids, or her new neighbor, Penelope, who smells like patchouli.

Penelope, a painter living off Urban Outfitters settlement money, immediately ingratiates herself in Astrid’s life, bonding with her best friends and family, just as Astrid and Ivy begin to date in person. Astrid feels judged and threatened by Penelope, a responsible older vegan, but also finds her irresistibly sexy.

When Astrid receives an unexpected call from her agent with the news that actress and influencer Kat Gold wants to adapt her previous novel for TV, Astrid finally has a chance to resurrect her waning career. But the pressure causes Astrid’s worst vice to rear its head — the Patricia Highsmith, a blend of Adderall, alcohol, and cigarettes — and results in blackouts and a disturbing series of events.

Unapologetically feminine yet ribald, steamy yet hilarious, Anna Dorn has crafted an exquisite homage to the lesbian pulp of yore, reclaiming it for our internet and celebrity-obsessed world. With notes of Southern California citrus and sultry smokiness, Perfume and Pain is a satirical romp through Hollywood and lesbian melodrama.

I hadn’t heard of this novel before the publisher reached out and offered it for review. Sounded interesting, and kind of different to many other books I read (but not too different that it didn’t catch my attention). Looking forward to giving it a try. Perfume and Pain is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America and in the UK, on May 21st, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Jesse David Fox, COMEDY BOOK (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Comedy is king. From multimillion-dollar TV specials to sold-out stand-up shows and TikTok stardom, comedy has never been more popular, democratized, or influential. Comedians have become organizing forces across culture — as trusted as politicians and as fawned-over as celebrities — yet comedy as an art form has gone under-considered throughout its history, even as it has ascended as a cultural force.

In Comedy Book, Jesse David Fox — the country’s most definitive voice in comedy criticism and someone who, in his own words, “enjoys comedy maybe more than anyone on this planet” — tackles everything you need to know about comedy. Weaving together history and analysis, Fox unravels the genre’s political legacy through an ode to Jon Stewart, interrogates the divide between highbrow and lowbrow via Adam Sandler, and unpacks how marginalized comics create spaces for their communities. Along the way, Fox covers everything from comedy in the age of political correctness and Will Smith’s slap to the right wing’s relationship with comedy and, for Fox, comedy’s ability to heal personal tragedy.

With memorable cameos from Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, John Mulaney, Ali Wong, Kate Berlant, and countless others, Comedy Book is an eye-opening education in how to engage with our most omnipresent art form, a riotous history of American pop culture, and a love letter to laughter.

I remember seeing this in a catalogue, making a note of it, and then forgetting about it. (Not the fault of the author or level of interest in the book, just grading takes over way too much of my attention.) Then, I heard Fox interviewed on a podcast, and I immediately went out and got it. Really looking forward to reading it. Comedy Book is out now, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter

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Eugenie Montague, SWALLOW THE GHOST (Mulholland)

Swallow the Ghost traces the impact of one event on three different lives, each interlocking story offering a complex, contradictory truth.

Things are going well for Jane Murphy, or so it seems. She’s making it in New York, a sort of wunderkind at the social media marketing startup where she works. She’s put an experimental writer, Jeremy Miller, on the map by helping him concoct a viral internet novel, told in fragments through various fake social media accounts. But privately, Jane feels trapped, ruled by her routines and her compulsions, caught up in an endless cycle of soothing and punishing herself. There is so much that she has to keep hidden, especially from Jeremy as their professional relationship transforms into something more.

But then, tragedy strikes, and the story changes track. As the perspective shifts, so too does our image of Jane and those in her orbit as what we think we know begins to unravel.

Audacious, emotionally precise and head-spinning in its ingenuity, Swallow the Ghost interrogates our public identities and private realities through the kaleidoscopic portrait of one woman’s life.

I can’t remember where or when I first read about this novel, but it was probably the publisher’s website or catalogue. It sounded like an interesting story, and it isn’t like much that I’ve read recently, so thought it might make a nice change. Swallow the Ghost is due to be published by Mulholland Books in North America and in the UK, on August 20th, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Robin Peguero, ONE IN THE CHAMBER (Grand Central Publishing)

On Capitol Hill, they work you to death.

Cameron Leann is new to Washington, D.C. An Iowa farm boy without a penny to his name, Cam has joined a group of affluent junior staffers working for a powerful cohort of U.S. Senators known as The Gang of Six. Liz Frost, the group’s charismatic leader, teases and strings Cam along as he grows increasingly infatuated with her. Heir to a political dynasty, Randy Lancaster pushes Cam to his limits with his penchant for booze, drugs, and meaningless flings. Charlie James, Liz’s linebacker boyfriend, keeps Cam at a distance, eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.

All of them have one thing in common. They hate their bosses.

As the Gang of Six takes up the rushed nomination of the first Black chief justice to the Supreme Court, Cam and his friends are plotting against them. But in the game of politics, one’s motivations are never as they seem — especially true for Cam, the enigmatic figure at the center of it all.

