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Lady in Ermine: The Story of a Woman Who Painted the Renaissance reveals the discovery of an historic figure who embodies the struggle of women throughout the ages while immersing the reader in the sixteenth century world of the Renaissance figures she paints.

As a girl in Lombardy, Sofonisba Anguissola trains to paint with mannerist masters, and though society frowns upon women having such ambition, Sofonisba’s father unwaveringly encourages her. A royal tour by Prince Philip of Spain inspires her lifelong dream: to perfect the king’s portrait and show his truth on canvas, the highest calling for a Renaissance portraitist. Her drive to vindicate her loving father, a bastard of nobility, propels her. Politics of the Spanish empire brings Sofonisba to the heart of the royal court in Madrid. She aspires to achieve her goal while others at court work to undermine her as a female artist. Tragedy unfolds in the royal household, but in the process, Sofonisba finds her opportunity to paint the King of Spain, honoring her family name with her success. In life after court, Sofonisba navigates two marriages, royal appointments, love, hardship, and bankruptcy, while leaving a legacy of hundreds of paintings and influencing generations of artists from Anthony van Dyck to Peter Paul Rubens. This is her story.

Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction
Shortlisted, 2026 Massachusetts Book Award, Fiction Category

The linked stories of Lake Song, set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York’s Finger Lakes region, span decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as the twentieth century hurtles forward. Against a backdrop of historical events—bootlegging, Klan attacks, gold smuggling, the Albany Ketchup Murders, the 1965 Northeast blackout—a generations-long mystery unwinds. In 1906 Mavis Staunch drowns in Okisee Lake days after she refuses to sell her land to a trio of brothers. The same night, one of the brothers, Angus Epps, doesn’t come home. Few suspect the two events are connected, and no one imagines the role that a ten-year-old boy, a canoe, and a pack of coyotes play in the tragedies. Spiritualists, grifters, sugar makers, arsonists, seekers, and saleswomen wind through each other’s lives and across decades to add layers of resonance to each captivating story. The mercurial lake that unites the people of Kinder Falls sustains as much as it haunts, both witness and diary.

Méndez-Negrete was born in Mexico, in the state of Zacatecas. She recalls a joyous childhood growing up in the midst of Tabasco, a vibrant town filled with extended family. Her father, though, had dreams of acquiring wealth in el norte. He worked sun-up to sun-down in the fields of south Texas. Returning home to Mexico, his pockets full of dollars, he spent evenings drinking and womanizing.

When Méndez-Negrete was eleven, her father moved the family to the United States, where they eventually settled in California’s Santa Clara Valley. There her father began molesting his daughters, viciously beating them and their mother. Within the impoverished immigrant family, the abuse continued for years, until a family friend brought it to the attention of child welfare authorities. Méndez-Negrete’s father was tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

Las hijas de Juan is told chronologically, from the time Méndez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father’s brutal legacy. It is a harrowing story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the experiences of women and girls. At the same time, Las hijas de Juan is an inspiring tale, filled with strong women and hard-won solace found in traditional Mexican cooking, songs, and storytelling.

Leaders of the Mexican American Generation explores the lives of a wide range of influential members of the US Mexican American community between 1920 and 1965 who paved the way for major changes in their social, political, and economic status within the United States.

Including feminist Alice Dickerson Montemayor, to San Antonio attorney Gus García, and labor activist and scholar Ernesto Galarza, the subjects of these biographies include some of the most prominent idealists and actors of the time. Whether debating in a court of law, writing for a major newspaper, producing reports for governmental agencies, organizing workers, holding public office, or otherwise shaping space for the Mexican American identity in the United States, these subjects embody the core values and diversity of their generation.

More than a chronicle of personalities who left their mark on Mexican American history, Leaders of the Mexican American Generation cements these individuals as major players in the history of activism and civil rights in the United States. It is a rich collection of historical biographies that will enlighten and enliven our understanding of Mexican American history.  

A welcome link to the chain connecting the early masters of detective fiction.... The collection offers a window into the early days of American detective fiction and the power of deductive thinking."—Sarah Weinman, Los Angeles Times

"This story collection featuring New York City private detective James Brampton will intrigue Sherlock Holmes fans, given the number of eerie parallels between the two characters."—Publishers Weekly

"It is the observation of small things that makes a good detective, for it is often the most trivial circumstance which supplies the first link in the chain." —James Brampton

Twenty years before the Sherlock Holmes mysteries were written, a fictional New York private investigator was celebrated for his ability to solve crimes based on the principles of observation and deductive reasoning that later became Holmes' hallmark. Originally published in 1864 and never before reprinted, Leaves from the Note-Book of a New York Detective features twenty-nine cases of James Brampton, the first American detective hero to appear in fiction. The book opens with a chance meeting between a medical doctor, John Babbington Williams (the actual author of the stories), and detective James Brampton. They become acquaintances, and after Brampton has retired after twenty years of service, he sends his case notebooks to Dr. Williams to be edited and published. The result is a stunning collection of intriguing mysteries, including "The Defrauded Heir," "The Phantom Face," "A Satanic Compact," and "The Walker Street Tragedy." In case after case, using his power of observation, detective Brampton is able prove the innocence of the wrongly accused. Never before reprinted, this first modern edition of this important work now takes its place once more in the development of detective fiction between Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, the casebook of the original American detective hero.

