Review_FICTION
48 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020
Review_FICTION
brothels. Eleanor navigates politics—
including a push to strip her beloved
healing witches of their access to educa-
tion—and her stepmother’s ongoing
schemes while dealing with her husband’s
inconsistent moods. Through it all, she
relies on Gregory’s best friend, soldier
Dorian Finley, for support. Alexander
writes sensitively about reality falling
short of dreams while leaving open
enough questions regarding Imogene’s
machinations and Dorian and Eleanor’s
mutual attraction to propel a sequel.
Alexander does a solid job of taking a fairy
tale and remixing it with feminist themes
and dark edges. (Self-published)Romance/Erotica
Real Men Knit
Kwana Jackson. Berkley, $16 trade paper
(336p) ISBN 978-1-984806-50-5
Longtime friends partner first in business
then in pleasure in this light, refreshing
romance from Jackson (the Sugar Lake
series, written as K.M. Jackson). Jesse
Strong, one of four adopted sons of
“Mama Joy” Strong, has lived a fun-filled,
irresponsible life, but he’s forced to finally
grow up following Mama Joy’s death.
Deciding not to sell his mother’s beloved
Harlem knitting store, Strong Knits,
which doubles as the Strong family home,
Jesse turns to family friend and Strong
Knits employee Kerry Fuller to teach
him the business side of things. Kerry has
crushed on Jesse since they were kids, but
she hides her feelings, believing that
playboy Jesse views her as just a friend.
But as they band together to run the
shop, a maintenance mishap in Kerry’s
apartment leaves her temporarily living
with Jesse. Working and living in such
close quarters, their chemistry only
grows. Jackson eschews manufactured
drama and miscommunication, giving
her couple a relatively painless path to
love. Jesse’s delightful brothers bring an
extra helping of light and laughter to the
story, and their distinct personalities will
have readers excited for them each to find
love of their own in future installments.
This smooth romance goes down easy.
Agent: Evan Marshall, the Evan Marshall
Agency. (May)depravity, cannibalism, and stomach-
churning body horror, without relief or a
larger message. Manzetti’s characterization
of the pandemic as having “the creativity
and sadism of a drunk motherfucker god”
aptly describes his novel as a whole. Readers
will need strong stomachs to weather this
relentless, gleefully violent, and pointless
work of hardcore horror. (May.)The Cracked Slipper
Stephanie Alexander. Bublish, $14.99 trade
paper (412p) ISBN 978-1-64704-021-5
Alexander’s alluring debut and series
launch reimagines Cinderella’s happily
ever after as a tense, unhappy marriage
while laying plenty of ground for install-
ments to come. At the Second Sunday
ball, Eleanor Brice attracts the attention
of Prince Gregory Desmarais, much to the
annoyance of her conniving, abusive
stepmother, Imogene. Here ends the fairy
tale readers will recognize, as opinionated
Eleanor struggles to fit in at the palace
during her whirlwind wedding prepara-
tions with help from her gossipy parrot
Chou Chou and her handmaidens. Her
marriage grows more complicated than
her engagement as Gregory’s temper
flares and Eleanor learns he frequentsthe color and detail of the characters have
diminished as the worldbuilding expands,
taking on new, sometimes contradictory,
rules. Series fans will be pleased to return
to Blackfield but will have trouble untan-
gling this one’s plot. (May)The Radioactive Bride
Alessandro Manzetti. Necro, $14.95 trade
paper (248p) ISBN 978-1-944703-85-1
Stoker Award–winner Manzetti (Naraka)
overwhelms the senses in this gory, dis-
gusting carnival of vignettes set across
continents in a postapocalyptic future.
Forty years after the meteorite Uxor 77
led to a pandemic of genetic mutations
that swept the Earth, the Parisian elite
have monetized the bodies of the unlucky
masses in exclusive brothels, freak shows,
and fine dining establishments where the
wealthy feast on human meat. Meanwhile
in Berlin, the population is re-divided by
an electrified sewer-wall into Western
Puritans and lawless Eastern cannibals,
and Germany’s gluttonous president
keeps a menagerie of butchered, but still
living, body parts. And, in what once was
India, cults have formed in worship of the
meteorite fragments. Gruesome, often
misogynistic scenes pass in a whirlwind of★ If It Bleeds
Stephen King. Scribner, $30 (448p) ISBN 978-1-982137-97-7T
he four never-before-published novellas in this
collection represent horror master King at his
finest, using the weird and uncanny to riff on
mortality, the price of creativity, and the unpre-
dictable consequences of material attachments. A
teenager discovers that a dead friend’s cell phone, which
was buried with the body, still communicates from
beyond the grave in “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” which reads
like a Twilight Zone episode infused with an EC Comics
vibe. In the profoundly moving “The Life of Chuck,” a
series of apocalyptic incidents bear out one character’s
claim that “when a man or a woman dies, a whole world
falls to ruin.” “Rat” sees a frustrated writer strike a Faustian bargain to complete his
novel, and in the title story, private investigator Holly Gibney, the recurring heroine
of King’s Bill Hodges trilogy and The Outsider, faces off against a ghoulish television
newscaster who vampirically feeds off the anguish he provokes in his audience by
covering horrific tragedies. King clearly loves his characters, and the care with which
he develops their personalities draws the reader ineluctably into their deeply
unsettling experiences. This excellent collection delivers exactly the kind of bravura
storytelling King’s readers expect. Agent: Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff & Verrill. (May)