Author: Civilian Reader

Upcoming: IN A DISTANT VALLEY by Shannon Bowring (Europa Editions)

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In October, Europa Editions are due to publish In a Distant Valley, the third Dalton novel by Shannon Bowring. The first two novels — The Road to Dalton and Where the Forest Meets the River — were superb, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating Bowring’s third novel ever since finishing the second. Easily one of my most-anticipated novels of the year. Here’s the synopsis:

Both a love letter and a window into the rural places that have shaped many, In a Distant Valley sets the stage for a final act to play out across a deep winter in snowy Maine.

For a while, Rose Douglas believed life had given her a break. She was enjoying a steady job at the local clinic in Dalton; her two young boys, Adam and Brandon, were doing well in school; and their little family had found an easy friendship with widower Nate Theroux and his daughter, Sophie. The possibility of something deeper even hung between her and Nate—until the day Tommy Merchant, her ex and the father of her sons, showed up without warning on her doorstep. While Rose knows all too well his erratic and abusive nature, he swears he’s clean, and ready to turn over a new leaf.

Tommy isn’t the only one who’s found his way back to the town that defined him. Lost after a disastrous stint living down south with her father, Angela Muse has returned home to Dalton. There she runs into Greg Fortin, the friend who once saved her life when they were children and finally starts to believe there may be someone who understands her in a world that offers more questions than answers.

But secrets are the lifeblood of a small town, and everyone in Dalton soon finds themselves part of a chain of events hurtling towards outcomes beyond their control, where more than one future will be decided. Brimming with compassion and heart, In a Distant Valley is the remarkable conclusion to the story readers have been following since Shannon Bowring’s debut novel, The Road to Dalton.

Shannon Bowring’s In a Distant Valley is due to be published by Europa Editions on October 7th.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Road to Dalton and Where the Forest Meets the River

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Excerpt: THE EXCLUSION ZONE by Alexis von Konigslow (Wolsak & Wynn)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Exclusion Zone by Alexis von Konigslow. Due to be published by Wolsak & Wynn, on May 6th. It is a novel that takes a look at the impact of politics on science, and women in science in particular. It has been described as “part ghost story, part literary thriller”, and I am looking forward to giving it a try. Here’s the synopsis:

She would harness fear. And this terrifying place would help her do it.

Renya, a scientist who studies how people react to fear, flees a troubled marriage to conduct research on the scientists working in the “exclusion zone” around Chernobyl. In the eerily silent forests surrounding the research station, she finds more is haunting her than the dangers of radiation exposure. As she gathers data from her colleagues and probes historical records of the Chernobyl disaster, unsettling questions rise to the surface. Who is funding her research? Why are all the scientists’ findings off? And what do those who stalk the ruins of the abandoned city nearby want?

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Upcoming: MASTERS OF THE GAME by Sam Smith & Phil Jackson (Penguin Press)

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Later this year, Penguin Press are due to published a (surprise) new book by Sam Smith and Phil Jackson: Masters of the Game. It’s “a conversational history of the NBA in 75 players”; written by the best-selling chronicler of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls, and Jordan and Kobe’s coach, with 11 championships under his belt (as coach and player)… That’s a pretty enticing pairing and premise. Definitely one of my most-anticipated books of the year, now. Here’s the synopsis:

The legendary sportswriter and the Hall of Fame, eleven-time NBA champion coach separate the music from the noise in the stories of the greatest who ever played and their impact on the game

Sam Smith and Phil Jackson grew to know and respect each other in the late 1980s, when Smith was a Chicago Tribune sportswriter and Jackson was an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls. Forty years later, the two remain close friends. In 2021, Smith helped the NBA arrive at a list of the seventy-five greatest players of all time in celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary. Phil Jackson was asked to participate too, but he’s not a big fan of ranking greatness. They’ve been enjoying the argument ever since.

