April is National Poetry Month, and we've got your Texas poets, plus plenty of perfect reads for readers of all ages. Spring has sprung, and Lone Star Lit's here to help you weather the inevitable storms.
Beowulf: For Fireside and Schoolroom
A new translation by Donald Mace Williams
This new translation of the oldest narrative poem in English—the first in more than twenty years—is designed for easy, pleasant reading. It cuts the scholarly touches to a minimum, using simple margin notes to explain some words or phrases. With students, young readers, and Beowulf fans in mind, Donald Mace Williams has approached his translation as both a published writer of modern metrical poems and a scholar in the verse structure of Beowulf.
PJ Jones
Kat Coe is a driven newspaper reporter who is lucky professionally but unlucky in love. She leaves San Angelo, Texas for a new job in Abilene, determined to put her failed marriage behind her.
When Kat becomes embroiled in covering the salacious murder of a wealthy socialite, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the police detective working the case. Detective Callahan is arrogant, quick-tempered, handsome and exciting. And somehow, he becomes the man of Kat’s dreams.
Or is Callahan what nightmares are made of? Warning signs appear. Maybe he’s more like the man who broke her heart than she imagined. In this romantic novel set in 1980, the Cop Reporter finds herself on a journey of discovery about love — the faithless kind and the fated kind.
End of the Trail Eats: Cowboy-Approved Recipes from the Cowtown Café to the Saloon
Natalie Bright
Recipes and much, much more!
Trail-weary cowboys, cattle barons, railroaders, and townspeople collide in Cowtown where the dining table is central to savory food and business deals. Archival photographs, authentic dishes, old-time remedies, firsthand accounts, and Old West lore come together in this unique book.
Discover the iconic taste of the American West and the tales of a thriving Cowtown. Rivalry was fierce and entertaining the drovers was crucial.
Independence and grit rules where enterprising minds could profit. As the saying goes, “No sheriff west of Newton—no God west of Dodge.”
Severo Perez
Filmmaker’s Journey recounts Perez’s winding path toward building a career as an independent filmmaker. Beginning with the events accompanying the first week of production for ...And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him—which coincided with the riots incited by the Rodney King verdict on April 29, 1992—then picking up the thread of his Westside San Antonio upbringing and his early fascination with making movies, Perez recounts his experiences with the small art houses, the obscure film collectives, and the move to Los Angeles that would eventually launch his forty-five-year career producing programming for PBS, cable, and network television.
Murder on the San Gabriel (A Fen Maguire Mystery)
Bruce Hammack
A fortune in Texas land… and a ruthless killer who wants it.
When a land baron dies under suspicious circumstances, private investigator Fen Maguire is called in to uncover the truth. There are plenty of people who want the land along the San Gabriel River, but who would kill for it? Fen has to sift through a myriad of suspects, including the victim’s family members, to discover the truth about this case and stop the killer.
One Good Time (A Titus Ray Thriller)
Luana Ehrlich
CIA covert operative Titus Ray gets involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when he agrees to lead an FBI/CIA joint operation to the Texas border to help a known terrorist enter the U. S. illegally. By following the terrorist to his final destination, Titus hopes to stop a deadly biological attack on the nation’s heartland. But when disaster strikes, Titus is faced with a torrent of emotions that threatens to derail his mission. Can he overcome his personal anguish in time to avert the disaster?
This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story
Babette Fraser Hale
For sixty years Leon Hale’s column appeared in Houston newspapers. He wrote about ordinary people with sensitivity and humor. He was a celebrity, irresistible and afraid of commitment. When he met Babette, he’d just turned sixty and had been married twice. She was twenty-three years younger and, in all surface respects, hugely different. She’d seen his face in the paper since she was ten, but only began to read him two months before they met.
Their intense romance unfolds through nine years of a turbulent courtship that resolved into a long and deeply compatible marriage. And after he dies during pandemic isolation, doubts arrive amid an onslaught of grief and regret.
Early reviews call this memoir “electric,” “candid and compelling,” “rivetingly honest,” and “enthralling.”
The Unlikely Affair of the Crawling Razor
Joe R. Lansdale
A young woman comes to Edgar Allan Poe's great private investigator, Auguste Dupin for help concerning her brother, increasingly obsessed with the dark world that sets alongside our own. It's the place from which all our nightmares spring. And now that dimensional world, due to spells and sacrifices, is wide open into our own, releasing the deadliest denizen of the dark--The God of the Razor. It's a case that will require all of Dupin's knowledge and the highest courage from his faithful assistant, as they traverse the Parisian streets, as well as the famous Catacombs of skulls and bones, in search of answers. Full of twists and surprising revelations, steeped in cold blood and endless shadows, this one is an exciting mind-bender, as well as a magnificent adventure of action and deduction.
Jodi Thomas
Return to the unforgettable world of Someday Valley, Texas, in this tender, uplifting novel of hearts in search of second chances.
