April's Texas-connected titles are as refreshing as its spring showers

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.

 

 

 

 

The Cop Reporter, A Novel

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.”

 

 

 

Filmmaker’s Journey

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.

 

 

 

The Wild Lavender Bookshop

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.

 

 

 

Four-Alarm Homicide

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

Everything's a Two-Step but a Waltz: The Reluctant Texan Comes Home by Chick Morgan

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

The Merchant of Venus by Nancy Thornton Navarro, Adriana Thornton-Cornejo, and Philip Mershon

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

Undertold Texas by Mike Vance

The Virtue of Playfulness by Boomer Trujillo

 

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

The Light by Cindy Vincent

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 Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier

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.com with the details!

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