7 Underrated Book Club Books You Probably Haven’t Read Yet

If you are looking for book club books that feel a little different, this list is full of great picks you may not have read yet. I included a mix of historical fiction, memorable literary novels, and even a few darker horror books that can lead to really good discussion. These books may be lesser known, but they are the kind that stay with you long after you finish them. If your book club wants something fresh, thoughtful, and a little under the radar, these picks are a great place to start.

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Underrated Book Club Books

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Letters to the Lost is an emotional dual-timeline novel about love, war, and loss. In present-day London, Jess finds a letter in an abandoned house. The letter leads her into the story of Stella and Dan, two lovers separated during World War II. As Jess learns what happened to them, she also begins to rebuild her own life. It is moving, atmospheric, and unforgettable historical fiction.

An accomplished novel from a talented writer, Letters to the Lost is a stunning, emotional love story. Iona Grey’s prose is warm, evocative, and immediately engaging; her characters become so real you can’t bear to let them go.

I promised to love you forever, in a time when I didn’t know if I’d live to see the start of another week. Now it looks like forever is finally running out. I never stopped loving you. I tried, for the sake of my own sanity, but I never even got close, and I never stopped hoping either.

Late on a frozen February evening, a young woman is running through the streets of London. Having fled from her abusive boyfriend and with nowhere to go, Jess stumbles onto a forgotten lane where a small, clearly unlived in old house offers her best chance of shelter for the night. The next morning, a mysterious letter arrives and when she can’t help but open it, she finds herself drawn inexorably into the story of two lovers from another time.

In London 1942, Stella meets Dan, a US airman, quite by accident, but there is no denying the impossible, unstoppable attraction that draws them together. Dan is a B-17 pilot flying his bomber into Europe from a British airbase; his odds of survival are one in five. In the midst of such uncertainty, the one thing they hold onto is the letters they write to each other. Fate is unkind and they are separated by decades and continents. In the present, Jess becomes determined to find out what happened to them. Her hope—inspired by a love so powerful it spans a lifetime—will lead her to find a startling redemption in her own life in this powerfully moving novel.

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The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

The Hill in the Dark Grove is a dark and eerie novel set in the mountains of North Wales. Carwyn and Rhian are struggling to survive on their remote farm. When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin, his curiosity turns into obsession. Rhian starts to fear the man he is becoming. This is a chilling horror books for your book club.

Moving and chilling, The Hill in the Dark Grove is a story about a lost way of life and the terrifying lengths we go to to protect what we know.

Carwyn and Rhian – the last in a long line of sheep farmers – are living out a brutal year on their hillside farm, deep in the mountains of North Wales.

When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin in one of the fields on their land, his curiosity quickly descends into obsession. His wife, Rhian, meanwhile, is confronted with the growing realization that the man with whom she shares her life and home is becoming a frightening stranger.

As the harsh winter closes in, Rhian finds herself alone with her increasingly unrecognizable husband, and the mountains, and the looming megalithic stones.

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The Confession by Jessie Burton

The Confession is a literary novel about secrets, ambition, and motherhood. In 1980, Elise is drawn into the glamorous world of novelist Constance Holden. Years later, Rose wants answers about the mother who disappeared when she was a baby. Her search leads her back to Constance. This is a thoughtful and emotional story about identity and love.

One winter’s afternoon on Hampstead Heath in 1980, Elise Morceau meets Constance Holden and quickly falls under her spell. Connie is bold and alluring, a successful writer whose novel is being turned into a major Hollywood film. Elise follows Connie to LA, a city of strange dreams and swimming pools and late-night gatherings of glamorous people. But whilst Connie thrives on the heat and electricity of this new world where everyone is reaching for the stars and no one is telling the truth, Elise finds herself floundering. When she overhears a conversation at a party that turns everything on its head, Elise makes an impulsive decision that will change her life forever.

