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Great Gator Summer Reads 2023

Haul out your beach chair, dig your toes into the sand and be transported to new worlds with these 15 stellar reads, all by Gator authors.

Our list includes brand-new releases, a few that were overlooked during the early pandemic and the reissue of an autobiographical masterpiece by a UF creative writing icon.

Notable Novels

At The Breakers A winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall (BA ’59) tackles the difficult topic of a mother who fails her child through a moment of inattention in “At The Breakers” (Univ. Kentucky Press, 2022), her second novel.

After a shocking attack, single mother to four Jo Sinclair flees an abusive relationship and finds herself in Sea Cove, New Jersey, in front of The Breakers, a salty old hotel in the process of renovation. Impulsively, she negotiates for a job painting the guest rooms and settles in with her youngest child, 13-year-old Nick. As each room is transformed under brush and roller, Jo finds a way to renovate herself, reclaiming a promising life derailed by pregnancy and a forced marriage at age 14. “A tale of reconciliation, forgiveness, hope and love written by one of Kentucky’s most intriguing writers” (Tucson Citizen).


Now Is Not the Time to Panic Kevin Wilson (MFA ’04) pens an exuberant, bighearted novel about young love, identity and the power of art in “Now Is Not the Time to Panic” (HarperCollins, 2023).

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge — aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner — is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s house and who is as awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to those who read it, setting off a panic that spreads far beyond the small town. “Colored by Wilson’s appealingly offbeat prose, so that even the most straightforward coming-of-age moments have a funky freshness” (Vogue).


The All-Night Sun A lonely young woman gets too close to her charismatic female student, culminating in a dangerously debauched Midsommar’s Eve, in “The All-Night Sun” (Random House, 2021), the debut novel by Diane Zinna (MFA, ‘98).

In her D.C. writing classroom, teacher Lauren Cress is poised and well liked by students and colleagues, but in her personal life she’s troubled and isolated, still grappling with the sudden death of her parents 10 years earlier. When the magnetic Siri joins her class, Lauren is drawn into an all-consuming friendship that brings her to Sweden for a summer vacation with Siri’s brooding brother, Magnus. On their last night, they go on a seaside camping trip to celebrate Midsommar’s Eve, a night when no one sleeps, boundaries blur, and under the light of the unsetting sun, things take a dark turn. “Inventive and luminous … Dazzles with original language, emotional sentience, and Swedish folklore as it plumbs the depths of grief, loss, and friendship” (Publishers Weekly starred review).

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Riveting Nonfiction

Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soliders in America Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Debbie Cenziper (BSJ ’92) brings her investigative skills to bear on SS criminals who long escaped justice in “Citizen 865” (Hatchette, 2021).

Spanning seven decades, this is the gripping story of a team of Nazi hunters at the U.S. Department of Justice as they raced against time to expose members of a brutal SS killing force, the Trawniki Men, who disappeared in America after WWII. At its heart is harrowing wartime journeys of two Jewish orphans from occupied Poland who outran those killers and settled in the U.S., only to learn that some of their one-time captors had followed. “A page-turning detective story about the hunt for Nazi killers living openly in neighborhoods across the United States” (Michael Isikoff).


Children Under Fire: An American Crisis Washington Post staff writer John Woodrow Cox (BSJ ’08, MS ’10) shines a light on America’s gun violence through profoundly affecting stories of the children who live with its everlasting repercussions in “Children Under Fire: An American Crisis” (Ecco, 2022), longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award.

Based on his acclaimed series (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), “Children Under Fire” delves into the lives of 7-year-old Ava, of South Carolina, 8-year-old Tyshawn, from Washington, D.C. and several other children who lived through shootings at schools and in neighborhoods. Through deep reporting, Cox addresses how we can effect change now and help children like Ava and Tyshaun. He explores their stories and more, including a couple in South Carolina whose 11-year-old son shot himself, a Republican politician fighting for gun safety laws and the charlatans infiltrating the school safety business. “Cox has a profound respect for children and a willingness to listen to them. In return, they have trusted him with the hardest stories of their lives” (Connie Schultz).


