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50+ Reese Witherspoon Book Club Picks That Are Totally Worth Your Time
Reese Witherspoon’s book club is a treasure trove for book lovers like us. However, with so many picks, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why I’ve put together a list of 11 Reese Witherspoon Book Club picks that are totally worth your time. These books stand out for their amazing stories, well-developed characters, and thought-provoking themes. If you’re unsure about where to start, these must-reads are a great place to begin. I have also narrowed it down top five books.
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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing combines a gripping mystery with lyrical writing and a deep connection to nature. The protagonist’s resilience and the book’s vivid descriptions make it a standout read.
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.
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Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a heartwarming and humorous exploration of loneliness and human connection. Eleanor’s quirky personality and journey towards healing make it an unforgettable story.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes
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The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
Set in 1950s India, The Henna Artist is a richly detailed novel about a fascinating glimpse into a different culture and era. The protagonist’s Lakshmi is a remarkable character.
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own…
Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.
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The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine
The Last Mrs. Parrish is a psychological thriller with twists and turns that keep you guessing until the very end. The plot’s intricate layers and the intense character dynamics make it a riveting read.
Amber Patterson is fed up. She’s tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more—a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.
To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.
Amber’s envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn’t have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life—the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.
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The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
Based on a true story, The Giver of Stars is about a group of women who deliver books on horseback in Depression-era America is both empowering and beautifully written. The friendships and challenges they face are truly compelling.
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.
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On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
On the Rooftop is a moving novel about dreams, family, and change in 1950s San Francisco. Vivian has raised her daughters Ruth, Esther, and Chloe to become The Salvations, a talented singing group. She believes their big break is finally here when a manager offers to take them to the national stage. But her daughters are no longer just girls following her lead—they each have their own desires and dreams. At the same time, their neighborhood in the Fillmore district is changing as gentrification threatens their community. Vivian must face the reality that control can slip away, and her daughters must decide what future they truly want.
A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters’ ambitions for their own lives—set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San Francisco
At home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.
Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she’s been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.
The neighborhood is changing, too: all around the Fillmore, white men in suits are approaching Black property owners with offers. One sister finds herself called to fight back, one falls into the comfort of an old relationship, another yearns to make her own voice heard. And Vivian, who has always maintained control, will have to confront the parts of her life that threaten to splinter: the community, The Salvations, and even her family.
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Honey & Spice by Bolu Babalola
Honey & Spice is a funny and heartfelt romance about Kiki Banjo, a sharp-witted college student in England who doesn’t believe in love. She hosts a radio show where she warns women about heartbreak and players. But when she ends up kissing Malakai, the guy she publicly called out, everything changes. To save face, Kiki and Malakai pretend to be in a relationship but fake feelings start to feel real. As they study together and share late-night talks, Kiki wonders if she’s finally ready to open her heart.
Introducing internationally bestselling author Bolu Babalola’s dazzling debut novel, full of passion, humor, and heart, that centers on a young Black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about
Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together…
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink.
They’re soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before, and a player like Malakai won’t be the one to change that, no matter how charming he is or how electric their connection feels. But surprisingly entertaining study sessions and intimate, late-night talks at old-fashioned diners force Kiki to look beyond her own presumptions. Is she ready to open herself up to something deeper?
A gloriously funny and sparkling debut novel, Honey and Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.
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The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The Library Book is a fascinating true story about the 1986 fire that destroyed much of the Los Angeles Public Library. The blaze burned for hours, reached 2000 degrees, and ruined or damaged more than a million books. Even after decades, no one knows for sure if it was arson. Susan Orlean uses the fire as a starting point to explore the history of libraries, the people who run them, and the role they play in communities. She introduces quirky librarians from the past, shares her own love of books, and investigates the mystery of Harry Peak, the man long suspected of starting the fire.
On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.
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Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
Something in the Water is about Erin and Mark who are newlyweds enjoying a dream honeymoon in Bora Bora. Everything is perfect until they discover something in the water while scuba diving. What they find forces them to make a dangerous decision: tell the truth or protect their secret. That single choice pulls them into a web of lies, fear, and danger. As events spiral out of control, Erin learns how quickly dreams can turn into nightmares. With sharp twists and a chilling voice, this story shows how far people might go to hold on to the lives they want.