Three decades later, Rose Simmons is seeking answers about her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was Constance Holden, a reclusive novelist who withdrew from public life at the peak of her fame, Rose is drawn to the door of Connie’s imposing house in search of a confession

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The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

The Whalebone Theatre is a sweeping historical novel about family, imagination, and growing up. Cristabel and her siblings spend their childhood creating their own world inside an old manor house by the sea. But as they get older and war approaches, life pulls them in different directions. This book is rich, vivid, and full of atmosphere. It is both whimsical and moving. It’s a perfect book club books for 2026.

Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.

With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story…

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It’s the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren’t supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.

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Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

Florence Adler Swims Forever is a family novel set over one unforgettable summer. After a sudden tragedy, the Adler family is pulled into a web of secrets and silence. Each family member carries their own grief, fears, and hopes. The story explores love, heartbreak, and the cost of trying to protect the people we love. One of the underrated book club book for 2026.

Over the course of one summer that begins with a shocking tragedy, three generations of the Adler family grapple with heartbreak, romance, and the weight of family secrets.

Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. This is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence. Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams.

When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal after tragedy.

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There’s No Place Like Home by Jane Lovering

There’s No Place Like Home is a warm and emotional novel about starting over. Izzy joins a strange outdoor challenge on the Yorkshire Moors with five strangers. Each person has their own secrets and struggles. As the group faces the wild outdoors together, unexpected bonds begin to form. This is an uplifting book club book for 2026.

Isabel, Izzy to her friends, has got nothing left to lose when she makes the bravest decision of her life.

A month living under canvas on the Yorkshire Moors with five strangers wouldn’t normally be her idea of a good time, even if there is prize money to be won at the end of it, but she’s all out of options.

Joining her in this wild goose chase, being filmed for a TV show, are farmer Seb, whose marriage is creaking but who is desperate not to lose his family. Sheltered Ruth who needs an opportunity to show she can make her own decisions. Glamorous socialite Kanga, who has been living a lie. American Junior who has his own secret that has led him there. And last but not least, mysterious and brooding Mac, who Izzy can’t help but be drawn to.

As the fickleness of nature tests them all to their limits, this disparate group come together to face the challenge. But when Izzy finally tells them the truth that has brought her out on the Moors, will that be the end of their adventure, or the beginning of her future? Because what Izzy really needs is a place to call home, and someone to share it with could be even better.

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We Came Here to Forget by Andrea Dunlop

We Came Here to Forget is a dramatic novel about ambition, escape, and reinvention. Katie was once an Olympic skier with a clear future. But after her life falls apart, she flees to Buenos Aires and tries to become someone new. There, she is pulled into a new world of desire, secrets, and risk.

From the author of She Regrets Nothing comes a vivid novel about a young Olympic skier who loses everything and escapes to Buenos Aires, where she reinvents herself, meets a colorful group of ex-pats, and is swept off her feet by a mysterious young man with dark secrets of his own.

Katie Cleary has always known exactly what she wants: to be the best skier in the world. As a teenager, she leaves her home to live and train full time with her two best friends, all-American brothers Luke and Blair, whose wealthy father has hired the best coaches money can buy. Together, they are the USA’s best shot at bringing home Olympic gold—as well as a love triangle waiting to happen.

But as the upward trajectory of Katie’s elite skiing career nears its zenith, a terrifying truth about her sister becomes impossible to ignore—one that will lay ruin not only to Katie’s career but to her family and her relationship with Luke and Blair.

With her life shattered and nothing left to lose, Katie flees the snowy mountainsides of home for Buenos Aires. There, she reinvents herself as Liz Sullivan, and meets a colorful group of ex-pats and the alluring, charismatic Gianluca Fortunado, a tango teacher with secrets of his own. This beautiful city, with its dark history and wild promise, seems like the perfect refuge, but can she really outrun her demons?

Told in alternating chapters, Katie grows up, falls in love, and races down the highest peaks on the planet—while Liz is reborn, falls into lust, and sinks into the underground tango scene at the bottom of the world. From the moneyed ski chalets of the American West to the dimly lit milongas of Argentina, We Came Here to Forget explores what it means to dream, to desire, to achieve—and what’s left behind after it all disappears.

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