Summer is the season for travel — and what better or cheaper way to embark on a journey than by cracking open a good book? Every novel or essay collection is its own world, with a unique geography and climate, customs and language, and its own physical laws.
Below you will find 10 books published in the first half of 2023. All were either written by Maryland authors or are set in the Free State.
You won’t have to pack much more than your curiosity. And as is true of all excursions involving time travel, imagination is the only passport you will need.
‘The Bullet Garden: An Earl Swagger Novel,’ by Stephen Hunter
Hunter’s books are known for their deep knowledge of and respect for guns — and “The Bullet Garden” is no exception. Just two sentences into the book, a light machine gun known as a Bren gun makes an appearance. This novel is set in London and France during World War II and is the origination story for Earl Swagger, a U.S. Marine and the father of Hunter’s most famous character, Bob Lee Swagger. Hunter is a former film critic for The Baltimore Sun.
Published Jan. 24 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books. 480 pages. $28.99
‘Charm City Rocks: A Love Story,’ by Matthew Norman
Kirkus Reviews says that this rom-com about a single dad who finally gets to meet the former rock-star crush of his youth is “full of tongue-in-cheek adoration for the city of Baltimore, from its beers to its obsession with crabs.” Here are two sample sentences from the point of view of the main character, guitar teacher Billy Perkins: “He loves his neighborhood, Fells Point in Baltimore, with its cobblestone streets and loud bars and the gourmet pretzel stand that makes his block smell like baking bread. There’s a bumper sticker he sees around town, ‘Baltimore: Actually, I Like It,’ and Billy couldn’t agree more.”
Published June 6 by Dell Publishing Company. 368 pages. $17
‘In Other Lifetimes, All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me: Stories,’ by Courtney Sender
It’s not every debut short story collection that gets praise from the likes of Pulitzer Prize winner Alice McDermott, Pulitzer finalist Ann Patchett and Pen American Prize winner Danielle Evans. According to a March review in The Boston Globe, these 14 interlocked short stories shift “between stories of love — lovers, friends, family, ghosts — and the great, looming shadow of the Holocaust, making a deep and howling portrait of longing and loneliness.” Sender received her master’s degree in fine arts from the Johns Hopkins University and teaches at Maryland Institute College of Art.
Published March 1 by West Virginia University Press. 215 pages. $19.99.
‘Kindergarten at 60: A Memoir of Teaching in Thailand,’ by Dian Seidel
Author Dian Seidel was an acclaimed climate psychologist who had racked up enough honors for a lifetime — including research for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which picked up the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Seidel gave it all up to move to Thailand, where she taught kindergarten and struggled to master the five-tone Thai language and five-alarm Thai chiles. Hardest of all to make sense of was the philosophy behind the quintessential Thai saying: “mai pen rai” or don’t worry, keep cool.” Seidel now lives in Chevy Chase.
Publishing on June 20 by Apprentice House Press. 298 pages. $18.99.
‘Lady of Fortune,’ by Mary Jo Putney
Mary Jo Putney has written more than 40 romance novels, and her name appears so often on the New York Times bestseller list and stays there for so long that she really ought to pay rent. After growing up in upstate New York and following extended jaunts in California and England, Putney now calls Baltimore County home. Her most recent release, “Lady of Fashion” isn’t new exactly; this tale of a countess who flees the French Revolution, ends up penniless and becomes a maid in London initially was published in 1988. Long out of print, it was recently rereleased for a new generation of romance fans.
Reissued Feb. 21 by Zebra Books. 384 pages. $8.99.
‘The Mistress of Bhatia House,’ by Sujata Massey
Sujata Massey, the Baltimore author and a former reporter for The Evening Sun, has lived a geographically varied life that has provided material for two award-winning cross-cultural series of novels featuring female sleuths. Japan, where Massey lived for two years, provided the setting for her Rei Shimura mysteries. And Massey’s biracial heritage (her mother is German and her father is Indian) inspired the Perveen Mistry novels, which are set in Bombay in the 1920s. The fourth installment, set to be published July 11, grapples with class divisions and sexism as Mistry, the city’s only female solicitor, seeks justice for a mistreated young nursemaid.
Publishing July 11 by Soho Press. 432 pages. $27.95.
‘On Freedom Road: Bicycle Explorations and Reckonings on the Underground Railroad,’ by David Goodrich
During a long-ago visit to Bristol, England, the author discovered a monster in his family’s past: an ancestor, John Goodrich, was a captain on the Middle Passage in 1789. Since a Goodrich had transported enslaved people, the author decided that another Goodrich should study the routes by which some had escaped. Over four years, David Goodrich, a climate scientist who lives in Rockville, rode his bicycle 3,000 miles east of the Mississippi to travel the routes of the Underground Railroad, including Harriet Tubman’s journey from her enslavement on the Eastern Shore to her family sanctuary in Ontario.
Published Feb. 7 by Pegasus Books, 258 pages, $27.55.
‘Prom Mom: A Novel,’ by Laura Lippman
The newest novel by Laura Lippman, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun, ought to bring a welcome chill on the hottest July day. It tells the story of Amber Glass, who returns to her hometown of Baltimore after years of trying to escape her tabloid past. She is known as “Prom Mom” for having allegedly killed her newborn infant after attending the 1997 Towson High School prom, where she was abandoned by her date, Joe Simpson. Amber soon learns that Joe still lives in Baltimore, and that the past has a way of intruding into the present. Publishers Weekly writes that the book’s “game of cat and mouse” reaches “a devilishly satisfying conclusion.”
Publishing July 25 by William Morrow and Company. 320 pages, $30.
‘Not So Perfect Strangers: A Thriller,’ by L.S. Stratton
Maryland author LaShell Stratton has written about a dozen romance and historical novels under different pen names. For her debut thriller, she rewrote and modernized the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Murder on a Train,” which itself is based on a 1950 novel by Patricia Highsmith. Stratton’s version adds elements of racism, sexism and a misguided white savior. Two women fleeing abusive husbands, one Black and one white, make a pact to help one another. But, they have very different definitions of what “help” means.
Published March 28 by Union Square & Co. 320 pages, $16.99.
‘Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us,’ by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
In upstate New York, a man with advanced Alzheimer’s disease listens to a playlist of songs from his past and recognizes his son for the first time in five years. There’s a virtual reality program that can relieve pain. And just 45 minutes of making art has been shown to reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Authors Magsamen, director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Ross, vice president of Hardware Design at Google, have written a work of popular science that aims to explain how the arts can help ordinary people improve their physical and mental health.
Published March 21 by Penguin Random House, 304 pages, $30.