Esquire Names Best Books of 2025 So Far https://flip.it/rNn_xx
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Gothictown
In 1832, at the height of the Georgia gold rush, gold had been discovered on the banks of the Etowah River on land owned by Alfred Minette. As men flocked to work in the mine and others to supply their needs, a small town arose and Minette named it after his firstborn, a beautiful but frail girl named Juliana who had died years ago in South Carolina.
But now the Civil War was waging and while the men and boys of Juliana were off fighting, Minette forced their wives and children to work in the mines.
Union General Philip Sheridan and his troops were laying waste to all he passed through on his march to the sea and Juliana lay in his path. Destroying the town meant destroying the wealth that helped fuel the Confederate war effort and so three of the town elders, including Minette, formed a plan to save it.
And it worked. Sheridan did stop in Juliana and he and his men decimated the town’s food and livestock supplies but they didn’t discover the mine, nor the women and children trapped in the bottom of the mine when the town’s elders had the entrance dynamited with explosives. Sheridan and his troops tarried and by the time the mine was unsealed, all those insides were dead. When the surviving men returned home from the war, they were told their families had been sent away and they could now work in the lumber mill Minette was building, accept it as God’s will that their families were gone, and start anew.
It was a small sacrifice for the good of all, Minette argued, and that his daughter, Julianna, was pleased with their offering.
More than 160 years later, Billie Hope receives an offer. A former restaurateur, Billie lives in a cramped apartment with her husband and daughter in New York City when she receives an offer to purchase a dream home in historic Juliana for just $100. The offer describes the town as idyllic, and the accompanying photo shows a quaint town square straight out of a storybook as does the link to the professionally done town website. Billie sees it as part of a trend to lure people to help grow stagnant towns with new citizens. Feeling at a dead end in her life and lured by the thought of a pretty house in a lovely small town, she replies.
It’s an offer too good to be true, but desperation often clouds people’s judgment, so it is with Billie and her family who make the move to Juliana.
“A small town,” she thinks. “Our own house. A perfect childhood for Mere and…another restaurant for me.”
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.
Bestselling author Emily Carpenter, whose other suspense novels include Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies, weaves a frightening and compelling tale as we follow Billie and her family move from elation at what they see as a chance for a new and better life and the dawning realization that they may have embarked upon a dangerous and frightening adventure.
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Who’s Reading What in Each State
The Most Popular Book Genre In Each State https://flip.it/wuMdQt
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Archaeologist creates fantasy world filled with intrigue, romance and adventure
An archaeologist who has excavated a Bronze Age palace in Turkey, a medieval Abbey in England, and an Inca site in Chile, Sarah Hawley has created an extensive underground world where fairies abide.
But if you’re thinking Tinkerbell, who sweetly waves her magic wand, think again. The fairies in Hawley’s novel “Servant of Earth,” the first in a trilogy titled “The Shards of Magic,” are amazingly beautiful and as decadent as any French court in the 17th or 18th centuries. Given numerous love affairs, intrigues and pettiness, they’re ruled by a tyrant king who has a penchant for mayhem and murder.
Into this world stumbles Kenna, a human from a nearby village who lives with her single mother, keeps mostly to herself to avoid the jeers of others with one exception– Anya, a pretty villager who has befriended her. When Anya is chosen as one of the women who will travel to the land of the Fae, a perilous trip through bogs and deep dark woods, she accompanies her. But Anya disappears as they make their way, and it is Kenna who arrives at the fairy court, helped by the mysterious dagger she discovered in one of her forays in the forest.
The King orders her dead, but one of his underlings suggests a different fate. Why not make her a handmaiden to Lara, the daughter of Princess Oriana, head of the Earth House in the fairy kingdom?
It is clearly an insult to Princess and her daughter. A human as a handmaiden. But it is impossible to say no. And Kenna, who is very curious and kind, soon learns her way among the many houses and those that rule them. In doing so, she is able to help Lara, who, to become an immortal fairy, must undergo six rigorous and often deadly tasks along with others who are vying for the honor.
Hawley, who also taught archaeology, takes us into a fascinating subterranean world, one where the fairies live in luxurious surroundings, dine on the best food, and busy themselves with endless affairs, alliances and games as their lives unwind in front of them for eternity.
Kenna embarks upon a romantic liaison with one of the fairy princes, but she also befriends the serving women who have been cast out of the brothel where the king likes to spend much of his time. Each of the worlds she connects with pulls her deeper into the dangers of being discovered as a spy, someone who is siding with a brewing rebellion.
But she has a moral compass compelling her to go forward in aiding the revolt against the current regime. At the same time, she is helping Lara accomplish her tasks, though it’s forbidden to do so.
There is danger on all sides and Kenna becomes more and more unsure of who she can trust, including her fairy prince. Spoiler alert: He is no Prince Charming.
“Working as an archaeologist made me think about the details of this world and of the past, and that extends into fantasy worlds where you think about how people are dressing and what it looks like and the political structure and all of that,” said Hawley, explaining how she created the fairy kingdom and all the factions and their interactions. “But it’s also thinking about these characters, their identities, and the stories they tell themselves about their past, because as much as I’m telling the mythology of this world, the characters see the mythology of their own world in a slightly different way.”
