Join Lone Star Literary Life as we honor Texas Writers Month by highlighting these Texas-connected new releases. May’s TBP is bursting with books from a bounty of genres. We have chilling horror, courageous nonfiction, cuddly children’s books, compassionate romance, and more. Honor our incredible Texas authors by perusing the list and picking up a fresh new read today.
Sunday, July 18, 1965, started out like any other hot summer day in Texas.
Shirley Ann Stark and Susan Rigsby, Chi Omega sorority sisters at the University of Texas at Austin, left their Dallas homes early and drove together in Shirley’s Corvair to Austin. Little did they know the fate that awaited them later that afternoon as they visited the apartment of a friend and fellow UT student.
The following day, the women were reported missing. A twelve-day nationwide search ensued, ending with the discovery of their bodies in a north Austin field.
Alan Burton, co-author of “Fatal Exam: Solving Lubbock’s Greatest Murder Mystery,’’ revisits the double homicide that shook the Lone Star State – a crime that has been largely forgotten after the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting.
On his weekly visit to see his friend, the Gardener, the Garden Friend discovers not only the beauty of the garden but also the meaning of friendship, which blooms with time and attention.
Enter a world where insects become treasures and where a floral canvas of colors invites readers to explore the bounty of the garden.
This second adventure in the Garden Friend series by Mary Frances Baker explores themes of patience, curiosity, sharing, and friendship.
Mirage is a gritty crime thriller set in South Texas. The story plunges readers into the seedy and violent underworld of human smuggling, cartel influence, and corrupt government officials, where the desert sun burns the truth into the earth and the shadows hide what official reports never dare to tell.
The novel exposes the hidden systems that allow exploitation to thrive across the U.S.–Mexico border. Burnett’s world is populated by people who aren’t heroes—they’re survivors. Damaged. Driven. Dangerous. The heart of the story beats within two unforgettable characters whose unlikely partnership creates a narrative as explosive as it is emotionally deep.
Nuremberg, Mississippi by Melvin E. Edwards is a provocative legal drama exploring the “machinery” of systemic injustice in the Jim Crow South.
Drawing chilling parallels between Nazi Germany’s legalism and American segregation, the novel follows attorney Silas Thorn and craftsman Henry Logan as they navigate a society where oppression is maintained through routine professional conduct and “orderly” bureaucracy.
Focusing on a “sundown” ordinance in a fictional Mississippi town, Edwards interrogates the moral complicity of those who simply “follow the law.” It is a haunting reflection on how disciplined systems can facilitate profound human evil under the guise of tradition, even without physical violence.
A stake-out at a trafficker way-station ends with Special Agent Jennifer Nash placed on forced leave. Until a government insider offers her a chance at redemption.
All she has to do is accompany an elite Louisiana SWAT team on a takedown mission. But as she’s shuttled by boat into the Atchafalaya Basin, she believes some of the unit might be compromised.
The raid ends in disaster. And the police find themselves outnumbered in the middle of a criminal operation, with a connected Cajun community and ruthless cartel members determined to put them down at all costs.