You’ll See: A Story of Narcissistic Abuse, Survival, and My Journey To Understand
Suzanne Groves
In You'll See: A Story of Narcissistic Abuse, Survival, and My Journey To Understand, I write about my five-plus decades as an only child enduring the effects of my father's narcissistic personality, and the lifelong scars I carry because of it. This book offers a story of hope despite experience.
Diane Kelly
Some properties are too hot to handle... Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck are hot for a historical property that just came on the market—a fire station in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood. The cousins have just begun their work when Joanna Hartzell, who lives around the corner, comes by with a plea for help. Joanna owns a townhouse, which she maintains in perfect condition. The adjoining townhouse has fallen into disrepair and the seven siblings who inherited it refuse to lift a finger. When Joanna shows up at the fire station confused and rambling, then collapses, alarm bells go off for Whitney. She suspects something—and someone—evil could be the cause. Can she put the clues together and smoke out a killer?
Free to Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School
Cynthia Levinson (illustrated by Mirelle Ortega)
Free to Learn tells the story of the Lopezes, one of four Mexican American families whose undocumented children were barred from school in Tyler (TX) ISD in 1977. The families sued the school district and bravely appeared in Tyler's federal district court before Judge William Wayne Justice. Their law suit ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which, in a narrow decision in Plyler v. Doe, ruled that every school in America has to admit undocumented kids.
Written for children ages four to eight, Free to Learn relates the events from the perspective of nine-year-old Alfredo, a plaintiff in the case. Scenes and conversations are created, based on actual people’s real actions, making the book historical fiction.
Skin and Bones (A Patrick Flint novel)
Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Yellowstone meets Into Thin Air. Patrick Flint is about to make the most harrowing climb of his life. When the body of Patrick's beautiful young climbing partner floats up dead in the creek behind the Flint home, rumors about the two of them explode, thrusting Susanne into the role of the woman scorned and the crosshairs of the police.
Texas, Being: A State of Poems
Edited by Jenny Browne
Texas, Being: A State of Poems collects more than forty-five poems from a beautiful and brutal state. Some are about the music of their languages. Some speak to the dead, some to the sun, and others to omissions of history. One concerns a hedgehog cactus, and another a roller rink. From “Happy, Texas” to “Palestine, TX,” from seashores to skeletons to Selena, all are in one way or another about Texas, but good poems are always about more than one thing.
Selected by Jenny Browne, 2017 poet laureate of Texas, these poems draw a picture of one of America’s vastly sublime yet most audaciously independent corners. In these diverse voices, the state is a lovely and painful contradiction of space and meaning.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
There are so many Texas-connected books publishing this month that we couldn’t feature all of them. The following books also publish in April:
CHILDREN'S, MIDDLE GRADE, & YOUNG ADULT BOOKS
The Adventures of Edith May by Edith May Babcott & Diana Kokernot Britton
Black Demon Tales: Emergence by David Bowles
Bridge to Bat City by Ernest Cline
The Case of the Airborne Invasion: Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson
The Chaos Grid by Lyndsey Lewellen
The City We Built by Terry Mitchell
Lilah and the Purple Pumpkin Thief by JD Broyhill
Lion Warrior by James R. Hannibal
Made in Asian America by Christina Soontornvat & Erika Lee
A Maleta Full of Treasures by Natalia Sylvester
Mermaids' Song to the Sea by Dianna Hutts Aston
Our Creative Journey through A.D. by Myrna Johnson
Represent!: 30 True Stories of Trailblazers, Artists, Athletes, and Adventurers with Disabilities by Rosalie Mastaler & Hunter Mastaler
The Secret Language of Birds by Lynne Kelly
Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger
The Timeless Vigilante by Sarah Noffke & Michael Anderle
Vendaval by Ire’ne Lara Silva
Where are the Monarchs? : ¿Dónde están las mariposas monarcas? by Patricia Vermillion
NONFICTION / MEMOIRS
Acquisitional Wealth by Josh Tolley
Advocate by Eddie Ahn
The Business of Sustainability in Fashion: Following the Threads by Iva Jestratijevic
City Limits by Megan Kimble
Consequences of COVID-19 edited by Christine Crudo Blackburn and Gerald W. Parker
The Devil Is in the Details: Mike Rypka and the Torchy's Tacos Story by Don Yaeger
Eleven Days on the Colorado by James E. Brasher
Enchilada Entrepreneur: Ten Lessons in Life and Business from the Founder of a Successful Tex-Mex Restaurant Group by Russell Ybarra
Exit Wounds by Ieva Jusionyte
Granbury, Texas: A History of the Best Historic Small Town in America by David K. Barnett
Homeplace by John Dusty Carroll
Hunting Snipe by Paul Avery Tindol
The King of Diamonds by Rena Pederson
Let's Get Started with Pepper Belly Pete by N. Dee Williams
Loose of Earth by Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn
Make Them Smile by Dr. Sulman Ahmed
More Historic Homes of Waco, Texas by Kenneth Hafertepe
Picnic: Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Tradition by Dave Dalton Thomas
Secure Relating: Holding Your Own in an Insecure World by Sue Marriott and Anne Kelley, Ph.D.
