Tag: historical fiction

History buffs and foodies alike are sure to enjoy A Culinary Tour Through Alabama History! Author Monica Tapper “serves up a stick-to-your-ribs trek through Alabama history, providing classic recipes modified for the modern kitchen along the way.”

In April 1861, President Lincoln declared a blockade on Southern ports. Engineers built elaborate obstructions and batteries, and three rows of torpedoes were laid from Fort Morgan to Fort Gaines. Then, in August 1864, the inevitable came. A navy fleet of fourteen wooden ships lashed two by two and four iron monitors entered the lower bay, with the USS Tecumseh in the lead. A torpedo, poised to strike for two years, found the Tecumseh and sank it in minutes, taking ninety-three crewmen with it. In The USS Tecumseh in Mobile Bay, David Smithweck takes readers on an exploration of the ship that still lies upside down at the bottom of Mobile Bay.

Crossroads is the first book in the highly anticipated A Key to All Mythologies trilogy, Jonathan Franzen’s “magnum opus” that will follow three generations of a Midwestern family from the Vietnam War to the 2020s. In this first volume, readers are introduced to the Hildebrand family of New Prospect, Illinois, outside Chicago – Russ, a pastor and former youth director, his wife Marion, and their four children. All are facing the challenges of life as they approach Christmas 1971.

Dave Eggers’ latest The Every is a “blend [of] satire and terror, while keeping the reader in breathless suspense.” Somehow, Delaney Wells finds herself working for the Every – the combination of the world’s largest search engine/social media site and the largest e-commerce site. And she wants to take it down. But of course, there is more than she bargained for under the surface. This title is available exclusively through independent bookstores and the book’s independent, nonprofit publisher, McSweeney’s produced multiple dust jacket color schemes, many of which we have available!

Being re-released in paperback The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers is a double love story of two couples separated by 25 years. When promising microbiologist Stuart Ressler sets out in 1957 to crack the genetic code, he becomes tangled in other codes – social, moral, spiritual, musical – as he falls in love with a member of his research team. Years later, another young couple tries to unravel another mystery: Why did Ressler seemingly just disappear from the science world?

Robie Rogge and Rachel Isadora created a fun way to learn manners with I Say Please and Thank You: Lift-the-Flap Manners! Join along as the children say hello to a unicorn, share pizza with a gorilla, apologize to an ostrich ballerina, welcome a bear at the door, and wave goodbye to a friend in a hot air balloon! Along the way, each page has a lift-the-flap surprise awaiting readers!

The Secret Lives of Dragons by Prof. Zoya Agnis and Alexander Utkin takes readers into the world of dragons, the scaliest of magical creatures! Explore the details of their wings and the history of their treasure as you learn about famous dragons from around the world. Dragon researchers will introduce dragons from tiny to huge, from sweet to ferocious. If you ever wanted to become a dragon expert, this is the book for you!

Tristan Strong Destroys the World is the second book in Kwame Mbalia’s Tristan Strong trilogy. Now available in paperback, Book 2 picks up with Tristan returning from Alke, the land of African American folk heroes and African gods, to the Strong family farm, where Tristan learns his Nana has been abducted. Tristan must return to Alke and reunite with his sidekick Gum Baby to save his grandmother and stop her captor from creating further devastation.

If Book 2 got you excited, lucky for you Book 3 is also available today! Tristan Strong Keeps Punching sees Tristan reunited with Ayanna and traveling up the Mississippi to face off with his archenemy King Cotton once and for all. But along the way, they encounter new haints who are determined to keep Tristan from returning to his hometown of Chicago.

Keanu Reeves makes his comic book debut with BRZRKR Vol. 1. Written alongside New York Times bestselling co-writer Matt Kindt and featuring illustrations by Ron Garney, BRZRKR follows B., the mysterious half-mortal, half-God cursed to live a life of violence. He finally finds a refuge working for the U.S. Government doing jobs too dangerous and violent for anyone else. In exchange, B. will learn the truth behind his mysterious existence – and maybe even how to end it.

The Snifter of Terror returns with Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Blood, an all-new “snark-fest” that combines six issues’ worth of anthologies. Stories include an update of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and a take by Tom Peyer and Allan Robinson on “Masque of the Red Death.”

Jane Shoringfield is looking for a marriage of convenience, someone who will allow her to maintain her independence and continue pursuing work she enjoys. When the handsome but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence agrees to the proposal, he puts forward one requirement of his own: Jane must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Of course, when an accident places Jane there at night, she sees Augustine transformed into a fearful man who believes Jane is a spirit come to haunt him. By morning, he is back to himself. Caitlin Starling’s The Death of Jane Lawrence will keep readers turning page after page in this haunting tale!