If you could make one simple choice that would change your life forever, would you?
Erin is a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough, Mark a handsome investment banker with big plans. Passionately in love, they embark on a dream honeymoon to the tropical island of Bora Bora, where they enjoy the sun, the sand, and each other. Then, while scuba diving in the crystal blue sea, they find something in the water. . . .
Could the life of your dreams be the stuff of nightmares?
Suddenly the newlyweds must make a dangerous choice: to speak out or to protect their secret. After all, if no one else knows, who would be hurt? Their decision will trigger a devastating chain of events. . . .
Have you ever wondered how long it takes to dig a grave?
Wonder no longer. Catherine Steadman’s enthralling voice shines throughout this spellbinding debut novel. With piercing insight and fascinating twists, Something in the Water challenges the reader to confront the hopes we desperately cling to, the ideals we’re tempted to abandon, and the perfect lies we tell ourselves.
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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is bold, funny, and empowering. Nikki, a young woman in London, takes a teaching job at a Sikh community center expecting to run a creative writing class. Instead, her students, Punjabi widows who want to tell stories of love, passion, and desire. Their secret writing sessions awaken hidden dreams and long-silenced voices. But not everyone approves, and gossip in the community threatens their safety, especially with a strict moral group watching. At the same time, a mysterious death lingers in the background. This novel is about women finding freedom, building community, and speaking their truths, even when the world tells them to stay silent.
A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages—a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.
Every woman has a secret life . . .
Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a “creative writing” course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.
Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.
As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s “moral police.” But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.
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Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
Next Year in Havana is a sweeping story about family, love, and identity. In 1958, Elisa Perez lives in Havana as the daughter of a sugar baron. While her family ignores the unrest building around them, Elisa falls in love with a revolutionary. Decades later, her granddaughter Marisol travels to Cuba to scatter Elisa’s ashes. Once there, Marisol uncovers hidden family history, experiences the tension of modern Cuba, and begins a romance of her own. The novel weaves past and present. It shows how love and courage can last across generations. It’s a story of loss, hope, and the search for belonging.
After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity–and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution…
Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba’s high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country’s growing political unrest–until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary…
Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa’s last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth.
Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba’s tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she’ll need the lessons of her grandmother’s past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.
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You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld
You Think It, I’ll Say It is a collection of short stories about modern life, relationships, and hidden thoughts. Each story introduces characters caught in moments of awkwardness, rivalry, or self-reflection. A suburban mom envies an old friend. A lawyer on her honeymoon runs into her old bully. A shy student discovers her classmate’s life isn’t what it seems. Curtis Sittenfeld writes with sharp humor and empathy, showing how people often think one thing and say another.
A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate’s seemingly enviable life.
Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her “astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers’ heads” (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.
With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we’re all thinking—if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
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We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz
We Were Never Here is a psychological thriller about friendship and secrets. Emily and her best friend Kristen meet every year for a backpacking trip. But on their trip to Chile, Emily comes back to their hotel to find blood on the floor. Kristen insists she killed a man in self-defense. The problem? The same thing happened on their trip last year. Back home, Emily tries to move on, but Kristen won’t let her go. As Emily starts to question her friend’s motives, paranoia and fear take over.
An annual backpacking trip has deadly consequences in a chilling new novel from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd.
Emily is having the time of her life–she’s in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. But on the last night of their trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find blood and broken glass on the floor. Kristen says the cute backpacker she’d been flirting with attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Even more shocking: The scene is horrifyingly similar to last year’s trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. Emily can’t believe it’s happened again–can lightning really strike twice?
Back home in Wisconsin, Emily struggles to bury her trauma, diving head-first into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. But when Kristen shows up for a surprise visit, Emily is forced to to confront their violent past. The more Kristen tries to keep Emily close, the more Emily questions her friend’s motives. As Emily feels the walls closing in on their coverups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friend. Can she outrun the secrets she shares with Kristen, or will they destroy her relationship, her freedom–even her life?
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The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
The Last Thing He Told Me is a suspenseful thriller explores themes of trust and identity. The fast-paced plot and the strong emotional core make it hard to put down.
Before Owen Michaels disappears he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child and wants nothing to do with her new stepmother.
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.
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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Yellowface is a provocative novel tackles issues of cultural appropriation and identity with sharp wit and a gripping narrative. It’s a thought-provoking and timely read.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
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The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Nightingale is a historical novel about two sisters in Nazi-occupied France is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. The emotional depth and historical detail make it a powerful and memorable story.
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
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Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
Wrong Place, Wrong Time is a time-travel thriller, a totally unique book. The clever plot and the exploration of fate and consequence keep you hooked from start to finish.
Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?
It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger.
She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered.
After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up… it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime…and it is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.
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The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Alice Network is a dual timeline novel intertwines the stories of two women, a female spy in World War I and an American socialite searching for her cousin after World War II. The historical intrigue and strong female characters make it an excellent book.
In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She’s also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie’s parents banish her to Europe to have her “little problem” taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.
1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she’s recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the “queen of spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy’s nose.
Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn’t heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth…no matter where it leads.
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The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Rules of Magic is a prequel to Practical Magic that combines magical realism with rich family dynamics. The beautiful prose and the exploration of love, loss, and magic create a spellbinding experience.
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.
The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the revered, and sometimes feared, aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy.
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The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
The Three Lives of Cate Kay is about a famous author who isn’t who people think she is. Cate wrote a best-selling book series that turned into hit movies, but she’s been hiding her real identity for years. A long time ago, she and her best friend Amanda had big dreams, but something terrible happened and Cate ran away. Now, after a surprise discovery, she realizes she has to face her past.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.
Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.
As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.
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Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Our Missing Hearts follows a 12-year-old boy named Bird, who lives in a future America where books are banned and families are watched closely. His mother, a Chinese American poet, disappeared years ago, and he was told never to ask about her. But one day, he gets a strange letter that makes him start searching for her. As he follows the clues, he learns about her past and a hidden network of people fighting back. This is a story about family, freedom, and standing up for what’s right, even when it’s dangerous.
A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
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The Guest List by Lucy Foley
The Guest List is about a fancy wedding on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. The bride and groom are famous and rich, and everything seems perfect until someone ends up dead. As the story unfolds, we hear from different guests: the bride’s best friend, the best man, the planner, and others, each with their own secrets. This is a mystery full of twists, drama, and suspense, where everyone is a suspect. Check out 28 The Guest List Book Club Questions & Snack Ideas.
A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
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Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown
Society of Lies follows Maya, who goes back to Princeton for her college reunion and her sister’s graduation. But when she gets there, she finds out her sister Naomi has died and the police say it was an accident. Maya isn’t so sure. She starts digging into Naomi’s life and finds out she joined the same secretive club Maya once did. As Maya uncovers more, she realizes her sister may have known a dangerous secret, just like Maya did back then. It’s a mystery about college, secrets, and what people will do to belong.
How far would you go to belong?
Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion – it’s been a decade since she graduated, and this visit is special because she will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.
But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.
As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realise how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus – the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.
Maya knows that her sister isn’t the first person in the society to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she’s been keeping all these years.
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The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda
In The Last House Guest, Megan Miranda tells the story of Avery Greer, a young woman in Littleport, Maine. Avery’s best friend Sadie, a wealthy summer visitor, dies under strange circumstances. The police say it is suicide, but Avery is not sure. People in town begin to suspect her, including Sadie’s family. It is a psychological thriller with shocking twists and turns. You will follow Avery as she looks back at summers of friendship and searches for secrets in her small town.
The summer after a wealthy young summer guest dies under suspicious circumstances, her best friend lives under a cloud of grief and suspicion.
Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors.
Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her.
The Last House Guest is a smart, twisty read that brilliantly explores the elusive nature of memory and the complexities of female friendships.
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The Other Woman by Sandie Jones
The Other Woman is a domestic thriller about love and manipulation. Emily meets Adam, who seems like the perfect man. But Adam’s mother, Pammie, does not want Emily in his life. Pammie uses every trick to drive her away, showing how far a mother will go to protect her son. This is a fast and shocking story about toxic family relationships, unhealthy control, and dark secrets.
A deliciously disturbing, compulsively readable debut domestic suspense—prepare to meet The Other Woman: there’s nothing she won’t do to keep you away from her son…
Emily thinks Adam’s perfect; the man she thought she’d never meet. But lurking in the shadows is a rival; a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves.
Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.
