A selection of new titles by local authors

"Public Power, Private Dams: The Hell's Canyon High Dam Controversy" by Karl Boyd Brooks (University of Washington Press, $35). The Idaho lawyer and former state senator revisits the lengthy debate that culminated in the decision, in the 1950s, not to build what would have been the world's biggest dam, on the Snake River. The environmental impact and political implications of damming throughout the entire Columbia River basin are central to the book.

"Ex, Why, and Me" by Susanna Carr (Kensington, $14). A smalltown horseradish festival gets things started in this heated romance by the Seattle-area author. As the book's tagline says, "Who knew that horseradish was an aphrodisiac?"

"Sea Changes" by Bill Branley (One Sock Press, $14.95). A widow and a widower, in midlife and from opposite ends of the political spectrum, embark on a romance on the ferry from Winslow to Seattle, in this first novel by a local writer-jazz musician. One Sock Press is a new Bainbridge Island publisher.

"Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies," edited by L. Timmel Duchamp(Aqueduct Press, $9). An anthology of variously angry, adoring and thoughtful letters to dead people, fictional characters, corporations and other entities, by science-fiction and fantasy writers, including locals Sarah Coats, Victoria Elisabeth Garcia, Eileen Gunn, Heather Lindsley, Cat Rambo, Nisi Shawl and editor Duchamp herself.

Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times book critic