Hawley, who is the author of several other books, including “A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon” and “A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch,” brings a historic perspective to her tales of a fairy kingdom as well.
“There’s actually very dark stuff about how fairies behave,” she said, recounting a Celtic story about people who play fiddle music for the fairies for a single night, are rewarded with gold, and sent home. “Upon returning to their villages, they find that the gold has turned into leaves. And they realize that hundreds of years have passed since they’d been gone and everyone they love is dead, and then they immediately die.”
Luckily, if you like happy endings, “Servant of Earth” ends on a positive note, though one where we realize that Kenna has many more challenges ahead.
But she’s a tough, wily hero. And so, it’s just a matter of waiting for the next book in the trilogy to come out next year.
This article originally appeared in the Northwest Indiana Times.
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Trust Issues: A Mystery That Asks Who You Going to Trust?
“a tense, well-plotted mystery with enough twists and turns to keep the reader engaged . . .”
“Something strange happened when Hazel and Kagan showed up. Ava had begun hearing her father’s voice so clearly that it sounds like he’s crawled inside her head. This isn’t the first time in her life she’s been haunted by his negative commentary. It followed her on the bus when she first escaped and lingered for a few weeks after she settled into life with Sam again. When she was in prison she’d hear her father’s voice late into the night, chastising her for thinking she could outrun her destiny and for being stupid enough to get caught.”
Spoiled and entitled, Hazel Bailey and her brother Kagan Bailey have gone through the millions their mother, Janice, gave them after the death of their abusive father and, resentful that she won’t give them more, have cut off all contact with her. Still, despite their treatment of her, they’re outraged when they learn of their mother’s death and that Perry, their smarmy stepfather has inherited all of Janice’s considerable fortune,
When they learn that Janice was murdered, they’re sure that Perry is the culprit despite his unassailable alibi—he was on a plane at the time of her death. And so, the two, who don’t typically get along, team up together to discover all they can about Perry to prove he’s somehow responsible for her death. Surprisingly, Perry has no internet presence, except for a hazy half photo at a charity event he attended with Janice.
Though the siblings are self-centered, combative, and often compete for the same romantic interest, they also are resourceful and before long discover that Perry is a conman who seduces rich, older women who then disappear or die. Taking it one step further, they trace his daughter, Ava, who long ago separated herself from her father and ask her to join them in their search and revenge mission.
Like Kagan and Hazel, the seductive Ava has her own baggage. Trained from an early age by her father to con people, she’s spent time in prison and has been offered a straight-and-narrow lifestyle. But the idea of helping them regain their fortune and punish her father who murdered her mother and uncle is impossible to resist. And besides, as the siblings neglect to keep in mind, when you’re trained to be a conman or woman, old habits die hard— particularly when there’s a fortune to be had.
As the three chase Perry down the Eastern seaboard, coming up with an elaborate plan to fleece Perry out of the money he conned their mother out of and to keep him from marrying—and killing another wealthy woman—they fail to keep in mind that Perry mayhave a fatal plan to stop them as well.
Elizabeth Keenan and Greg Wands, authors of Trust Issues (Dutton 2025), have previously written three novels under the pen name E.G. Scott including The Woman Inside and The Rule of Three. Besides their books, which have been translated into a dozen languages, they created and co-host the podcast “Imposter House with Liz & Greg,” where they chat with authors and artists about creativity, self-doubt, and about featuring imposter characters in their stories.
In Trust Issues, they’ve written a tense, well-plotted mystery with enough twists and turns to keep the reader engaged as well as hopeful that Perry finally is outsmarted and has to pay for his sins.
This article originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books.
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“City Under One Roof” by Iris Yamashita
Point Mettier, Alaska is no one’s idea of paradise. Its inhabitants—all 205 of them—live in the same high-rise apartment building and the only access to town is by a tunnel or the sea.
But Point Mettier is perfect for many of those who live there. It’s a chance to invent new names, identities, and lives. For some, it’s a safe harbor such as an escape from an abusive spouse. For others, the reasons for disappearing into the void of a place like Point Mettier are darker. And so when a severed hand and foot wash up on shore and Cara Kennedy, a police detective arrives from Anchorage, she finds the inhabitants to be aloof and evasive. Everyone, it seems, has something to hide.
“City Under One Roof” (Berkley) is the first novel written by Iris Yamashita, a screenwriter nominated for an Academy Award for the movie “Letters from Iwo Jima.” The inspiration, she says, comes from a documentary about Whittier, Alaska she watched more than 20 years ago. At the time, Whittier only was accessible by boat or through a 2.5-mile long tunnel.
“Jumping off point for me was the tunnel,” says Yamashita, who has been working in Hollywood for 15 years developing material for both film and streaming, “I had the feeling I was going down into the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland. Cara is like Alice, she too fell down the rabbit hole.”
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And there Cara meets a wide range of quirky characters including Lonnie, who has a moose she has rescued as a pet, and Amy, a teenager who delivers the Asian food her mother makes to the building’s residents.