When a bombshell revelation threatens to sink the President’s Supreme Court pick, the Gang of Six fractures, pitting senator against senator in a confirmation battle for the ages. Alliances shift with the wind. Everyone is lying to everyone.  And on Election Night, one senator will end up dead.

I’m a real fan of thrilelrs/mysteries set in Washington D.C., and I thought this one sounded pretty interesting. So, looking forward to reading this ASAO. One in the Chamber is due to be published by Grand Central Publishing in North America and in the UK, on March 26th, 2024.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Alexis Soloski, HERE IN THE DARK (Flatiron)

Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife.

Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears and she learns―from his devastated fiancée―that she was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian does what she promised herself she would never do again: she plays a part. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she turns her critical gaze toward an unsanitary private eye, a sketchy internet startup, a threatening financier, fake blood, and one very real corpse. As she nears the final act, she finds that the boundaries between theater and the real world are more tenuous and more dangerous than even she could have believed…

Gripping, propulsive, and shot through with menace and dark glamor, Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark takes us behind the scenes of New York theater, lifting the curtain on the lies we tell ourselves and each other

This novel was getting a lot of buzz pre-publication, and so I thought I’d give it a try. Looking forward to reading it. Here in the Dark is out now, published by Flatiron Books in North America, and Raven Books in the UK.

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Review copy received via

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Richard Swan, THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE (Orbit)

THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND

The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there’s life in the great beast yet.

To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies — to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.

Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane — but such allegiances carry a heavy price.

As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice… or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny.

The third novel in the Empire of the Wolf series. I started reading it pretty much as soon as I got it (full review soon). It’s a very good conclusion to the series, and I’m sure there are a great many fantasy fans who will enjoy the trilogy (if they haven’t already started it), and fans of the first two books should enjoy what they find in this concluding volume. The Trials of Empire is due to be published by Orbit Books in North America (February 6th, 2024) and in the UK (February 8th).

Also on CR: Interview with Richard Swan (2022); Reviews of The Justice of Kings and The Tyranny of Faith

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Kara Swisher, BURN BOOK (Simon & Schuster)

A witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.

While tech titans bragged they would “move fast and break things,” Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of “listening in the heating ducts” and for Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg to once say: “It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, ‘I hope Kara never sees this.’”

Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech’s most powerful players. This is the inside story we’ve all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.

While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that “everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.” She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat — figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.

Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech’s potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.

Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley’s much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.

I’ve been a fan of Swisher’s work for some time (especially her podcasts), so when the chance to review this arose, I jumped at the chance. I don’t always agree with her takes on tech or where some of it and society is going, but I have high hopes that this will be an engaging and entertaining read. Burn Book is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America and Piatkus in the UK, on February 27th, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Adrian Tchaikovsky, SERVICE MODEL (TorDotCom)

To fix the world they must first break it, further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service.

When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away.

Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.

Sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming.

I’ll read anything Tchaikovsky writes. (Do I need to say more, here?) Service Model is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America (June 4th, 2024) and Tor Books in the UK (June 6th).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, BlueSky, Twitter
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Teddy Wayne, THE WINNER (Harper)

Conor O’Toole has never been anywhere as casually glamorous as Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It’s a sweet deal for the summer: free lodging in a guest cottage in exchange for tennis lessons, luxuriously far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother.

In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. Then a sharp-tongued divorcée appears, offering him double his usual rate. Soon he realizes Catherine is expecting additional, off-the-court services for her money, and Conor tumbles into a secret erotic affair unlike anything he’s experienced before.

Despite his steamy flings with a woman twice his age, he simultaneously finds himself falling for the artsy, outspoken girl he met on the beach. Conor somehow finds a way to manage this tangled web — until he makes one final, irreversible mistake.

A dark, explosive literary thriller that brilliantly skewers the elite, Whiting Award winner Teddy Wayne’s unputdownable novel is cinematic, shocking, and a psychological masterpiece.

I’ve been meaning to read Wayne’s novels for some time — I believe I have them all, but I keep forgetting they’re on my eReader… Terrible, really, but such is the fate of too many books received by a reviewer… I shall endeavour to rectify this oversight in 2024, starting with this latest novel. The Winner is due to be published by Harper in North America (May 28th, 2024) and Borough Press in the UK (June 6th).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Hugh Wilford, THE C.I.A.: AN IMPERIAL HISTORY (Basic Books)

As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyze foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters at home.

The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation—but not the only one. In The CIA, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA’s post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past.

Comprehensive, original, and gripping, The CIA is the story of the birth of a new imperial order in the shadows. It offers the most complete account yet of how America adopted unaccountable power and secrecy abroad and at home.

This caught my attention as soon as I saw it available for review. Really looking forward to reading this, and hope to do so in the next couple of months or so. The C.I.A.: An Imperial History is due to be published by Basic Books in North America and in the UK, on June 6th, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley