Weekend picks for book lovers

What should you read this weekend? Paste BN's picks for book lovers include a July Fourth-themed history and a grown-up sci-fi title from young-adult fave Melissa Marr.

The Arrivals by Melissa Marr; William Morrow, 288 pp.; fiction

Belinda Carlisle sang that "heaven is a place on Earth," but the Wasteland — where dead killers wind up in Melissa Marr's novel The Arrivals — is like Kenny Rogers' hell.

The book, Marr's second adult tome after creating a young-adult career for herself, explores the awesome fantasy/Western conceit of a place where weaponized monks, vampiric "bloedzuigers" and other monsters roam.

It's a terrain where towns seem like they're straight out of a wild frontier landscape and odd natives share existence with the Arrivals, a group of people who've died and been resurrected in this weird environment.

Chloe, a recovering alcoholic from the year 2010, wakes up in the Wasteland after having fallen off the wagon. There, she joins a gang of folks including Jack and Kitty, siblings from the Old West; Edgar, a Prohibition-era gangster; and Melody and Francis, straight from the 1960s.

Paste BN says *** out of four. "You'll want to definitely saddle up for this one."

Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence by Joseph Ellis; Knopf, 219 pp.; non-fiction

Ellis, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for Founding Brothers, now covers the decisive and improbable events of 1776, as our forebears fought for independence from Britain.

Paste BN says *** 1/2. A "dramatic slice of history… thoughtful and colorful."

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls; Scribner, 269 pp.; fiction

In this novel by the author of the best-selling memoir The Glass Castle, 12-year-old Jean Holladay (known as "Bean") and her 15-year-old half-sister, Liz, are left to their own devices after their mother abandons them.

Paste BN says ***. "A lovely, moving novel with an appealing narrator in Bean."

The Son by Philipp Meyer; Ecco, 561 pp.; fiction

Philipp Meyer's epic novel begins in 1849, when Eli McCullough, 13, is kidnapped by Comanches, and ends in 2012 as Eli's rich and powerful great-granddaughter is dying.

Paste BN says **** out of four. "As bold, ambitious and brutal as its subject: the rise of Texas as seen through the tortured history of one family."

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones; Viking, 510 pp.; non-fiction

A history of the bloody, brutal dynasty that ruled England from 1154-1399.

Paste BN says ****. "British historian Dan Jones has produced a rollicking, compelling book about a rollicking, compelling dynasty."

Contributing reviewers: Brian Truitt, Bob Minzesheimer, Carmela Ciuraru, Maria Puente