Readers and writers: Start making your spring and summer reading list
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Back in the day, books by popular authors were published in fall/winter. Not anymore, as proved by these forthcoming titles for spring and summer. We’ve got John Sandford, Leif Enger, William Kent Krueger, Jess Lourey, Laura Childs, Kao Kalia Yang, Gretchen Anthony, Marcie Rendon and more. Time to cull that stack of 2023 books and decide whether to plunge right into the new season.
Available now
“A Whisper of Poison”: by Jess Lourey (Entangled Teens)
Post-apocalyptic young adult story of a 17-year-old who lives safely behind walls until the untimely death of her brother leads her to study those barriers that keep her in, leading her to question what she has believed her whole life.
“The Dead Years”: by Jeffrey Burton (Severn House)
Genre-hopping Burton, whose most recent book was about the 1999 Boundary Waters Canoe Area tree blowdown, also writes the Mace Reid K-9 crime series. His new stand-alone thriller answers the question: what happens when a serial killer is not happy with his portrayal in a true crime TV documentary? The intriguing subhead: “Let Sleeping Serial Killers Lie…”
“There Will Never Be Another Night Like This”: by John Salter (Slant Books)
Salter’s new short story collection shows us people who have one thing in common: They’re all in flux. He writes of hilarity and tragedy, often on the same page, and is praised for his insights into the human condition and finely-tuned dialogue.
“Shepherd and the Fox”: by Brian Shea and Kristi Belcamino (Severn River Publishing)
Belcamino, who reports for the Pioneer Press, and New England author Shea, partner for a thriller that pairs a crafty thief and a rugged mercenary who survive a lethal game of deceit and vengeance involving bank heists, high-stakes border escapades and a race to thwart their common enemies’ diabolical plans.
“The Wonders of the Little World”: by Bill Meissner (Stephen F. Austin State University Press/Texas A&M University Press)
Meissner, a self-described “carnival junkie,” grew up in Baraboo, Wis., the “Circus City,” so carnivals were in his life from childhood. Based on his experiences, his new novel set in the summer of 1968 features a fortune teller in a suffocating carnival, her husband, a charismatic tightrope walker who has disappeared, and their precocious 11-year-old daughter. Estelle sets out on a road trip to search for her husband, along with their daughter. Their journey takes them to unexpected detours. The husband takes his own journey. Meissner is head of creative writing at St. Cloud State University.
March
“Murder in the Tea Leaves”: by Laura Childs (Berkley)
Childs, pen name for Gerry Schmitt, celebrates publication of her 55th book in her 22-year career as a mystery and thriller writer. Besides her popular tea shop mysteries featuring Charleston, S.C., tea shop owner Theodosia Browning, she writes the Scrapbook Mysteries, Cackleberry Mysteries and the Afton Tangler thriller series. (Signing at noon-2 p.m. March 9, Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls.)
“Where Rivers Part”: by Kao Kalia Yang (Atria Books)
Yang, who writes out of her family’s Hmong immigrant experiences, tells this memoir from the perspective of her mother, as a narrative of survival and perseverance. She speaks not only to the strength of the bond between a mother and daughter, but also the lengths we will go to ensure the safety and happiness of those we love most. (Launch at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, The Parkway, 4814 Chicago Ave., Mpls., presented by Valley Bookseller and Literature Lovers’ Night Out: $25 advance registration.)
April
“Toxic Prey”: by John Sandford (Putnam)
In Sandford’s 34th Prey thriller, Lucas Davenport teams up with his daughter Letty to track down a dangerous scientist whose latest project could endanger the entire world.
“I Cheerfully Refuse”: by Leif Enger (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Author of popular novels “Peace Like a River” (which has sold well over 1 million copies) and “Virgil Wander” tells the story of Rainy, a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. He encounters storms and rising corpses from the warming lake’s depths and finds on land a desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Yet this is also a stand against despair.