This addition to the Badger Biographies series for young readers tells the story of Les Paul, the legendary “Wizard of Waukesha,” who pioneered the solid body electric guitar, multi-track recording, and many other musical inventions. Fascinated since boyhood with musical technology, the young Les moved from experimenting with his mother’s player piano and phonograph to developing his own amplifier and tinkering with crystal radios.

After leaving his hometown of Waukesha at age 17 to pursue a musical career—a decision his mother supported—the budding jazz guitarist lived in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, in each city finding a new audience and new musical partnerships. A regular on the radio, Les became a fixture in early television, appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, and later, a show of his own with partner Mary Ford. Along the way, he overcame numerous physical challenges, including recovery from electric shock and rehabilitation after a horrific car accident—both of which threatened his musical career. And yet, Les Paul pushed musical technology forward more than any other musician of the twentieth century. This Grammy Hall of Fame inductee died in 2009, making Les Paul: Guitar Wizard a timely addition to the series. This lively story is rounded out with sidebars on radio call letters and how an electric guitar works, a full discography, and over 60 historic photographs.

In the fall of 1884, journalist Charles Lummis set out on foot from Ohio to California on assignment for the Los Angeles Times. The reports he mailed ahead to that newspaper were later refashioned for the book A Tramp Across the Continent, a work that helped to establish Lummis as the most active promoter of Southwestern culture who ever lived.

Lummis wrote another set of letters during his journey, however, which he sent back to Ohio for publication by the Chillicothe Leader. Although these letters contain basically the same narrative as those sent to Los Angeles and later found in A Tramp, the Ohio letters more closely reflect the author’s thoughts and observations while on the journey. In fact, a comparison of the two drafts indicates that Lummis spent considerable effort removing spontaneous details from the Ohio letters in favor or a more commercial, self-promoting, and politic reporting for the California paper.

The twenty-four Ohio letters, assembled here by James W. Byrkit, offer a far more candid look at the Southwest than Lummis was later to bring to print, as well as greater insight into the author’s own personality. Byrkit’s introductory essay provides the background for Lummis’s career, compares the three bodies of work relating to the trek, and offers an account of Lummis’s transformation from chronicler to promoter.

How a traditionalist became part of Lincoln's volatile team of rivals

Edward Bates, a founding father of Missouri and leader of the Missouri Whig Party, served as Abraham Lincoln’s attorney general during the American Civil War. The first full biography of Bates in nearly sixty years, Lincoln’s Conservative Advisor reveals a striking portrait of this complex figure in Lincoln’s cabinet.

Author Mark A. Neels begins with Bates’s youth in Virginia and follows him through his political and judicial career, his candidacy as a Republican presidential nominee in 1860, and his appointment to Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet as attorney general. Bates became an essential advisor to the president on key legal, military, and political matters from emancipation to civil liberties and equal rights, and his official opinion on Habeas Corpus would have a permanent effect on presidential authority and separation of powers. When Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, Bates found himself at odds with the president and the radical anti-slavery members of the cabinet. But more than simply highlighting the conflict within Lincoln’s administration, Bates’s example lays bare the strong philosophical divisions within the Republican Party during the Civil War era. These divisions were present at the party’s inception, crystallized during the war, and ultimately sparked a political realignment during Reconstruction. Bates was at the center of this divide for most of its existence, and in some cases assisted in its promulgation.

Bates, a fierce opponent of radical Republicanism, embodies the conflict among Republicans over issues of slavery and citizenship. In both judicial and elective office, he was compelled by a sense of duty to defy the populism of President Andrew Jackson and Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and, later, the proslavery forces that threatened to tear the nation apart. Though he had owned slaves, Bates represented at least one enslaved woman’s suit for freedom, released from bondage the people he had enslaved, and aided Lincoln in his efforts to end slavery nationwide. Bates’s opinion on citizenship as attorney general helped pave the way for equal rights. His opinions were not always popular with either his colleagues or the greater populace, but Bates remained true to his conservative principles—a set of values shared by a large swath of Lincoln’s Republican Party—which positioned him as a leading opponent of radical Republicanism during the Reconstruction Era.

Sue Cato Gennings’ first novel traces two young immigrant brothers from early adulthood in Tidewater Virginia to successful entrepreneurship in northern Georgia during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Penniless but energetic, the brothers struggle to refine and realize their dreams of family and business success. Their paths explore themes of family, ambition, honor, and maturation, finding resolutions as distinct as their characters.