Hidden in Plain Sight: A History of the Newberry Mass Lynching of 1916 In 1916, six members of a tight-knit Black family in northern Florida were killed by a white mob of the “best men” in the district. The lynching garnered brief nationwide attention, including an investigation by the NAACP and condemnation by W. E. B. Dubois, before it was buried in a vow of silence that endured for nearly 100 years.

Janis Owens (BA ‘83) revisits that dark hour with an abundance of citation and uncommon insight in “Hidden in Plain Sight” (Koehler, 2021). Owens draws a portrait of a struggling, turn-of-the-century farming town and the families, Black and white, who were pitched headlong into a weekend of bloodlust and revenge that would change the town forever. With a scope of 100 years, the story that begins in anguish and unexpectedly ends in recent steps to reconciliation and remembrance. In addition to four novels, Owens is the author of the popular memoir-cookbook “The Cracker Kitchen.”

Dark Mysteries & Crime Novels

Desert Star The winner of the 2023 Mystery Writers of America Grand Masters Award, Michael Connelly (BSJ ’80) credits his coursework at UF with prompting him to become a writer. His 37th novel finds detectives Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch teaming up to hunt for a brutal killer in “Desert Star” (Little, Brown, 2022).

For years, detective Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him: the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. When Renée Ballard takes over the reins of the LAPD cold case unit, she makes him an offer: Come volunteer as an investigator, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him. Battling political pressure, the two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to chase not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity. “Longtime Bosch followers will be taking deep breaths after this one’s superb finale, especially given its implications for the future” (Booklist starred review).


Misfire Life-saving medical technology becomes life threatening in “Misfire” (Oceanview, 2023), the second book in the Kate Downey Medical Mystery Series by Tammy Euliano (BS ’87, MD ‘91), a practicing anesthesiologist and a professor at the UF College of Medicine.

Kadence, a new type of implanted defibrillator, misfires in a patient who is visiting University Hospital for a routine medical procedure, causing the heart rhythm problem it is meant to correct. Anesthesiologist Dr. Kate Downey resuscitates the patient, but she grows concerned for others, including her own Aunt Irma, as the misfires continue — and she learns her department chair is covering up Kadence’s mistakes. Can Kate unravel the mystery in time to protect the vulnerable? “A first-rate medical thriller” (Michael Connelly).


Night Letter A teenager returns to the Panhandle to understand his violent past and the woman who haunts him in “Night Letter” (Akashic, 2023), the ninth novel by Sterling Watson (MA ’71).

“In this bleak and beautiful noir, we follow 18-year-old Travis Hollister, just released from reform school, driving through the Panhandle and trying to find the woman he’s pined for since he was 12 — his aunt, who’s also four years older.” (CrimeReads). Publishers Weekly favorably compares “Night Letter” to the works of S. E. Hinton (“The Outsiders,” “Rumble Fish”). Watson is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Eckerd College and is the co-director, with Dennis Lehane, of Eckerd’s longtime Writers in Paradise program.

Timely Thrillers

Code 6 Lawyer-turned-novelist James Grippando (BA ’80, JD ’82) offers a thriller set in the world of Big Data in “Code 6” (Harper, 2023).

Aspiring playwright Kate Gambia is struggling to launch a script she has been researching her entire life, culled from family dinner conversations with her father, whose private data firm helps the CIA and other counter-intelligence organizations. Kate’s life gets tangled when her childhood friend Patrick joins Dad’s firm and comes under investigation by the US justice department, ending up kidnapped; the ransom demand is “Code 6,” the most secret and potentially dangerous technology her father’s company has ever developed. A shocking discovery puts Kate and Patrick in the crosshairs of forces who will stop at nothing to control Code 6. “A Pandora’s box of demons … High-stakes espionage, family drama, double crosses, noble gestures … it’s all here” (Kirkus Reviews).