“The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow — The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sami”: by Elin Anna Labba (University of Minnesota Press)
When Norway became a country independent from Sweden in 1905, the two nations came to an agreement that called for the displacement of the northern Sami, who spent summers on the Norwegian coast and winters in Sweden herding their reindeer. The first left their homes willingly, thinking they would return. Instead, the place in which they lived has remained empty for more than 100 years. Their story echoes that of so many indigenous populations in other parts of the world, including the U.S., who have been driven from their ancestral homelands.
“Hot Dish Confidential — That Year My Friends Taught Me to Cook”: by George Sorensen (Flexible Press)
Sorensen, who lives in the Pacific Northwest, wrote marketing communications and documentation for companies, including 3M. In this memoir he recalls recruiting amateur gourmands to come to his little Minneapolis bungalow, prepare a meal together, and show him the ropes. Then, he embarks on a yearlong gastronomic journey that included eating everything from goose to rattlesnake.
May
“Still Waters”: by Matt Goldman (Tor Publishing Group)
Goldman, a playwright and Emmy Award-winning television writer for “Seinfeld,” “Ellen” and other shows, writes the Nils Shapiro novels. In his third standalone thriller he introduces estranged siblings Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom, whose brother they thought died of a seizure. But each got a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming he was murdered. The siblings return to their family resort in northern Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than they can imagine and they put their lives on the line to reveal the truth.
“Tired Ladies Take a Stand”: by Gretchen Anthony (HarperCollins)
From the author of “The Book Haters’ Book Club” and “Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners” comes a story of four women who start a “Year of No” pact to push back on all the impossible expectations placed upon them, with hilarious results. These same women, in their 20s, had made a pact to say “yes” to whatever life throws at them. But later in life they are overwhelmed and opt for a new pact. Anthony drew on her experiences to write this timely novel exploring identity, motherhood, divorce and the powers of finding yourself again.
“Annika Rose”: by Cherie Johnson (Red Hen Press)
Johnson, who’s also a poet and nonfiction writer, gives us a coming-of-age story about 17-year-old Annika Rose, who has lived with her father since the death of her mother in self-imposed social isolation on their farm. When a young woman named Tina moves into a house down the road, the result is a sudden explosion of feelings in father and daughter and a fierce rivalry.
June
“Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium”: by Marcie R. Rendon (University of Minnesota Pres)
Rendon, a White Earth Ojibwe, summons her ancestors’ songs, and her poem-songs evoking the world still unfolding around us, reflecting our place in time for future generations, carrying the Anishinaabe way of life forward into the world. Rendon also writes the award-winning Cash Blackbear mystery series.
“Exploring the St. Croix River Valley”: by Angie Hong (University of Minnesota Press)
A recreation guide to one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring areas in the Midwest, offering a tour of the St. Croix riverway and its 8,000-square-mile watershed, with stops along the way.
“Traveling Without Moving — Essays From a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America”: by Taiyon J. Coleman (University of Minnesota Press)
Intimate essays from the author’s life: her childhood in Chicago — growing up in poverty with four siblings and a single mother — and the empowering decision to leave her first marriage. She writes of being the only Black student in a prestigious and predominantly white writing program, about institutional racism and implicit bias in writing instruction, about the violent legacies of racism in the U.S. housing market, the maternal health disparities and how she and her husband, both college graduates, make less money than some white people with a felony record and no high school diploma.
August
“Spirit Crossing”: by William Kent Krueger (Simon & Schuster)
In his 20th Cork O’Connor adventure, the northern Minnesota lawman’s family’s lives are in danger after the discovery of the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman.
“The Last Tale of Nora Bow”: by J.P. White (Regal House Publishing)
This is the second novel from White, who writes essays, articles, fiction, reviews and poetry that has been nationally published. His first novel, “Every Boat Turns South,” earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. In his new novel, set during Prohibition, a man is kidnapped at gunpoint from his Ohio home and his young daughter, discovering his connection to rum-runners, heads to Lake Erie to find him.
“Bluff”: by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)
Written during the COVID lockdown and in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, this poetry collection from the author of “Don’t Call Us Dead” is their reckoning with their role and responsibilities as a poet and with their hometowns of the Twin Cities.