In Masters of the Game, Smith and Jackson chop it up about the basketball life, the sport, and the genius and the shadow side of the all-time greats: Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Magic, Bill Russell, Wilt, Jerry West, Bird, LeBron, KD, Steph Curry, Bill Walton, and more. In a conversation full of high-grade analysis and high-grade gossip, we meet the stars of long-ago eras of basketball and see the mark race left on players and the business of the game — and we get a master class on character and the alchemy of a good team. And of course, inevitably, these two old heads get into the GOAT debate.

There are so many huge characters here, and Smith and Jackson can hold their own with any of them. Their spirit — sharp, wise, irreverent, honest, respectful of the lore and legacy of the game but never pious — and the clash of their different perspectives combine to make this book a joyous ride, a short course in greatness open to all students.

Sam Smith & Phil Jackson’s Masters of the Game is due to be published by Penguin Press in North America and in the UK, on November 4th.

Excerpt: THE ADVENTURES OF MARY DARLING by Pat Murphy (Tachyon)

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Next month, Tachyon Publications are due to publish The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy, a “subversive take on both Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes”. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that attempts to merge those two stories, so this sounds like it could be quite interesting. To introduce readers to the characters, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds.

After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but perhaps not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. To save her family, Mary must escape London — and an attempt to have her locked away as mad — to travel halfway around the world.

Despite the interference of Holmes, Mary gathers allies in her quest: Sam, a Solomon Islander whose village was destroyed by contact with Western civilization; Ruby, a Malagasy woman on an island that everyone thinks is run by pirates (though it’s actually run by women); Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger; and of course, Nana, the faithful dog and nursemaid.

In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of women and people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed, telling the stories of those who were ignored or misrepresented along the way.

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Quick Review: IT’S ONLY DROWNING by David Litt (Gallery Books)

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An engaging, thoughtful memoir about trying new things and attempting to find common ground

After moving from Washington, DC, to the Jersey Shore, a former speechwriter for President Obama starts surfing at the age of thirty-five — the rough equivalent of beginning guitar lessons on your deathbed — and must turn for help to the only other surfer he knows: a tattooed, truck-driving, Joe Rogan superfan who happens to be his brother-in-law.

David Litt, the Yale-educated writer with a sensible fear of sharks, and Matt, the daredevil electrician with two motorcycles and a passion for death metal, had always coexisted from a comfortable distance as brothers-in-law. Yet in 2021, as David wallowed in existential dread while America’s crises piled up, he couldn’t help but notice that Matt was thriving. When he wasn’t making money rewiring New Jersey beach homes, Matt was riding waves at his favorite spots in the state.

Quietly, David started taking surfing lessons. For a few months, he suffered through wipeouts on waves the height of daffodils. But to his surprise, he soon became obsessed. And once he got a sense of the ways that fully committing to surfing could change him both in the water and on land, he set his sights on an unlikely goal: riding a big wave at Hawaii’s famously dangerous North Shore. To get there, he’d need Matt’s help.

At a moment when the fault lines of class, education, and culture threaten to tear our country apart, It’s Only Drowning is a blueprint for becoming braver at a time when it takes courage just to read the news, a love letter to surfing in the vein of William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, and a poignant buddy comedy in the tradition of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.

This is David Litt’s third book, and it offers much of what I’ve come to expect from the author: solid and informed political and social commentary, coupled with self-deprecating personal insights. I very much enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: LETHAL PREY by John Sandford (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

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Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces to track down a ruthless killer who will do whatever it takes to keep the past buried…

Doris Grandfelt, an employee at an accounting firm, was brutally stabbed to death… but nobody knew exactly where the crime took place. Her body was found the next night, dumped among a dense thicket of trees along the edge of an urban park, eight miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite her twin sister Lara Grandfelt’s persistent calls to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the killer was never found.

Twenty years later, Lara has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Confronted with the possibility of her own death, she’s determined to find Doris’s killer once and for all. Finally taking matters into her own hands, she dumps the entire investigative file on every true crime site in the world and offers a $5 million reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. Dozens of true crime bloggers show up looking for both new evidence and “clicks,” and Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to review anything that might be a new lead.

