Here are some notable Southern books coming out this Winter.
Virginia-born, Alabama-based author Rachel Hawkins follows up her bestselling thriller with Reckless Girls (St. Martin’s Press, $27.99).
Her publisher says: “Six stunning twentysomethings are about to embark on a blissful, free-spirited journey—one filled with sun-drenched days and intoxicating nights. But as it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in, sending them on a dangerous spiral of discovery. When one person goes missing and another turns up dead, the remaining friends wonder what dark currents lie beneath this impenetrable paradise—and who else will be swept under its secluded chaos. With its island gothic sensibility, sexy suspense, and spine-tingling reimagining of an Agatha Christie classic, Reckless Girls will wreck you.”
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
*Look out for our interview coming in February*
Manywhere
Though Morgan Thomas currently lives in Portland, Oregon, their collection of stories, Manywhere (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26.00), focuses on the South and on identity. This debut has been praised by both Roxane Gay and Karen Thompson Walker.
Their publisher says: “The nine stories in Morgan Thomas’s shimmering debut collection witness Southern queer and genderqueer characters determined to find themselves reflected in the annals of history, whatever the cost. As Thomas’s subjects trace deceit and violence through Southern tall tales and their own pasts, their journeys reveal the porous boundaries of body, land, and history, and the sometimes ruthless awakenings of self-discovery.”
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Kentucky-based author Ashley Blooms‘ novel Where I Can’t Follow (Sourcebook Landmark, $16.98) is more on the Fantasy side of fantastic but should be thrilling all the same.
Her publisher says: “Maren Walker told herself she wouldn’t need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But that end seems to be stretching as far away as the other side of Blackdamp County, Kentucky. There’s always another bill for Granny’s doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she’s getting nowhere. She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you’ll never come back.”
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
With a degree in music, North Carolina-native Brendan Slocumb‘s first novel, The Violin Conspiracy (Anchor Books, $28.00), deals with a passion for self-expression through music and the trials surrounding a dream to be the best.
His is publisher says: “Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a job at the hospital cafeteria. If he’s extra lucky, he’ll earn more than minimum wage. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.”
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
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A poet and librarian from Mississippi, C. T. Salazar‘s first poetry collection, Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre Books, $16.00), offers insight into personal troubles and a view of the South from a different perspective.
His publisher says: “In C. T. Salazar’s striking debut poetry collection, the speaker is situated in the tradition of Southern literature but reimagines its terrain with an eye on the South’s historic and ongoing violence. His restless relationship with religion (“a child told me there was a god / and because he was smiling, I believed him”) eventually includes a reclamation of the language of belief in the name of desire. “I felt myself become gospel in your hands,” the speaker tells his beloved. And, as the title poem asserts, a headless body “leaves more room for salvation.”
But a copy at HERE.
Born in Alexandria, VA, Erika Lewis‘ new book Kelcie Murphy and the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts (Starscape Book, $17.99) is for a younger audience and delves into Celtic mythology.
Her publisher says: “The Otherworld is at war. The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts trains warriors. And Kelcie Murphy—a foster child raised in the human world—is dying to attend. A place at AUA means meeting Scáthach, the legendary trainer of Celtic heroes. It means learning to fight with a sword. It means harnessing her hidden powers and—most importantly—finding out who her parents are, and why they abandoned her in Boston Harbor eight years ago. When Kelcie tests into the school, she learns that she’s a Saiga, one of the most ancient beings in the Otherworld. Secretive, shunned, and possessed of imposing elemental powers, the Saiga are also kin to the Otherworld’s most infamous traitor.
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
*Look out for our interview coming in March*
Karen Joy Fowler‘s much anticipated next novel, Booth (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $28.00) follows the man who killed Lincoln (and who, later on, died in Virginia).
Her publisher says: “In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the next sixteen years. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor and master of the house in all ways—is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.”
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.