This Dark Country

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022 Longlisted for the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History 2022 Guardian Art Book of the Year 2021 A dazzling, boldly original work that tells the powerful and passionate stories of a group of extraordinary women as glimpsed through their still life paintings What is contained in a still life – and what falls out of the frame? For women artists in the early twentieth century, such as Dora Carrington, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John, this art form was a conduit for their lives, their rebellions, their quietly subversive loves for men and women. But for every artist whom we remember, there are those whose work is almost forgotten. In This Dark Country, Rebecca Birrell conducts a dazzling fusion of group biography and art criticism, exploring, from the celebrated to the overlooked, the structures of intimacy that make – and dismantle – our worlds. 'A brilliant book ... A truly radical aesthetics fit for the twenty-first century at last!' - Thérèse Oulton '[A] wonderful book. I am impressed and fascinated. It is beautifully written' - Celia Paul

“A smart, rich country noir” from the acclaimed author Kentucky Straight and The Good Brother (Stewart O’Nan, bestselling author of Henry, Himself). Chris Offutt is an outstanding literary talent, whose work has been called “lean and brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and compared by reviewers to Tobias Wolff, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver. He’s been awarded the Whiting Writers Award for Fiction/Nonfiction and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, among numerous other honors. His first work of fiction in nearly two decades, Country Dark is a taut, compelling novel set in rural Kentucky from the Korean War to 1970. Tucker, a young veteran, returns from war to work for a bootlegger. He falls in love and starts a family, and while the Tuckers don’t have much, they have the love of their home and each other. But when his family is threatened, Tucker is pushed into violence, which changes everything. The story of people living off the land and by their wits in a backwoods Kentucky world of shine-runners and laborers whose social codes are every bit as nuanced as the British aristocracy, Country Dark is a novel that blends the best of Larry Brown and James M. Cain, with a noose tightening evermore around a man who just wants to protect those he loves. It reintroduces the vital and absolutely distinct voice of Chris Offutt, a voice we’ve been missing for years. “[A] fine homage to a pocket of the country that’s as beautiful as it is prone to tragedy.”—The Wall Street Journal “A pleasure all around.”—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone

The small country of Liberia in West Africa has a rich and fascinating past, a history uniquely intertwined with that of the U.S. Liberia was born in the early 19th century when a group of prominent white Americans calling themselves the American Colonization Society set about establishing a colony for free blacks and former slaves. In 1820, the first settlers arrived on the west coast of Africa. This is the tale of their struggle to build a nation in the land of their ancestors. Award-winning author Catherine Reef looks into a significant but relatively unexplored chapter in African-American history in this accessible and well-written book, which is generously illustrated with over 100 period photographs and engravings.

From the international award-winning Australian writer Bronwyn Parry comes a gripping novel of love and suspense - the second in her Dungirri series. Dark Country was voted Favourite Romantic Suspense Novel by the Australian Romance Readers Association. They've considered him a murderer for eighteen years, so no one in Dungirri is surprised when 'Gil' Gillespie returns and a woman's body is found in his car. Wearied by too many deaths and doubting her own skills, local police sergeant Kris Mathews isn't sure whether Gil is a decent man wronged by life, or a hardened criminal she should lock up. She does know he's not guilty of this murder, though, because she is his alibi. Gil isn't used to feeling anything for anyone. But there's a teenager here who has his eyes - a daughter he never knew existed. And the sergeant's fiery tenacity stirs his blood. He can't acknowledge either. He's made too many enemies in the Sydney Mafia and amongst corrupt cops. Kris's alibi might have saved him from a murder charge but her dedication to finding the truth has made her a target. Gil is surrounded by wilderness, but there's no place to hide because his enemies have most of the town on their side, and they know that the one thing most punishing would be harming the few people he cares about. The other novels in Bronwyn Parry's gripping Dungirri series are As Darkness Falls and Darkening Skies. Praise for Dark Country: 'there is a strong romantic plotline even while the suspense is so well maintained the novels [As Darkness Falls and Dark Country] qualify as rattlingly good crime reads -- The Australian 'A great thriller ... Verdict: gripping.' -- Herald Sun 'loyalty and romance combine with all the action to make a memorable story' -- Woman's Day

Too often people mistake monsters for gods. When a ravaged corpse is discovered in Pretoria, South Africa, Esmé Snyder--an occult-crime expert--is called in to investigate. But she doesn't know the scope of what she's up against. Esmé is the target of a cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer who uses the paranormal to do his bidding, with the intent of becoming a god on Earth. With assistance from her team--a brusque detective, eccentric millionaire, stoic priest, hawkeyed secretary, and handsome British forensic criminologist--Esmé hopes to find the killer before he strikes again. But the clock isn't all that's working against them. The media catches wind of the threat against the citizens of Pretoria, and their reported speculations promise a post-Apartheid Satanic Panic. As the body count grows, Esmé must figure out who is behind the heinous crimes before she ends up the final sacrifice. Dark Country highlights the multicultural mythologies, magic, histories, beauty, and horror of living in pseudo-modern South Africa.

In the same creepy vein as Philip K. Dick and Thomas Harris, Etchinson's award-winning fiction is justly known for its creepy ambiance.

In country music, the men might dominate the radio waves. But it’s women—like Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Kacey Musgraves—who are making history. This is the full and unbridled story of the past twenty years of country music seen through the lens of these trailblazers’ careers—their paths to stardom and their battles against a deeply embedded boys’ club, as well as their efforts to transform the genre into a more inclusive place—as told by award-winning Nashville journalist Marissa R. Moss. For the women of country music, 1999 was an entirely different universe—a brief blip in time, when women like Shania Twain and the Chicks topped every chart and made country music a woman’s world. But the industry, which prefers its stars to be neutral, be obedient, and never rock the boat, had other plans. It wanted its women to “shut up and sing”—or else. In 2021, women are played on country radio as little as 10 percent of the time, but they’re still selling out arenas, as Kacey Musgraves does, and becoming infinitely bigger live draws than most of their male counterparts, creating massive pop crossover hits like Maren Morris’s “The Middle,” pushing the industry to confront its racial biases with Mickey Guyton’s “Black Like Me,” and winning heaps of Grammy nominations. Her Country is the story of how in the past two decades, country’s women fought back against systems designed to keep them down and created entirely new pathways to success. It’s the behind-the-scenes story of how women like Kacey, Mickey, Maren, Miranda Lambert, Rissi Palmer, Brandi Carlile, and many more have reinvented their place in an industry stacked against them. When the rules stopped working for these women, they threw them out, made their own, and took control—changing the genre forever, and for the better.