Victoria

A BOOK OF AMERICAN MARTYRS, by Joyce Carol Oates. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $19.99.) Early in Oates's novel, Luther Dunphy, an evangelical, invokes the Lord just before shooting dead an abortion provider, Augustus Voorhees. The story chronicles the fallout of the killing for the Dunphy and Voorhees families, and even if it's soon clear whom Oates considers the martyrs to be, she examines the moral complexities of abortion from several sides. HIS FINAL BATTLE: The Last Months of Franklin Roosevelt, by Joseph Lelyveld. (Vintage, $18.) Seeking an unprecedented fourth term as president, Roosevelt was far sicker than he let on, and perhaps knew he would not live long. Lelyveld, the former executive editor of The New York Times, reviews Roosevelt's last 16 months in office, including the Manhattan Project and the culmination of World War II. DIFFICULT WOMEN, by Roxane Gay. (Grove, $16.) For many of the characters across this collection, Gay's first book of short stories, love, sex, intimacy and violence are intertwined; in the opening tale, two sisters have forged an unbreakable bond in the hands of a predator. Our reviewer, Gemma Sieff, praised "the cryptic, claustrophobic relationships described in these pages and the strange detours that riddle Gay's imaginary landscapes." LOVE FOR SALE: Pop Music in America, by David Hajdú. (Picador, $17.) From vaudeville singers and the jazz clubs of 1920s Harlem to present-day streaming services, Hajdú, a music critic for The Nation, traces the evolution of popular music over roughly the past hundred years. Weaving together his personal and critical reflections, Hajdú tries to answer a vexing set of questions: When we talk about pop music, what precisely do we mean? And does it still matter to American culture? VICTORIA, by Daisy Goodwin. (St. Martin's Griffin, $16.99) Soon after her 18th birthday, Victoria ascended to the throne. Goodwin, who adapted Victoria's biography for a PBS Masterpiece drama, focuses on the young queen's life before her marriage to Albert, as she reckons with her independence and power. As our reviewer, Priya Parmar, said, this depiction of Victoria sought out "the woman she actually was." THE BRIDGE TO BRILLIANCE: How One Woman and One Community Are Inspiring the World, by Nadia Lopez with Rebecca Paley. (Penguin, $17.) Lopez runs the Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood, and rose to prominence when the Humans of New York photographer Brandon Stanton visited her. She looks at the challenges educators face in reaching the nation's poorest children.

It has become popular to contextualize certain monarchs not in toto as they ended up (dour or corpulent or tyrannical or pathetic) but in the prime of their youth. Henry VIII has received this treatment, and Queen Victoria now seems to be the sovereign du jour. Goodwin's (The Fortune Hunter, 2014) novel of the young queen, painted here as a guileless romantic heroine, covers her accession and her marriage proposal to Prince Albert, a latecomer who forms a romantic triangle with Victoria and the prime minister, Lord Melbourne. Typical for royal fiction, the drama comes from the machinations of factious, self-serving courtiers and politicians attempting to control or destroy the monarch, in this case a sheltered, immature young woman fumbling toward effective queenship. The sympathetic, older, and rather tragic Melbourne guides her and alleviates her loneliness, and the relationship between the two underpins the novel. Goodwin wrote this simultaneously with the screenplay for Masterpiece Theatre's Victoria, slated to air in early 2017. Highly recommended for historical-fiction collections. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Goodwin always draws in fans, but expect extra buzz and lots of promotion as news of the TV series elevates demand for the book.--Latham, Bethany Copyright 2016 Booklist

Inspired by the diaries of Queen Victoria, British TV producer and author Goodwin (The American Heiress) mines a rich vein of royal history with the ascension of the impetuous and imperious 18-year-old-whose sole companions were dolls and a lapdog-to the English throne in 1837. "Your subjects are not dolls to be played with. To be a queen, you have to be more than a little girl with a crown," scolds a dying lady of the court whom Victoria has cruelly shamed. It is a heartbreaking lesson as the new monarch navigates the palace and political intrigues under the guidance of her charming and lovelorn prime minister, Lord Melbourne. It's this relationship between the impressionable teen and her attentive middle-aged adviser that forms the irresistible emotional center of Goodwin's rich and passionate historical novel. "When you give your heart it will be without hesitation... but you cannot give it to me," Melbourne tells Victoria after she confesses that her prime minister is "the only companion I could ever desire." Rejected, Victoria begins the stormy and politically fraught courtship with her German cousin and future husband, Albert. That true-life ending, however, pales in comparison to Goodwin's timeless recounting of a young girl's aching first love. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Barely 18 when she becomes queen after her uncle's death in 1837, Victoria had received little preparation to serve as monarch. Several prominent men, especially her mother's advisor, John Conroy, would be happy for a regency to supplant her rule. Insisting on her authority, Victoria finds an ally and mentor in Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, a man old enough to be her father. His suggestions and guidance give her confidence to overcome the doubts of many about a woman's ability to rule. Yet her inexperience and poor judgment result in scandal-and later a political crisis-when she publicly humiliates her mother's lady-in-waiting by falsely accusing her of being pregnant. In fact, the early part of the novel sometimes seems like an investigation of the complex political relationship between Parliament and ruler in a constitutional monarchy. In the last third of the book, Victoria-and the story-finally come into their own. However, Melbourne remains the most interesting character, ably guiding the queen and deftly deflecting her growing personal affection for him toward her cousin Albert. Perhaps Goodwin's screenplay for the related television production incorporates more of the emotional energy found in her previous novels (An American Heiress; The Fortune Hunter) but lacking in this one. Verdict With the PBS Masterpiece series about Victoria slated to begin in January, public libraries should anticipate heavy demand for this title.-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.