When one of the bloggers locates the murder weapon, Lucas and Virgil begin to uncover vital details about the killer’s identity. But what they don’t know is the killer lurks in plain sight, and with the true crime bloggers blasting every clue online, the killer can keep one step ahead. As the nation maneuvers the detectives closer to the truth, Lucas and Virgil will find that digging up Doris’s harrowing past might just get them buried instead.

In this, the 35th novel in Sandford’s superb Prey series, the author’s two main protagonists team up again to investigate a 20-year-old murder. It’s another fast-paced and engaging mystery, showcasing everything that has made Sandford’s series so compelling for so long. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Continue reading →

Excerpt: ONE LEVEL DOWN by Mary G. Thompson (Tachyon)

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One Level Down is Mary G. Thompson‘s debut novella for adults, which examines identity and autonomy through the lens of technology and more. It due to be published at the beginning of next month, by Tachyon Publications. Today, we have an excerpt for our readers! First, here’s the synopsis:

Trapped in a child’s body, a resourceful woman risks death by deletion from a simulated world…

Ella is the oldest five-year-old in the universe. For fifty-eight years, the founder of a simulated colony-planet has forced her to pretend to be his daughter. Her “Daddy” has absolute power over all elements of reality, which keeps the colonists in line even when their needs are not met. But his failing experiments and despotic need for absolute control are increasingly dangerous.

Ella’s very life depends on her performance as a child. She has watched Daddy delete her stepmother and the loved ones of anyone who helps her.

But every sixty years, a Technician comes from the world above. Ella has been watching and working and biding her time. Because if she cannot make the technician help her, the only solution is a desperate measure that could lead to consequences for the entire universe.

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Excerpt: LADY PAMELA BERRY by Harriet Cullen (Unicorn Publishing)

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Something a little different, today: an excerpt from Harriet Cullen‘s Lady Pamela Berry. As someone with a professional interest in the Cold War, the mention of the Suez crisis in the synopsis for this book caught my attention.

The publisher was kind enough to let me share an excerpt related to that event, from the chapter “Muggeridge and Suez”. Berry was married to the owner of the Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom, and was able to wield a considerable amount of influence over British politics and high society. During Anthony Eden’s premiership, Berry developed a feud with the PM’s wife, Clarissa.

Before we get to the excerpt, here’s the synopsis:

This is a biography lightened with the intimate tone of a social memoir, about a woman who was both a bystander and protagonist through some fifty years of twentieth-century British history. Pamela Berry was the daughter of the buccaneering and brilliant politician and lawyer, FE Smith, the first Earl of Birkenhead, and married the son of another self-made man, William Berry from South Wales, who became Viscount Camrose and the owner of a group of national newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.

She had an unusually glamorous and precocious childhood, spoiled by her adoring father, and much photographed by Cecil Beaton. In her prime she used her position as a newspaper proprietor’s wife to become the most famous political and press hostess of her generation, harnessing her beauty and wit to influence successive governments, and was accused of wielding ‘petticoat power’ during the Suez crisis. She had a decade-long affair with Malcolm Muggeridge, became a vigorous promoter of British fashion, dragging it out of the dowdy fifties, and in later life was active in the museum world. Harriet Cullen has opened a window back into the remarkable story of her mother’s life from a rich cache of family diaries and letters, interweaving them with many other unpublished sources. It is revealing, in turns scathing and admiring, but always entertaining.

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Excerpt: THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Martian Contingency, the fourth novel in Mary Robinette Kowal‘s critically-acclaimed Lady Astronaut series! Due to be published in North America by Tor Books, next week, here’s the synopsis:

Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, D.C. — triggering an extinction-level global warming event — Earth’s survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon.

The next step – Mars.

Elma York, the Lady Astronaut, lands on the Red Planet, optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. The mission objective is more than just building the infrastructure of a habitat – they are trying to preserve the many cultures and nuances of life on Earth without importing the hate.

But from the moment she arrives, something is off.

Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript. As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation. Their attempts to build a thriving Martian community grind to a halt.

What you don’t know CAN harm you. And if the truth doesn’t come to light, the ripple effects could leave humanity stranded on a dying Earth…

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