Originally written as an online serial that reached over 70,000 downloads, John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin has been described as “Horrortacular, an epic of spectacular horror that combines the laugh out loud humor of the best R-rated comedy, with the darkest terror of H.P. Lovecraft.” Follow along as John and David, a pair of slackers suddenly tasked with saving humanity from a drug-induced apocalypse. This updated special edition features additional material and “an even more ‘epic’ epic of slackers versus the occult!”

This edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic I Will Fear No Evil is published as part of the Science Fiction Classics collection. Follow the story of a supremely talented but immensely old man who, after undergoing the ultimate transplant, discovers his new life comes at a cost.

Another Robert A. Heinlein classic published as part of the Science Fiction Classics collection, Time Enough for Love “follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Heinlein’s longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it, and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.”

Fans of V.E. Schwab’s bestselling The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue will love this special collector’s edition! This gorgeous edition features six new pieces of art from Addie’s story new to North American readers, a designed alternate debossed stamp under the cover, a ribbon bookmark, and an exclusive note from Schwab!

Alix E. Harrow’s A Spindle Splintered is a new version of the classic Sleeping Beauty story. Zinnia Gray is turning 21, and it’s a special birthday – it’s the last one she will ever have. Her best friend is determined to make this a birthday to remember with a full sleeping beauty experience. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, she is suddenly transported to another world, with another sleeping beauty desperate to escape her fate.

When the Pirate King dies without an heir, a competition to determine who will take the Bone Crown ensues in Kimberly Vale’s Crossbones. Csilla, Kane, and Lorelei each have their own reasons for wanting to win this deadly treasure hunt and take the crown. But of course, the sea won’t make it easy for anyone to prevail victorious.

When they meet on a dating app, she thought it might just be a hookup. But then she fell for him, and fell hard. Right when things seem to be going right, he disappears – profiles deleted, phone disconnected, leaving her ghosted. What happened? Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger follows her as she uncovers that there were other girls like her, and girls like her that went missing. Chasing down dark pasts, will she become the predator in this game – or the prey?

Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond is “a paranormal romantic comedy at the (possible) end of the world.” Callie promised her mother she could handle managing the family’s escape room business for the weekend alone. But she didn’t think a Satanic cult would show up claiming one of the prop spell books in one of rooms is real and they need it to summon the right hand of the devil. As Callie and her best friend Meg get swept up in the adventure, they meet Luke, a hot guy who offers to help them keep the group from at bay. But Luke is actually Luke Morningstar, Prince of Hell and son of the Devil himself. Can Callie, Luke, and Meg keep the group from inciting a global apocalypse?

In The Lincoln Highway, eighteen-year-old Emmett, recently released from a juvenile work farm, has one plan – pick up his little brother Billy from the foreclosed family farm and head to California to start anew. But two friends from the work farm have a different idea that will take Emmett in the opposite direction to New York City. Told from multiple perspectives, readers will enjoy seeing how this adventure unfolds from A Gentleman in Moscow‘s Amor Towles.

The Classic Jane Austen Collection is a must for any Austen fan! This gorgeous boxed set features six collectable paperbacks of Austen’s best-known works, including Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. Even if you have read these front to back before, readers will enjoy the new introductions and contemporary cover designs!

Published in English for the first time, The Marquise de Gange is “a neglected Gothic classic by one of the most notorious authors in the literary canon.” Inspired by one of the most shocking crimes of the 17th century, the story follows Euphrasie, a beautiful and virtuous woman admired by the King who falls in love with the young and handsome Alphonse, Marquis de Gange. But inside the castle, sinister forces are conspiring against the young couple. Alphonse’s brothers, the Abbé and the Chevalier, want Euphrasie for themselves.

Dave Grohl has had a prolific music career, from drumming for Nirvana to forming the Foo Fighters, from jamming with Iggy Pop to drumming for Tom Petty, and everything in between. In The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Grohl brings those stories to the page, giving him a chance to shed a little light on what it was like being a musician and living out his dreams and “focusing the lens through which [he] see[s] these memories a little sharper” for fans and readers alike.

David Sedaris returns with his latest collection of diary entries in A Carnival of Snackery. Spanning from 2003 to 2020, journey along with Sedaris as he records his observations and adventures with his signature wit and humor.

Looking for a new coloring book that will make you laugh while also acknowledging troublesome double standards and frustratingly familiar acts of sexism? The How to Talk So Men Will Listen: A Coloring Book by Caitlin Peterson is the answer!