There are among the many new titles launched by Bay Space and Northern California writers, listed in alphabetical order by creator names: 
Matt Barrows (screenshot barrowbeebe.org)
(Courtesy Koehler Books)
Jessice Beebe (screenshot barrowsbeebe.org)
“Muddy the Water” by Matt Barrows and Jessica Barrows Beebe Koehler Books, 258 pages, $27.95 hardcover, $19.95 paper, Jan. 28, 2025
Barrows and Beebe seem at 1 p.m. Jan. 31 at Barnes & Noble, 1232 Burlingame Ave., Burlingame.
Tara Dorabji (screenshot dorabjo.com)
(Courtesy Simon & Schuster)
“Call Her Freedom” by Tara Dorabji Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $28.99, Jan. 28, 2025
The debut novel from the San Francisco activist, entrepreneur and filmmaker (of “Here, Still,” an award-winning brief documentary about human rights violations in Kashmir) is the grand-prize winner of Simon & Schuster’s Guide Like Us competitors, which promotes variety and brings visibility to underrepresented writers. Dorabji, the daughter of Parsi-Indian and German- Italian immigrants, has written a sweeping a love story set in a Himalayan village that spans from 1969 to 2022, detailing a girl’s battle to guard her tradition and household amid a navy occupation. Kirkus Critiques referred to as it “a compassionate account of endurance” and Publishers Weekly stated, “Book clubs will enjoy this character-driven drama.”
Dorabji seems at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 22 at Guide Passage, 1 Ferry Constructing, San Francisco and 6:30 p.m. Feb. 5 on the Mill Valley Public Library, 375 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley.
Cary Groner (screenshot carygroner.com)
(Courtesy Spiegel & Grau)
“The Way” by Cary Groner Spiegel & Grau, 304 pages, Dec. 3, 2024
The Bay Space brief story author and former Writing Salon trainer’s new novel (following 2011’s “Exile”) is a dystopian journey during which a former caretaker of a Buddhist monestary in Colorado journeys to California, if it nonetheless exists, to discover a scientist who has the remedy to the virus that has decimated the panorama. The story, set in 2048, additionally includes a raven, a feline and a tricky teen woman. Writer’s Weekly stated the e-book’s “cinematic action … reinvigorates an overworked genre.” The creator’s web site’s e-book membership part for the novel has recipes for wild hen soup, ginger and lemon tea and a playlist together with 4 songs by Joni Mitchell, two by Leonard Cohen and Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedies.”
Groner seems at 4 p.m. Jan. 12 at Guide Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera and 4 p.m. Jan. 18 at Orinda Books, 276 Village Sq., Orinda.
(Courtesy Simon & Schuster)
Betty Shamieh (Photograph by Lisa Keating/Courtesy Simon & Schuster)
“Too Soon” by Betty Shamieh Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $28.99, Jan. 28, 2025
The Palestinian American playwright and San Francisco resident’s debut novel is an often-humorous household saga that strikes from war-torn Jaffa in 1948, to Detroit and San Francisco within the Nineteen Sixties-70s to the New York theater scene post-9/11 and to Palestine in 2012. It describes the travails of a single 35-year-old New York theater director who goes to the West Financial institution to direct a risqué interpretation of Shakespeare traditional, and her mom and grandmother’s matchmaking plot to hook her up with a Palestinian American physician volunteering in Gaza. Oprah Every day referred to as it “wonderfully brash and sparkling.” and “funny, sexy, and often furious,” filling in “gaps in our understanding.”
Shamieh seems at 7 p.m. Jan. 28 at Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Actual, Menlo Park.
(Courtesy First Second)
Maria van Lieshout (screenshot vanlieshoutstudio.com)
“Song of a Blackbird” by Maria van Lieshout First Second Books, 256 pages, $17.99, Jan. 21, 2025
The graphic novel for younger adults is fiction however stems from actual occasions within the lifetime of ancestors of the Amsterdam-born creator and illustrator, now a San Francisco resident. The saga is each a modern-day household drama and a World Battle II-era heist carried out by Dutch resistance fighters. The creator was impressed to write down it after discovering paperwork written by her deceased grandparents about their experiences throughout the Nazi occupation, detailing how a gaggle of artists helped pull off an enormous financial institution heist to fund the Resistance, proper below the noses of the Nazis. Van Lieshout says the quantity’s theme is utilizing the ability of artwork to battle hate and the way artwork and tales can battle hate and division in immediately’s world. College Library Journal calls it “touching, gripping and heartbreaking.”
Van Lieshout seems at 7 p.m. Jan. 23 at Books Inc., 1344 Park St., Alameda and seven p.m. Jan. 28 at Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 School Ave., Berkeley.
