Seven Days writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, by email and, in one memorable case, inside a self-destructing piñata. In this heat, who can read at all? So in this occasional feature, we introduce you to a handful of recent releases by spoon-feeding you a morsel of plot and a single representative sentence from, yes, page 32. ➆
When the Trees Came Back: The Great Battle to Save
Vermont’s Forests
Robert A. Mello, Vermont Historical Society, 318 pages. $24.95.
The lumber industry’s relentless and unsustainable assault on Vermont’s forests persisted…
In the 1800s, the Green Mountain State wasn’t looking so green. With logging both a major industry and a necessity for farmers seeking useful land, formerly verdant hills were stripped until just 25 percent of the forest remained.
In When the Trees Came Back, Hinesburg’s Robert A. Mello gives a deeply detailed historical account of how a broad coalition of boosters — academics, innkeepers, outdoor enthusiasts and “others horrified at the sight of denuded mountainsides and barren pastures” — took on the timber barons. Their “great battle,” as he calls it, took 35 years. Today, the percentage has flipped: Trees cover 76 percent of the state, and Vermont lives up to its nickname once more.
Mello — a now-retired longtime judge whose first book, Last Stand of the Red Spruce, was arboreal in subject matter, too — spent a decade researching every advance and retreat. While the result might be a bit too detailed for a casual reader, he makes a case for why we should all care.
Donald Trump: The Man Who Would Be King
Mark Pendergrast, illustrated by Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr., Nature’s Face Publications, 64 pages. $20.
The next day Trump invited several Russian officials to the Oval Office.
Somewhere between historically minded laundry list of misdeeds and a prolonged scream of rage, Donald Trump: The Man Who Would Be King is a new comic book detailing the 2016 election and Trump’s first term. Colchester writer Mark Pendergrast partners with Jericho artist Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr. to portray a man whom he deems “a shady real estate mogul and T.V. reality star … utterly unqualified to be the President of the United States.”
Known for writing in-depth histories of hot topics such as the Jerry Sandusky trial and the history of Coca-Cola, Pendergrast isn’t aiming for nuance here. With a title lifted from Rudyard Kipling’s 1888 novella about men conning their way into power, the graphic novel makes a case against Trump, from his family origins to more recent, headline-grabbing events. It pulls no punches in laying bare the scandals of the Trump presidency, and the no-frills visuals, along with the all-caps text, give it a very “We Didn’t Start the Fire” vibe.
Call It Madness
Brett Ann Stanciu, Regal House Publishing, 240 pages. $19.95.
I had a mission: find and scatter Opa’s ashes, utter some words.
When Avah Lavoie receives a call from her estranged mother that Opa, her great-grandfather, has died, Avah heads to northern Vermont to inherit his decrepit farmhouse. There, she confronts her family’s troubled past, including Opa’s drinking, a sawmill accident and her mother’s persistent alcoholism. Set amid a stark winter, Call It Madness explores themes of multigenerational poverty, addiction and trauma — and, perhaps, forgiveness.
Hardwick author Brett Ann Stanciu, a recovering alcoholic, has explored these topics before. Her first novel, 2015’s Hidden View, is about a struggling farm family in the Northeast Kingdom; her 2021 nonfiction work, Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal, was prompted by the suicide of a suspected heroin user who kept breaking into the library where Stanciu worked.
“My struggle with addiction braids into these portraits,” she wrote in a publisher’s bio, “as I pursue the notion that disease is a dynamic spanning individuals and society.” As the name suggests, Call It Madness is no cheery read, but it’s a raw and honest one.
The Perfect Accident
Tess Stimson, Mountain Leopard Press, 464 pages. $17.99.
She could actually smell the blood, like liver in a butcher’s shop.
“Beach reads” can get a bum rap, but there’s no bad time of year for a twisty psychological thriller with a denouement you don’t see coming. It’s prom season in Tess Stimson’s novel The Perfect Accident, but the adolescent milestone takes a horrific turn when a chaperone on a Lake Champlain cruise is forced to choose between saving her son’s life or letting 22 teens die. Set in the fictional portmanteau town of Stowebury, Vt., the chapters recount the days and hours leading up to the accident, alternating with the investigation — and all the damage — in its aftermath.
This is the 17th novel by the British former journalist, who has lived in Vermont for almost 20 years. The incorporation of distinctly British phrases (such as “on oath” instead of “under oath”) and spelling of some words (neighbours, humour, centre) can distract from the otherwise recognizably Vermont setting. But it’s a minor quibble with this well-paced What would I do? read in which everyone has a secret.
Channeling Marilyn
Mima Tipper, She Writes Press, 320 pages. $18.99.
Lexa shut her eyes hard and whispered, “I — I don’t want to be in the play anymore.”
On June 1 of this year, Marilyn Monroe turned 100 — or would have, if her life hadn’t ended at age 36. But the icon lives again, sharing the body of a modern teen, in Channeling Marilyn, a winning, whimsical young adult novel from Waitsfield and South Hero author Mima Tipper.
Seventeen-year-old Lexa auditions for the school play on a whim and finds herself cast as the showgirl in William Inge’s Bus Stop, a role Monroe made famous. How can a shy, body-conscious nerd channel Marilyn — and, even scarier, share a stage kiss with her popular crush? A solution arrives from the beyond in the form of Marilyn’s restless spirit, who latches on to Lexa and helps her discover her inner bombshell.
Tipper, winner of the 2025 Vermont Book Award for Children’s Literature, writes with a wry awareness of teen girls’ conflicted feelings about femininity and sexuality. Her own channeling of Marilyn produces a character with an alternately saucy and wistful voice that is, as Marilyn herself might say, “just peachy.”
This article appears in The Cartoon Issue • 2026.
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