Introducing Top Shelf Recs

Books and other things I love + suggested pairings

As part of this new Substack experience, I’ve decided to introduce a regular feature I’m calling Top Shelf Recs. These will mostly be for books I’m reading, but I might occasionally fold in other things as an excuse to talk about them. And the pairings can be anything! (I mean, it can all be anything, since this is my newsletter.) I’ll also be offering links to the publisher’s page, Bookshop, and a different indie bookstore each time.

This week’s Top Shelf Recs are:

Secret Identity by Alex Segura

If you’re not familiar with Alex and his work, well, let’s change that! When I think of people who have the best, most generous energy on social media, Alex is at the top of the list. He’s constantly boosting others and recommending things in the most genuine of ways. His Pete Fernandez series is fantastic, but I could tell as soon as he started posting about this new novel, which is out March 15, that it’s a special one to him.

Set in the struggling mid-1970s comics world, this mystery has everything you want. The lead Carmen Valdez is a wonderfully realized, conflicted, stifled-by-her time comics loving (and creating) heroine. When she more-than-helps a male coworker come up with a pitch for the Legendary Lynx, a hit comic is born… But it’s not one she’s given credit on. Soon, there are homicide detectives poking around in her business. Add an erratic, threatening former girlfriend to the mix, a roomie in a band, and a host of comics artists, editors, and historical cameos in passing, and the pages practically turn themselves.

This novel is a love letter to comics, but it’s a clear-eyed one that doesn’t gloss over the rough edges of its history or imagine the “good old days” as perfect. What does come through is an absolute love of the medium and the ways in which sometimes, as the saying goes, comics (and the people in it) will break your heart. If you’re a sucker for the depiction of a publisher or newsroom, you’ll truly eat this up—I had flashbacks to my college paste-up days at the paper. And the novel’s New York feels so lived in, so utterly convincing. I was transported to this time and place, though Carmen’s specific lens. Did I mention you also get comics pages of the Lynx interspersed occasionally, tying into the main plot? This whole book is a treat.

I promise I won’t do things that aren’t available yet too often, but I made an exception because this one is out very soon and I wanted to talk about it as soon as I finished it. Go tell your library to order it or preorder from your spot of choice or follow the link below to the indie preorder campaign. And come comment after you read it! Or now.

The relevant linky:

More info and purchase via publisher. Bookshop. OR take advantage of this preorder campaign by shopping at Books & Books, Key & Willow Books, Murder by the Book, Mysterious Galaxy, or Skylight Books bookstores.

Pair with: Your favorite classic comic collection or treat yourself to Wonder Woman Historia #1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez. Put on The Ramones or Patti Smith at CBGB. And, while there should be more non-nonsensical comics-themed cocktails, since there aren’t, you could mix up a Godfather, which is period appropriate (and yes, inspired by the movie). Or pour yourself an orange juice, which was apparently one of the most popular mixers of the ‘70s (see, we’re all learning together).

Where I Can’t Follow by Ashley Blooms

Where I Can’t Follow by Ashley Blooms is set in Blackdamp County, Kentucky, where people sometimes get little doors — though only the first looked like an actual little door — that appear to them and, if they go through them, vanish forever to…somewhere, no one knows. The mother of the protagonist Maren — whose voice is unforgettable, dry and slyly funny and slanting toward wise — left through a little door when Maren was nine. And now her own little door has shown up to follow her around, while she’s dealing with an aging grandmother she desperately needs money to keep at home and no good choice for how to get it… Maren faces situations that would make any of us consider walking away to somewhere potentially magical. So, will Maren go through the door or not?

This is a portal fantasy set on its side. It’s about the difficulty of staying and leaving. And Ashley’s writing is just unbelievably good. Every other line will have you sighing at the perfectness of the language or an observation. She is able to spin fantasy as metaphor into something that feels tangible, and she writes about an Appalachia with magic like no one else — for people who are from here and for people who are from anywhere. DO NOT SLEEP ON HER WORK. I HAVE GIVEN YOU A DOOR. GO THROUGH IT.

The relevant linky:

More info and purchase via publisher. Bookshop. Joseph-Beth Booksellers, the host of our event tonight. What event, you ask?

You can also come to a zoom event hosted by Joseph-Beth Booksellers tonight (Tuesday!) at 7 p.m. Eastern where I’ll be talking to Ashley about Where I Can’t Follow.

Ashley is part of mine (and Christopher’s) kick-ass writing group, The Moonscribers. It’s the best group. She brought the perfect beginning of this book to it. So, yes, come to our event and you can hear about how and why I accidentally sent her a teddy bear for her debut novel Every Bone a Prayer’s release day.

Pair with: Fellow Moonscribers Lee Mandelo’s Summer Sons and Alix E. Harrow’s (portal fantasy!) The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Make yourself a peach Nehi float to top things off. Maybe it’s not as good as childhood, but maybe it is.