Hummingbird Salamander A student at UF for three years, Nebula Award-winning fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer (“Annihilation”) has been called “the weird Thoreau” by the New Yorker for his engagement with ecological issues. His latest novel, “Hummingbird Salamander” (MCD, 2021), is a brilliant speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species and the possible end of all things.

Security consultant “Jane Smith” receives a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note that led Jane to the unit, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that put herself – and the world – in danger. “Climate fiction at its most urgent and gripping” (New York Times).

Unforgettable Biographies & Memoirs

A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (reissue) “One of the finest memoirs ever written,” the New Yorker proclaimed about “A Childhood: The Biography of a Place” (Penguin, 2022), Harry Crews’ unforgettable account of labor and hard living in the American South, first published in 1978 and recently reissued. A graduate of UF, Crews (BA ’60, MEd ’62) went on to helm the university’s Creative Writing program for many years, shaping generations of writers.

“A Childhood” charts Crews’ upbringing as the son of a sharecropper in Georgia at a time when “the rest of the country was just beginning to feel the real hurt of the Great Depression, but it had been living in Bacon County for years.” Yet what he conveys in this moving, brutal autobiography of his first six years of life is an elegiac sense of community and roots from a rural South that had rarely been represented in this way. Interweaving his own memories, including his bout with polio and a fascination with the Sears, Roebuck catalog, with the tales of relatives and friends, Crews recreates a childhood of tenderness and violence, comedy and tragedy. “Startlingly wild scenes written with hair raising power … All that can be said is, read it.” (New York Journal of Books).


The Kitchen and the Studio: A Memoir of Food and Art “The Kitchen and the Studio” (Atmosphere, 2023) offers a sparkling, imaginative rendition of a traditional cookbook by two retired UF professors. Part memoir, part art book and part love story, this one-of-a-kind cookbook captures the beauty and essence of artist John A. O’Connor and art historian Mallory M. O’Connor’s loving marriage. The authors met at the University of California-Davis in 1962, and from the beginning, they shared a passion for good food and wine that continued for over 60 years. In this unique love story of a creative couple who always “lived the artist’s life,” John and Mallory share their favorite special occasions and 100+ recipes (Beef Wellington, Seafood Newburg), along with the places and people who made them memorable.

A chapter on Gainesville dinners includes menus for a “Native American Thanksgiving Feast,” “Picnic at Newnans Lake,” a 35th birthday celebration for UF art professor Nate Shiner and “Christmas Eve Open House for 40 Guests.”

Fantastic Fantasy

Beasts of Prey Trilogy Atlanta-born Ayana Gray worked for the UF Foundation before becoming a bestselling fantasy author, which makes her an honorary Gator. That’s reason to give a big chomp for Gray’s blockbuster YA fantasy trilogy, now being adapted for a feature film by Netflix.

Book 1, “Beasts of Prey” (G.P. Putnam, 2021), was an instant New York Times bestseller. The story takes place in a Pan-African inspired world and follows two Black teens named Koffi and Ekon as they venture into a magical jungle to hunt down an ancient monster.

In the follow-up, “Beasts of Ruin” (Putnam, 2022), Koffi’s powers grow strong and Ekon’s secrets turn darker as they face the god of death. “This stellar sequel deepens these beautifully realized main characters and keeps you wanting more stories in this world” (Buzzfeed).


Fire Sacraments Series Two brothers flee an army of fanatics across a vast and magical desert in “Sidewinders” (Simon & Schuster, 2021), the white-knuckle sequel to “Master Assassins” (Talos, 2018), by Robert V.S. Redick (MA ’95).

Kandri and Mektu Hinjuman have cheated death so often it’s begun to feel like a way of life. But nothing has prepared them for the danger and enchantment of the Ravenous Lands. This sprawling, lethal desert is the brothers’ last hope, for they have killed the favorite son of Her Radiance the Prophet, and her death-priests and magical servants are hunting them day and night. “An at-once engrossing, entertaining and superlative read” (Koeur’s Book Reviews).