Cara has her own burdens, her family died in a tragic, terrifying way. And working with local policeman, Joe Barkowski, stirs feelings she has thought were gone forever.
But even as their feelings for each other grow, the two have to contend with another crisis. A storm closes the tunnel and the residents of Point Mettier—and Cara—are trapped. But though help from the mainland is days away, mayhem is close by when a gang from further north arrives to terrorize the community and that’s when everyone’s secrets start to come out.
Yamashita has always loved writing and for a while, it was a hobby. She has a degree in mechanical engineering and says her “Asian parents always told her ‘you can’t make a living as a writer.’”
“And so I worked at my day job until I had a contract in my hand and then I quit,” she says. “Now I’m working on my next book.”
This story originally appeared in the Northwest Indiana Times.
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Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook
Nancy Singleton Hachisu dives deep into the Japanese food scene, having married a Japanese farmer and learning the intricacies of cooking various vegetables and other ingredients that most of us aren’t familiar with.
The author of several cookbooks including Japanese Farm Food, winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012: USA Winner for the Best Japanese Cuisine Book, Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen, and Food Artisans of Japan, Hachisu is meticulous in her receipt development and helping us understand the intricacies of Japanese gastronomy. Her latest is Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook (Phaidon 2023).
For those who want to learn, Hachisu’s recipes require attention to detail and buying foods we may have trouble sourcing. But the results, for those who like a kitchen challenge, are well worth it and as someone who has been following Hachisu and using her cookbooks for years, I can assure you it gets much easier.
It’s a fascinating take on Japanese cuisine from Hachisu, a native Californian who moved to Japan to stay there just for a year and immersed herself in Japanese food culture. Love intervened and after meeting an organic farmer, she married and moved to the rural Saitama Prefecture.
That was more than 30 years ago, time enough for Hachisu to raise a family in an 85-year-old traditional Japanese farmhouse and become proficient in both culture and cooking.
The book is so very niche that it’s almost like being in her kitchen and on her farm, giving us an amazing insight into a tiny slice of Japanese farm culture.
CHILLED UME-TOFU SQUARES IN DASHI
- Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus 2-3 hours pressing and chilling
- Cooking times: 10-15 minutes
- Serves: 4 squares
- Vegan, Dairy-free, Nut-free
Junsai, harvested from ponds from May to September, are baby water lily buds called “water shield” in English. They have a natural gelatinous covering so add a cool, slippery element to summer dishes. They might be available at Japanese markets, otherwise, just omit or substitute with blanched julienned green beans or cooked edamame. Salted sour “plums” have been prepared in Japan for a millennium, since the Heian period (794–1185), and are purported to have many health-improving qualities, including aiding digestion and combatting summer fatigue during the rainy season. The combination here makes a subtle, but lovely little bite.
INGREDIENTS
• 101⁄2 oz (300 g) cotton tofu or Japanese-style soft block tofu • 1 tablespoon hon kuzu
• 2 medium umeboshi
• Canola (rapeseed) oil, for greasing the pan
• Generous 3/4 cup (63/4 fl oz/200 ml) Konbu Dashi
• 1⁄2 tablespoon shoyu
• A pinch of flaky sea salt
• Scant 1⁄2 cup (31⁄2 fl oz/100 ml) baby water lily buds
• Boiling waterDIRECTIONS
Place the tofu on a dinner plate and weight with a small cutting board for 1 hour.
Smash the kuzu to a fine powder in a Japanese grinding bowl (suribachi, see page 354). Squeeze the tofu by handfuls to express excess moisture and drop into the suribachi. Mash into the kuzu until well incorporated.
Cut out the umeboshi pits (stones) and discard. Finely chop the umeboshi and fold into the smashed tofu.
Dampen a folded-up piece of paper towel with the oil and grease the bottom and sides of
a 5 1⁄2 × 4 1⁄2 × 2-inch (14 × 11 × 4.5 cm) nagashikan mold (see page 353) or a 4 3⁄8 × 8 1⁄2-inch (11.5 × 21 cm) loaf pan (bottom lined with parchment paper). Scrape the ume-tofu mixture into the pan and rap smartly on the counter to eliminate air pockets and make sure the tofu is evenly distributed into the pan.Set a bamboo steamer over a large wok filled one-third of the way with water and bring to a boil. Place the pan in the steamer, cover, and steam over high heat for about 10 minutes until set. Remove from the steamer, blot off accumulated moisture, and lay a piece of plastic wrap (cling film) on the surface. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to chill.
In a small saucepan, stir the dashi, shoyu, and salt together over medium heat to dissolve the salt. Transfer to a small bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour to chill.
Place the junsai in a wire-mesh sieve and pour boiling water over for 10 seconds. Refresh
by running the sieve under cold water. Shake off excess water and set the sieve over a bowl to drain. Store in the fridge for 1 hour to chill.Unmold the umedofu, cut into 4 squares, and place each on a small shallow individual dish. Stir the junsai into the cold dashi and spoon around the umedofu. Serve immediately as a light, palate-cleansing bite.
Extracted from JAPAN: The Vegetarian Cookbook © 2023 by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. Photography © 2023 by Aya Brackett. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.
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