The Other Woman is an addictive, fast-paced psychological thriller about the destructive relationship between Emily, her boyfriend Adam, and his manipulative mother Pammie.
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The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King
Allison King’s debut is a multi-generational magical family drama. Monica Tsai is a young woman who spends her time coding and writing online. She worries about her grandmother Yun, whose memory is fading. Yun lived through war in China and once worked at the Phoenix Pencil Company, where women had a magical gift to reforge pencils, bringing back memories. Monica finds a clue that may connect her to her grandmother’s lost cousin. The Phoenix Pencil Company moves between past and present, blending Yun’s story of survival with Monica’s search for family truth.
In this dazzling debut novel, a hidden and nearly forgotten magic—of Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life—holds the power to transform a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, and to mend long-lost connections across time and space.
Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she’s always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade.
Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica’s discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun’s own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil’s words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive.
Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King’s stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy.
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Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
In Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry writes a romantic drama with mystery elements. The story follows Alice, a hopeful writer, and Hayden, a serious Pulitzer-winning journalist. Both want to write the biography of Margaret Ives, a glamorous but hidden woman with a scandalous past. Margaret gives them each only pieces of her story, and they cannot share them. As Alice and Hayden compete, they also start to feel a strong attraction.
Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
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All That Life We can Afford by Emily Everett
All That Life We Can Afford is a coming-of-age literary drama set in London and the glamorous world of the wealthy. Anna, a young American woman, moves to London dreaming of a better life. Instead, she struggles with money and lives in a poor flat. When she meets the rich Wilder family, she enters a world of luxury and parties. She feels pulled between her old life and the new glamorous one, while also meeting two very different men.
A taut and lyrical coming-of-age debut about a young American woman navigating class, lies, and love amid London’s jet-set elite.
I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new.
Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.
Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna’s struggle to outrun her past. It’s like she’s stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?
Sparkling with intelligence and insight, All That Life Can Afford peels back the glossy layers of class and privilege, exploring what it means to create a new life for yourself that still honors the one you’ve left behind.
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Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance is a romantic drama about second chances. Shiloh and Cary were best friends in high school. Everyone thought they would end up together, but life separated them. Cary joined the Navy, Shiloh became an actress, and years passed. Now Shiloh is 33, divorced, with children, and living back in her hometown. She wonders if Cary will be at an old friend’s wedding. When they meet again, they must face their past and decide if love is still possible.
Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.
Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.
Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.
When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?
The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.
Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.
It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.
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The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
The Most Fun We Ever Had is a multigenerational family saga set in Chicago. Marilyn and David Sorenson have been married for forty years and are still deeply in love. Their four adult daughters live complicated lives, full of rivalry, secrets, and problems. Wendy drinks to deal with her grief, Violet faces anxiety, Liza questions her relationship, and Grace hides lies. When a son given up for adoption returns, family tensions rise even higher. The book is long, emotional, and full of drama. It shows love, conflict, and how families stay connected even when life gets messy.
A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple–still madly in love after forty years–recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they’ve built.
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that’s to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she’s not sure she wants by a man she’s not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents’.
As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt–given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before–we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons’ past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.
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First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
Ashley Elston’s First Lie Wins is a psychological thriller full of shocking twists. Evie Porter seems to live a perfect life with a nice home, boyfriend, and friends. But Evie is not her real name. She works for a mysterious boss who gives her new identities for each job. This time her target is Ryan Sumner, but Evie feels herself falling for him. She wants to escape her dangerous world, but her past and her boss won’t let her go.
Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.
The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.
Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.
Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge.
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Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman
In Before We Were Innocent, Ella Berman tells a psychological drama with crime and friendship themes. Ten years ago, three friends spent the summer in Greece. Only two came back alive after the mysterious death of their friend Evangeline. The media destroyed the two survivors’ reputations, even though they were cleared. Joni used the fame to become a speaker, while Bess tried to hide. Now Joni is connected to another crime, and Bess must decide whether to help her or finally face the truth about the past.
A summer in Greece for three best friends ends in the unthinkable when only two return home in this new novel from Ella Berman. . . .
Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.
While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .
Except now Joni is tangled up in a crime eerily similar to that one fateful night in Greece. And when she asks Bess to come back to LA to support her, Bess has a decision to make.
Is it finally time to face up to what happened that night, exposing herself as the young woman she once was and maybe still is? And what happens if she doesn’t like what she finds?
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Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major
Maybe Next Time is a time-loop drama with romance and family themes. Emma is a busy woman who often ignores her husband and children. One day, her husband Dan dies in an accident. The next morning Emma wakes up, and it is the same day again. She gets many chances to relive the day, trying to save Dan and fix her mistakes. Each time, she changes her actions, quitting her job, talking to her kids, and reconnecting with her husband. The story is emotional, showing love, regret, and the importance of slowing down and appreciating family life.
One Day meets Groundhog Day, in this heartwarming and emotionally poignant novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to spare her husband from an unfortunate fate.
It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems sad.
She is far too busy, buried deep in her phone; social media alerts pinging; clients messaging with “emergencies”; keeping track of a dozen WhatsApp groups about the kids’ sports, school, playdates, all of it. Her whole day is frantic—what else is new—and as she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out, desolate, dragging their poor dog around the block. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary and she has forgotten, again, she hears the screech of brakes.
Dan is dead.
The next day Emma wakes up… and Dan is alive. And it’s Monday again.
And again.
And again.
Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up: leaving WhatsApp, telling her boss where to get off, writing to Dan, listening to her kids, reaching out to forgotten friends, getting drunk and buying out Prada. But will Emma have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children, love her husband? Will this be enough to change the fate they seem destined for?
A moving “What if” story of what it is to be a woman in the modern world—never feeling we’re getting it quite right—about learning to slow down and appreciate life that is sure to resonate with women’s fiction fans.
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Did You Hear About Kitty Karr by Crystal Smith Paul
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr is a multigenerational drama with mystery. When Hollywood star Kitty Karr dies, she leaves her fortune to the St. John sisters, three Black women. This shocks the public and raises many questions. Elise St. John, one of the sisters, discovers Kitty’s journals, which reveal secrets about her rise from the segregated South to fame. These secrets connect directly to Elise’s own family history. The book moves between old Hollywood glamour and today’s celebrity culture. It explores race, gender, family ties, and the hidden choices women make to survive and succeed.
A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz
When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.
A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.
The truth behind Kitty’s ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.
As Elise digs deeper into Kitty’s past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.
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The House Of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
Sadeqa Johnson’s The House of Eve is a historical fiction drama set in 1950s America. Ruby Pearsall is a young girl in Philadelphia, hoping to be the first in her family to go to college. But a forbidden romance threatens her dreams. Meanwhile, Eleanor Quarles moves to Washington, DC, where she falls in love with William Pride, from a wealthy family. Eleanor struggles to be accepted, hoping a child will bring her closer to William’s world. Ruby and Eleanor’s stories connect in surprising ways.
From the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.
1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.
Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.
With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.
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The House In The Pines by Ana Reyes
The House in the Pines is a psychological thriller with mystery. Maya saw her best friend die suddenly in front of a man named Frank years ago. Now, seven years later, she sees another woman die in the same strange way, also with Frank present. Maya returns to her hometown to investigate. She uncovers hidden truths in her family and struggles with memory gaps from that time. The story takes place in the Berkshires and mixes suspense, secrets, and fear.
Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
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The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
The Marriage Portrait is a historical fiction novel set in Renaissance Italy. It tells the story of Lucrezia de’ Medici, a young duchess forced into marriage after her sister’s death. At first, her new husband seems kind, but she slowly sees his darker side. Living in a dangerous court, Lucrezia struggles to survive. As she sits for a marriage portrait, she realizes her life depends on producing an heir. The book shows the beauty and danger of court life in 16th-century Florence. It is moving, richly described, and full of tension about love, power, and survival.
The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?
As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.
Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.
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The Club by Ellery Lloyd
Ellery Lloyd’s The Club is a murder mystery thriller set in a glamorous celebrity resort. The Home Group runs private clubs for the rich and famous. Their new resort, Island Home, is about to open with a huge three-day party. But behind the luxury, secrets are waiting. Staff members and celebrities all have something to hide. As the party continues, arguments rise, shocking secrets come out, and people start dying.
From the author of People Like Her comes a smart and sinister murder mystery set in the secretive world of exclusive celebrity clubs.
Everyone’s Dying to Join . . .
The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members’ clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media.
The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade.
But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group’s CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide—and that’s before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island.
As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list.
Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out.
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Anatomy by Dana Schwartz
Anatomy is a gothic historical fiction with romance set in Edinburgh, 1817. Hazel Sinnett is a young lady who dreams of becoming a surgeon, but women are not allowed in medical school. She meets Jack Currer, a poor young man who digs up bodies for a living. Hazel makes a deal: if she can pass an exam, she can study. Jack helps her find bodies to dissect. But strange disappearances and dark secrets in the city make their journey dangerous.
Edinburgh, 1817. Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.
Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.
When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.
Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.
But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.
A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.
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The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
In The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak tells a magical, historical love story set in Cyprus and London. The book follows Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, who fall in love during times of war. Their secret meetings take place under a fig tree in a taverna. Years later, their daughter Ada grows up in London. The same fig tree, now planted in her garden, holds the family’s secrets. The novel mixes nature, history, and love. It explores identity, trauma, and belonging, showing how war and memory affect future generations.
A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.
Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited — her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.
A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.
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Group by Christie Tate
Group is a memoir about therapy and self-discovery. Christie, a young lawyer in Chicago, is successful but deeply unhappy. She joins a psychotherapy group led by Dr. Rosen. At first, she is skeptical, but over time, she opens up about her eating disorder, childhood, and relationships. With the support of strangers, she begins to heal. The memoir is honest, funny, and painful at the same time. It shows how sharing your secrets can bring connection and change.
The refreshingly original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—her psychotherapy group—and in turn finds human connection, and herself.
Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her in spite of her achievements?
Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure, you need a witness.
So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect.
Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.
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The Secret We Kept by Lara Prescott
The Secrets We Kept is a historical spy thriller set during the Cold War. Two CIA secretaries are given a special mission: smuggle Boris Pasternak’s banned novel Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR and publish it in the West. One secretary, Irina, is young and inexperienced. The other, Sally, is glamorous and skilled in manipulation. The story also tells of Pasternak’s love affair with his muse, Olga, who inspired the novel. The book moves between Moscow, Washington, Paris, and beyond. It is about politics, love, and the power of literature.
A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice–the real-life story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth Doctor Zhivago .
At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dares publish it, and help Pasternak’s magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world–using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally’s tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops and invisibly ferry classified documents.
The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story–the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago’s heroine, Lara–with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak’s country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, DC, to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature–told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the centre of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.
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Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
Mother-Daughter Murder Night is about three generations of women who get caught up in a murder mystery. Lana is a big-time businesswoman recovering from cancer in a quiet town with her daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack. When Jack finds a dead body while kayaking, the police suspect her. Instead of staying quiet, Lana decides to solve the case herself—with help from Beth and Jack. This is a fun, cozy mystery with lots of heart, teamwork, and surprising twists
Nothing brings a family together like a murder next door.
A lighthearted whodunnit about a grandmother-mother-daughter trio of amateur sleuths. Gilmore Girls , but with murder.
High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage—and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does.
Then Jack—tiny in stature but fiercely independent—happens upon a dead body while kayaking. She quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snooping advances into ever-more dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must learn to do the one thing they’ve always depend on each other.
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Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Tom Lake is about a mom named Lara who tells her daughters a story from her past during the early days of the pandemic. While picking cherries at their family orchard, her daughters want to know about the time she fell in love with a famous actor named Peter Duke. As she tells the story, they start to understand who their mom really is and how her choices shaped their lives. It’s a quiet, thoughtful book about love, family, and the parts of our parents’ lives we never knew. Also check out 31 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett Book Club Questions & Snack Ideas
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.
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The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Lying Game is about four women who were best friends at a boarding school where they made a game out of lying. Years later, they’re pulled back together when one of them sends a message saying, “I need you,” after a body is found near their old school. The story jumps between past and present, showing how their lies still haunt them. It’s a twisty, suspenseful mystery about friendship, guilt, and how the past doesn’t stay buried.
From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes Ruth Ware’s chilling new novel.
On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister…
The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”
The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).
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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a collection of essays by Ann Patchett where she shares moments from her real life. She writes about her childhood, her love of writing, relationships with friends and family, and what she’s learned through two marriages. Some pieces are emotional, others funny or thoughtful, but they all feel honest and personal. You get a clear picture of who she is and what matters to her, books, dogs, commitment, and figuring out what it means to live a full life.
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments — to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband — creating a resonant portrait of a life in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett’s life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.
As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.
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Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
Tiny Beautiful Things is a book of advice columns written by Cheryl Strayed under the name “Dear Sugar.” Each letter is a real question from someone going through something tough, like heartbreak, grief, or feeling stuck and Cheryl answers with honesty, warmth, and sometimes a little tough love. She shares her own life experiences, and even when it’s hard stuff, her words feel comforting and real.
An anniversary edition of the bestselling collection of Dear Sugar advice columns written by the author of #1 New York Times bestseller Wild–featuring a new preface and six additional columns. Soon to be a Hulu Original series.
For more than a decade, thousands of people have sought advice from Dear Sugar–the pseudonym of bestselling author Cheryl Strayed–first through her online column at The Rumpus, later through her hit podcast, Dear Sugars, and now through her popular Substack newsletter. Tiny Beautiful Things collects the best of Dear Sugar in one volume, bringing her wisdom to many more readers. This tenth-anniversary edition features six new columns and a new preface by Strayed. Rich with humor, insight, compassion–and absolute honesty–this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.
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Redwood Court DéLana R. A. Dameron
Redwood Court is the story of Mika, a young girl growing up in a close Black neighborhood in South Carolina. Through her eyes, we get to know her family and neighbors, their stories, and what life is like in their small community. Mika listens and watches as the people around her deal with love, loss, joy, and struggle. It’s simple, powerful, and shows how strong people can be just by living and caring for one another.
Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.”
So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.
With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.
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How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
How to End a Love Story is about Helen, a successful writer, and Grant, a screenwriter, who haven’t spoken in 13 years since a tragedy linked them forever. Now, they’re forced to work together on a TV show based on Helen’s books. Their old feelings and unresolved pain start to surface. It’s a romantic, emotional story about facing the past.
Two writers with a complicated history end up working on the same TV show. Can they write themselves a new ending? A sexy and emotional enemies-to-lovers romance guaranteed to pull on your heartstrings and give you a book hangover from brilliant new voice Yulin Kuang
Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever.
Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers’ room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except…
Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he’s well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn’t have taken the job on Helen’s show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just can’t pass up.
Grant’s exactly as Helen remembers him—charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she’s never been. And Helen’s exactly as Grant remembers too—brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen’s parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he’s in the picture at all.
When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet… the key to making peace with their past—and themselves—might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.
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The Unwedding by Ally Condie
The Unwedding follows Ellery, a woman alone at a fancy resort on what was supposed to be her 20th wedding anniversary. As she tries to process her broken marriage, another couple is having their wedding at the same resort but then something unsettling happens. The place feels off, and Ellery begins to sense that something is seriously wrong.
Ellery Wainwright is alone at the edge of the world. She and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than at one of the most stunning places on earth? But now she’s traveling solo.
To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now she isn’t certain of anything except her love for her kids and a growing realization that this place, although beautiful, is unsettling.
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Looking for Smoke by K. A. Cobell
Looking for Smoke is about four teens on a Blackfeet reservation who are caught up in a murder investigation. One of them, Mara, just wants to make friends, but when another girl is found dead, everyone in their small group becomes a suspect. Each person had a complicated relationship with the victim, and no one is sure who to trust.
When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation.
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
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City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim
City of Night Birds centers on Natalia, a once-famous ballerina who returns to St. Petersburg after a terrible injury. She’s haunted by her past and tempted by a comeback. Now, she faces a choice: return to the world that broke her or take a shot at something new. This is a dramatic, lyrical story about art, ambition, and redemption.
A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice—to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever—in this incandescent novel of redemption and love
On a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident stalled her career. Once the most celebrated dancer of her generation, she now turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past.
She is unmoored in her old city as the ghosts of her former life begin to resurface: her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, and the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall.
One of those dancers, Alexander, is the love of her life, who transformed both Natalia and her art. The other is Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius. When the latter offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can again face the people responsible for both her soaring highs and darkest hours.
Painting a vivid portrait of the Russian ballet world, where cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope. Mysterious and alluring, passionate and virtuosic, Juhea Kim’s second novel is an affecting meditation on love, forgiveness, and the making of an artist in a turbulent world.
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Throwback by Maurene Goo
Throwback follows Sam, a Korean American teen who suddenly finds herself in the 1990s after a fight with her mom. Even more shocking, she’s in high school with her mom as a teenager. Sam has to figure out how to survive in this old-school world and maybe even help her mom win Homecoming Queen. This is a fun and lighthearted book for the fans of time-travel stories.
Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the ’90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming Queen.
Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla—and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forward—but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.
To her shock, Sam finds herself back in high school . . . in the ’90s . . . with a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now this Gen Z girl must try to fit into an analog world. She’s got the fashion down, but everything else is baffling. What is “microfiche”? What’s with the casual racism and misogyny? And why does it feel like Priscilla is someone she could actually be . . . friends with?
Sam’s blast to the past has her finding the right romance in the wrong time while questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom . . . and herself. Will Sam figure out what she needs to do to fix things for her mom so that she can go back to a time she understands? Brimming with heart and humor, Maurene Goo’s time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.
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The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Cliffs is about Jane, a historian who returns to her hometown in Maine after a mistake at work. She’s drawn back to a spooky Victorian house she loved as a teen, now owned by someone new who believes it’s haunted. Jane starts researching the home’s history and uncovers generations of secrets, lost love, and grief.
A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.
Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.
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Isola by Allegra Goodman
Isola is about a girl named Marguerite who loses her parents and ends up with a guardian who doesn’t treat her well. He spends all her money and takes her on a trip to New France. While there, Marguerite falls for one of his servants, but they get in big trouble for it. The story is based on a real person from the 1500s and shows how Marguerite keeps going even when life is really hard. This is one of the best historical fiction books I’ve ever read.
A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.
Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.
Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.
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His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
His Only Wife is about Afi, a young woman from Ghana who agrees to marry a man she doesn’t really know because his family wants her to. After the wedding, she finds out her new husband is in love with someone else. Afi is supposed to help him forget the other woman, but instead, she starts building a life for herself in the city. This book is about finding independence, figuring out what you really want.
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know. She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.
A brilliant scholar and a fierce advocate for women’s rights, author Peace Adzo Medie infuses her debut novel with intelligence and humor. For readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Candice Carty-Williams, His Only Wife is the story of an indomitable and relatable heroine that illuminates what it means to be a woman in a rapidly changing world.
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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
Infinite Country tells the story of a Colombian family trying to build a better life in the United States. Elena and Mauro leave Bogotá with hopes for their future, but they overstay their visas and end up living in fear of being caught. When Mauro is deported, the family has to decide whether to stay together or split up to survive. Each family member deals with the stress in their own way. It’s a powerful story about immigration, choices, and what it feels like to belong to two countries at once.
For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured—and are enduring right now.
At the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence. Elena and Mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in Bogotá. Once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the United States.
They travel to Houston and send wages back to Elena’s mother, all the while weighing whether to risk overstaying their tourist visas or to return to Bogotá. As their family expands, and they move again and again, their decision to ignore their exit dates plunges the young family into the precariousness of undocumented status, the threat of discovery menacing a life already strained. When Mauro is deported, Elena, now tasked with caring for their three small children, makes a difficult choice that will ease her burdens but splinter the family even further.
Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself the daughter of Colombian immigrants and a dual citizen, gives voice to Mauro and Elena, as well as their children, Karina, Nando, and Talia—each one navigating a divided existence, weighing their allegiance to the past, the future, to one another, and to themselves. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality for the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family—for whom every triumph is stitched with regret and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.
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Fable by Adrienne Young
Fable is about a 17-year-old girl who has grown up alone on a rough island after her father left her there. She’s learned how to take care of herself and survive among thieves. Her one goal is to find her father and join his crew. She gets help from a young trader named West, but nothing is easy. As they travel together, Fable realizes her father has dangerous enemies and West may have secrets too. You will love this adventure story full of danger, the sea, and a strong girl trying to take back her life.
For seventeen-year-old Fable, the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home she has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one, and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father, and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.
But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him, and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.
Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men. Fable takes you on a spectacular journey filled with romance, intrigue, and adventure.
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Conclusion
I hope you are excited to read these incredible books. Let me know whether you have read any yet.
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Stephy George
