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Welcome to the Mid-April edition of MWPA's Ex Libris Maine.
This edition offers new books by Maine authors in the categories of Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Memoir, Poetry, Children's, and Young Adult/Young Readers.
For more information on any title below, simply click on the book's cover.
In The Last Renter: An Archer Island Thriller, a dangerous mental patient escapes to Archer Island seeking revenge against her abusive stepfather and holds her elderly rental hosts captive in their remote farmhouse. Millicent Kilvert has led a tragic life of mental illness, culminating in her being sent to an insane asylum to live out her life. She manages to escape and after killing her mother heads for Archer Island in late November as a big coastal storm rolls into Maine. She rents the attached bungalow in an old farmhouse owned by an elderly couple, Hilda and Evan Olson. Evan leaves his wife alone with the renter as he takes the ferry to the mainland to help their pregnant daughter move into a new home. Hilda and Evan are excited to become first-time grandparents and are unaware of their renter’s past.
The most dangerous mind at court belongs to a fool. From the author of The Alchemist's Daughter comes a dark tale of ambition and survival. Kronos is a fool-- mocked and underestimated by everyone who matters. But in Henry VIII's court, invisibility is its own kind of power. When Kronos overhears a secret that could destroy Queen Katherine Howard, he is silenced, mutilated, and left for dead, but he survives--barely. Rescued by an ambitious apothecary, Kronos soon realizes he has not escaped danger--he has merely changed masters. His secret is worth a fortune... and powerful men are willing to kill to control it. But Kronos has spent his life being overlooked and he's ready to use that to his advantage. As rival factions circle and scheme, Kronos sets a plan in motion--one that could topple the mighty, rewrite his fate, and force his foes to reconsider which of them is truly... the fool.
When New York reporter Corky Mason returns to her Siberian roots to investigate a story about cloned mammoths, she uncovers a Russian government memo suggesting she’s the sister of four genetically engineered Cro-Magnon brothers, brothers who kill people who threaten their freedom.
Fernando Vargas, seventeen years old, is dead. Thorny, an infamous girl his age, is missing. The storm that has been gathering on the planet called Heaven, a harsh world seventy-six light-years from Earth, is about to break. The planet’s sole physician cannot provide a cause of death. Thorny’s father, a former mercenary soldier, must find his daughter, because no one can survive for long in Heaven’s wilds. Also missing is Dani, another teenaged boy, who is chasing an impossible love story. The mystery of what happened to the teens exposes the simmering feuds, hatreds, regrets, and personal agendas of the struggling colonists. Only a few recognize the precarious state of the settlement and strive to make it secure. Others see an opportunity to seize power. A mysterious death, a disappearance, dangerous rites of passage, and a possible coup in an isolated interstellar colony create a thrilling and toxic brew.
A prose poetry-memoir mashup that features selected entries from a daily writing practice, "Right Here, Right Now," that Maya began in 2018. The writings in "Margin Release" offer a pastiche of explorations—marriage, step-parenting, friendship, relocation, travel, and the work of forging a life that centers creativity expression.
Already Home
Dave Morrison
Jukebooks
In Dave Morrison's twentieth collection of poems he tackles the big subjects: love and loss, discouragement and hope and wonder, with his trademark blend of humor and emotional honesty. Morrison's poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, and featured on Writer’s Almanac, Take Heart, and Poems from Here.
Are We There Yet?
Ellen Goldsmith
Kelsay Books
The poems in Ellen Goldsmith’s Are We There Yet? observe and interrogate. The title question appears in a poem as the impatient inquiry of a child at the beginning of a long car trip. Divided into four sections, Are We There Yet? offers a layered exploration of the central question. The poems in the first section, Hints, travel widely to consider where—and who—the poet is now. As We Wait, the second section, begins with a one-lined poem, “Waiting / isn’t a room, it’s the whole house,” setting the tone for explorations of illness and recovery. You Never Know, the third section, features prose poems, little moments that become large. The final section, You Know, considers hard questions of social and personal responsibility. As a whole, the collection acknowledges life’s uncertainties and appreciates its gifts.
In My Paper Boat (Moon in the Rye Press), her fifth book of poems, Acton poet Shanan Ballam struggles to make meaning out of her brother’s death-by-alcohol, the effects of that death, and her family’s guilt. She writes with metaphor, fairy tale, and directly—“I’m digging into the death// bag” she writes in “the first poem after.” With language spare but musical, Ballam stares clear-eyed at a family horror, and her struggles will be meaningful to any trauma victim. While there’s no possible happy ending to the story, she does find ways to celebrate, not just mourn “My youngest brother/my golden trophy,” and readers will derive strength from her insights on dealing with tragedy, overcoming despair, and finding a way to “fly toward the place// I could plant my feet.”
Jim Krosschell’s Man Afield is a poetic reckoning with nature, humanity, and the Anthropocene. Set across decks, woods, shores, hammocks, and bays, primarily in coastal Maine, the collection traces a life lived in close attention to birds, insects, trees, tides, and seasons. Through encounters with nature and its inhabitants, Krosschell examines urgent contemporary issues such as climate change, ecological collapse, consumerism, colonization, and the human compulsion to control, name, and exploit nature. At the same time, the poems wrestle with aging, stillness, productivity, and what it means to live ethically in the Anthropocene. Divided into thematic sections such as Yard Control, Standing in Woods, The Sea Pulses, and Burning Up the Sky, the book is a melange of natural observation, philosophical inquiry, and moral urgency. Poems move seamlessly between the intimate and the universal, personal and political, asking readers to reconsider their place in a world under strain.
Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, is one of America’s most beloved poets. Introducing her unforgettable words to children for the very first time, her poem “Goldfinches” joyfully observes the power of the natural world as only Mary Oliver can. Illuminated by the exquisite mixed-media artwork of Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, Goldfinches fills the reader with wonder for the beauty around them and gratitude for the ability to bear witness to it.
Destiny can’t count on anyone but herself. Her mother has struggled with addiction for all of Destiny’s life, moving them from town to town, bad boyfriend to bad boyfriend—including a particularly dark period in Texas, where Destiny ended up in a psychiatric hospital. But Destiny’s mother is newly sober and stable. And Destiny is falling in love. Destiny never believed in happily ever after, but that doesn’t stop her confidence from fraying when the first guy she ever trusted casually shatters her heart. Spiraling hard, she tells a tiny, desperate lie to buy herself a moment of hope. But as the lie grows and the pressures tangle, she gets lost in her own deception, and the line between truth and fantasy starts to blur. With time untethered and her perception in knots, Destiny must find a way to reclaim her story and weave a new ending—before its beginnings unravel.
SUBMISSIONS If you are a current Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance member, and you would like to announce your new book in ExLibris Maine, click HERE. If you are not a member, click HERE to learn more about our member benefits.
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