Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Men of Diverse Character

In Katy Simpson Smith’s Free Men, three uncommon bandits commit a violent crime in the wilds of eighteenth-century Alabama

By Kathryn Justice Leache | February 18, 2016

February 18, 2016 In Free Men, by Katy Simpson Smith, a runaway slave, a Creek Indian, and a poor white man make their way west toward the Mississippi River as a French tracker attempts to bring them to justice for a brutal crime. Smith will discuss her new novel at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on February 24, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 25, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

A Game of Elements

V.E. Schwab twists time and space in A Gathering of Shadows

By Lyda Phillips | February 17, 2016

February 17, 2016 With A Gathering of Shadows, V.E. Schwab brings readers back to the fascinating world of alternate Londons in a story as compulsively readable as its predecessor, A Darker Shade of Magic. Schwab will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 23, 2016, and at the inaugural Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival, held in Murfreesboro March 11-12, 2016.

Explosive Passions

Ariel Lawhon’s Flight of Dreams re-imagines the final voyage of the Hindenburg

By Sean Kinch | February 16, 2016

February 16, 2016 Ariel Lawhon’s new novel, Flight of Dreams, is a historical mystery that imagines the real cause of the Hindenburg’s explosion. While private drama occupies the foreground of Lawhon’s story, the specter of Hitler is never far from the characters’ minds. Lawhon will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 24, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

Mystery and Adventure at … the Library?

Chris Grabenstein’s eccentric librarian, Mr. Lemoncello, returns to test rival teams of young bibliophiles

By Tracy Barrett | February 11, 2016

February 11, 2016 The nonstop action in Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics will captivate middle-grade readers, and the puzzles and challenges posed to its young heroes (and anti-heroes) will keep them guessing until the end. Chris Grabenstein will discuss his sequel to the New York Times-bestselling Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on February 16, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

Lorelai Diedrich’s Debut

C.J. Redwine’s latest YA novel breaks from her Defiance series and introduces a new heroine

By Sarah Carter | February 10, 2016

February 10, 2016 Nashville’s C.J. Redwine peppers her new fantasy novel with themes that touch on responsibility, the power of compassion, cooperation with the natural environment, and moving on from difficult experiences, in addition to the suspense and a cast of entertaining characters for which her fiction is known. She will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 18, 2016, and at the Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival, held in Murfreesboro March 11-13, 2016.

The Hunting Season

In her debut novel for adults, bestselling YA novelist Diane Les Becquets pits two very different women against the wilderness, and the past

By Emily Choate | February 3, 2016

February 3, 2016 Diane Les Becquets’s new novel, Breaking Wild, follows two women on either side of a pursuit deep into the Colorado wilderness, leading to confrontations with both the past and the present. Les Becquets will discuss Breaking Wild at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 9, 20016, at 6:30 p.m.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher