Growing up in the rural impoverishment of post-Depression Oklahoma, and surrounded by feuding family factions, free-spirited Jacob Roland hungers for knowledge and a world beyond his reach. 
But dark forces are growing in Jacob, twisting with the same ruthless, relentless power of a tornado across the Oklahoma prairies. Jacob battles against these aberrant forces, but, trapped by poverty and a growing mental illness, he is thwarted at every turn. For every light-a chance at college, the love of a poised, sophisticated woman-there is a greater darkness within him. 
Failed by circumstance, community, and his own mental health, is there an escape for Jacob's bright, wounded spirit, or will he forever be a prisoner of a particular madness?

A Particular Madness

Literature & Fiction

Sheldon Russell

Genre Fiction

Cennan Books of Cynren Press

Arribada

Review Themes of environmental justice, queer love, and Indigenous rights intersect in González's mystery. Mariana and Luisa Sánchez Celis, grew up in a household with a mother disabled by a stroke, their uncle Alonso, and caretaker Amalia. The novel, set in 1990 and 1991, filters the events of the story through the colorism, racism, and patriarchy of their society as 22-year-old Mariana falls in love with Fernanda, an Indigenous Seri woman who's passionate about protecting the turtles of the Sinaloa coast from extinction. After leaving Mexico to attend Juilliard, Mariana returns to find that Alonso has gone missing, and anti-poaching laws are harming local fisherman while industrial development hurts the wildlife and beaches. She, Luisa, Fernanda, and othersstart a business to preserve the livelihoods of locals while speaking up against powerful family friends. As the mystery of Alonso's disappearance is resolved, a truth about Mariana is revealed. The second part of the novel focuses on Clavel Celis Coulson, Luisa and Mariana's mother, as a high-society 16-year-old forced to marry a man twice her age; Amalia's dark past also comes to light. The final part ties up a mystery while exploring themes of family conflict and queer relationships. González's characters feel simultaneously archetypal and individual. On one level, they represent changing attitudes of various segments of Mexican society from the 1970s to the 2000s—enthusiastic, money-hungry land developers; an Indigenous conservationist; and an uncomfortable elite clinging to traditionalism. Yet the first-person perspectives of Mariana and Clavel showcase the specific desires, hopes, and dreams of each person as they try to find their place in a complex and dynamic social setting. González shines at exploring the effects of racist discrimination against Indigenous Mexicans without ever reducing characters to mere pawns. Her prose style is simple yet poignant and emotive, particularly when describing human desire and natural beauty: "Nothing relaxed me more than Bach combined with the aromas of the ocean and the sight of beauty. If only music could bend life to its rules." González's closing notes provide the story's critical real-world origins.A suspenseful but tender tale that exemplifies the power of intersectionality.--Starred Kirkus Review Product Description Mariana Sánchez Celis has traveled the world as a pianist trained at the Juilliard School of Music. But when her mother has a stroke and her beloved uncle suddenly disappears, Mariana must put her life on hold to return to her home in Ayotlan, Mexico. She soon discovers her town is no longer the place she remembers. Ayotlan's beaches, sea turtle colonies, and historic center are decimated under decades of neglect and abuse. What part did her late father have in this? And could it be related to her uncle's disappearance? When Fernanda Lucero, a member of the indigenous Concáac people, convinces Mariana to join her sea turtle and architectural conservation projects, the deepening love between Mariana and Fernanda threatens to put them both further in harm's way. This, together with the web of secrets Mariana unravels, stands to radically transform her and her family's fate. Arribada is the story of a well-to-do woman pushed to confront her role in environmental and social injustice. It is the saga of a family faced with the realization that their comfortable position rests, beyond a strong work ethic, on crimes against what they hold dearest: the natural world, their town, and their loved ones. From the Back Cover A novel about how even the most pain truths can bring power and freedom. Eileen Gonzales, Foreword Reviews Arribada is romantic, poetic, elegiac, and fascinating. González has created a world of love and mystery. Word to word, event to event, this novel is beautiful. It begs to be savored. Sandra Scofield, author of Swim: Stories of the Sixties and The Last Draft This novel wil

Estela González

United States

Run with the Hare, Hunt with the Hound

On a remote Gaelic farmstead in medieval Ireland, word reaches Alberic of conquering Norman knights arriving from England. Oppressed by the social order that enslaved his Norman father, he yearns for the reckoning he believes the invaders will bring-but his world is about to burn. Captured by the Norman knight Hugo de Lacy and installed at Dublin Castle as a translator, Alberic's confused loyalties are tested at every turn. When de Lacy marches inland, Alberic is set on a collision course with his former masters amidst rumours of a great Gaelic army rising in the west. Can Alberic navigate safely through revenge, lust and betrayal to find his place amidst the birth of a kingdom in a land of war?

Paul M. Duffy

Listen

Stripped of opportunity by the Great Depression, educated and ambitious Liam takes a low-paying job with the Federal Writers' Project, assigned to collect stories of rural life for the Library of Congress in a hot, poverty-stricken Dust Bowl town in Oklahoma. He'll take his government check, write the stories, and wait for better times. Then Liam meets a woman who upends all his plans. 
Eden Sawyer may be poor, but she's hardworking and determined. She has dreams; more than that, she has talent. As Liam interviews her, he discovers that Eden longs to be an artist, and has the skill to do it, if only she can break the cycle of poverty that traps her. 
Eden leads Liam to an unexpected, unimagined love. But as he interviews more townspeople, Liam's probing questions steer him into danger, threatening to reveal untold secrets, unsolved mysteries, and unfulfilled passions. Will one man's simmering jealousy and thwarted ambition bring Liam and Eden's story to an abrupt and deadly end?

A Rare Obsession

Russell, Sheldon