The Serial Killer's Apprentice by Katherine Ramsland & Tracy Ullman
Two O'Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain by Helene Sula
POETRY
Felling by Kelan Nee
Huckleberry Juju and Other Narrative Spells by David Bowles
Sleepaway by Kevin Prufer
You by Rosa Alcalá
MYSTERY / HORROR
A Chance of a Ghost by R.C. & J.P. Carter
Courtin' Disaster by Cindy Davis
Dark of the Day: Eclipse Stories (Anthology)
Dark Storm Rising by Linda Castillo
Detention by Carolyn Johnson
Graven Images by Lori Roberts Herbst
Green Witch Envy by Cherry Northcutt
Jealousy, Jitterbuy & Murder by Christa Nardi
La Buchona by James Peyton
Next of Kin by Samantha Jayne Allen
Power in Loyalty by Kirby Ann
Rutter Industries by Carolyn Johnson
The Spy from Palestine by Steve Haberman
Strangled & Snails by Verena DeLuca
Tacos, Tarot, and Murder by Leanne Leeds
Wheeling and Dealing by Becki Willis
ROMANCE
2012 Texas Drive: Lonestar Terrace by Cee Bowerman
The Accidental Siren by Lexie Blake writing as Sophia Oak
All's Fair with Love and Cowboys by Kristine Lynn
Always a Maverick by Delores Fossen
Baby for My Bosses by Natasha L. Black
The Backup Bride Proposal by Jaci Burton
Christmas in the Crosshairs by Mary Alford
Cloudy with a Chance of Redemption by Olivia Sands
Come Home to the Country by Lacey Davis
Courageous Devotions by Ginny Sterling
The Cowboy Daddy Hero by Janalyn Knight
Cowboy Homecoming by Nikki Malone & Peggy Mckenzie
Echoes of the Heart by Kellie Coates Gilbert
Falling for the Marquess by Alexa Aston
The Fool by Lani Lynn Vale
Forever Fiesty by Ginny Sterling
Forever Flaunting by Ginny Sterling
Fortune's Lone Star Twins by Teri Wilson
From Graves to Gardens by Heather Camacho
The Headmistress by Kristie Self
Her Personal Assistant's Secret Baby by Tashaeya Cole
Homeward Bound by Darlene Tallman
I Turned His Sister Out in Texas by French Alsabrooks
Kings and Monsters by Clio Evans
The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton
Lina's Lasting Legacy by Elissa Strati
Lone Star Payback by Delores Fossen
The Lookback by B.E. Baker
Love on the Edge of Forever by Julie A. Richman
Mine to Shield by Kennedy L. Mitchell
The Mysterious Amish Bachelor by Vannetta Chapman
Nick by Kathy Ivan
Nifty & Fifty Anthology
On the Scene by Barb Shuler
The Perfect Nanny by D. Lilac
Ranger's Storm by Sofia Aves
Rescuing the Blacksmith by Jovie Grace
A Reticule for Scandal by Cecilia Rene
Smile for Days by Barb Shuler
Strong Loving Cowboy by Debra Clopton
Texas Destiny by Peggy McKenzie
A Texas Rangers Heart by Gabriella Reign
Texas Reckless Cowboy by Rebecca Crowley
Texas Twirl by Liz Talley
The Thomas Crown Effect by Lori Wilde
Whispers of Truth by Valerie M. Bodden
The Wife Situation by Lyla Parish
Wrangling a Texas Firecracker by Katie Lane
OTHER FICTION
Athena by Eva Pohler
The Black Girl Survives in This One by Desiree S. Evans
Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan
Body Snatcher by L.B. Carter
Canto Contigo by Johnny Garza Villa
Jed the Dead by Dean Allen Foster
John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America by Simon Spurrier
The Journey South by Reavis Z. Wortham
The King of Action Figures by Andrew J. Brandt
The Man from Waco by William W. Johnstone & J.A. Johnstone
Pack'em, Texas by J. Todd McMillan
Rebel's Redemption by Caelen Walker
The Rest Of His Days by Pamela Taylor
Rogue Stars: Divine Intervention by Jaime Castle
Shattered by D.M. O'Neal
Suicide Mission by Skyler Ramirez
Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse in Big Turtle Texas by Terri Higdon
Texas Ranger Pharaoh Smith: Murder in Greasewood Wells by J.W. Masterson
The Vacancy in Room 10 by Seraphina Nova Glass
Want to make sure your forthcoming Texas-connected titles are included in our feature? Email us at Publicity@LoneStarLiterary.
