It’s cozy season and that means more cozy reading time! Enjoying a book on your own is great but sharing it with friends is even better. These ten books will check all the boxes of your Book Club and will keep everyone enthralled. Whether it’s heart-wrenching fiction, chilling thrillers, or inspiring non-fiction there’s a book for everyone to enjoy.
The Two Lives of Sara by Catherine Adel West
A young mother finds refuge and friendship at a boardinghouse in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where family encompasses more than just blood and hidden truths can bury you or set you free.
Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar.
Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air. News spreads of the Freedom Riders. Across the country, people like Martin Luther King Jr. are leading the fight for equal rights. Black literature and music provide the stories and soundtrack for these turbulent and hopeful times, and Sara finds herself drawn in by conversations of education, politics and a brighter tomorrow with Jonas, a local schoolteacher. Romance blooms between them, but secrets from Mama Sugar’s past threaten their newfound happiness with Sara and Jonas soon caught in the crosshairs, leading Sara to make decisions that will reshape the rest of their lives.
With a charismatic cast of characters, The Two Lives of Sara is an emotional and unforgettable story of hope, resilience, and unexpected love.
Available at:
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Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli
A stunning and witty debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of new friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband. Onyi Nwabineli is a fresh new voice for fans of Yaa Gyasi, Queenie and I May Destroy You.
Here are three things you should know about my husband:
- He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.
- He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because…
- On New Year’s Eve, he killed himself.
And here is one thing you should know about me:
- I found him.
Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.
Available November 01, 2022:
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The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
“Sarah Penner brings history to vivid life in this atmospheric and evocative whodunnit steeped in suspense, mystery, and illusion.” —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Maid
From the author of the sensational bestseller The Lost Apothecary comes a spellbinding tale about truth, illusion and the grave risks women will take to avenge the ones they love.
May mercy be upon the man who finds himself the enemy of a vengeful medium…
1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.
Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…
Available April 11, 2023:
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Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The latest novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, following four new customers in a little Tokyo café where customers can travel back in time.
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Café Funiculi Funicula’s time-traveling offer. Along with some familiar faces from Kawaguchi’s previous novels, readers will also be introduced to a daughter, a comedian, a sister and a lover, each with something they wish they had said differently.
With his signature heartwarming characters and immersive storytelling, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?
Available at:
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Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger
“A deliciously tense ride.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of One By One
Three couples rent a luxury cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway to die for in this chilling locked-room thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
What could be more restful, more restorative, than a weekend getaway with family and friends? An isolated luxury cabin in the woods, complete with spectacular views, a hot tub and a personal chef. Hannah’s loving and generous tech-mogul brother found the listing online. The reviews are stellar. It’s his birthday gift to Hannah and includes their spouses and another couple. The six friends need this trip with good food, good company and lots of R & R, far from the chatter and pressures of modern life.
But the dreamy weekend is about to turn into a nightmare. A deadly storm is brewing. The rental host seems just a little too present. The personal chef reveals that their beautiful house has a spine-tingling history. And the friends have their own complicated past, with secrets that run blood deep. How well does Hannah know her brother, her own husband? Can she trust her best friend? And who is the new boyfriend, crashing their party? Meanwhile, someone is determined to ruin the weekend, looking to exact a payback for deeds long buried. Who is the stranger among them?
Available at:
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Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran
A captivating debut novel that moves backwards in time to trace five generations of Vietnamese mothers and daughters, drawing on Vietnamese zodiac astrology to chart the fateful events of their lives
What does the future hold for those born in the years of the Dragon, Tiger, and Goat?
In present day New Orleans, Xuan Trung, former beauty queen turned refugee after the Fall of Saigon, is obsessed with divining her daughters’ fates through their Vietnamese zodiac signs. But Trac, Nhi and Trieu diverge completely from their immigrant parents’ expectations. Successful lawyer Trac hides her sexuality from her family; Nhi competes as the only woman of color on a Bachelor-esque reality TV show; and Trieu, a budding writer, is determined to learn more about her familial and cultural past.
As the three sisters begin to encounter strange glimpses of long-buried secrets from the ancestors they never knew, the story of the Trung women unfurls to reveal the dramatic events that brought them to America. Moving backwards in time, E.M. Tran takes us into the high school classrooms of New Orleans, to Saigon beauty pageants, to twentieth century rubber plantations, traversing a century as the Trungs are both estranged and united by the ghosts of their tumultuous history.
A “haunted story of resilience and survival” (Meng Jin, Little Gods), Daughters of the New Year is an addictive, high-wire act of storytelling that illuminates an entire lineage of extraordinary women fighting to reclaim the power they’ve been stripped of for centuries.
Available at:
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Listening In The Dark by Amber Tamblyn
Listening in the Dark breathes new life into an ancient wisdom by taking a fresh and powerful look at our relationship to intuition and how we can harness it to change our everyday lives and the world.
This remarkable anthology includes essays from Jessica Valenti, Lidia Yuknavitch, Jia Tolentino, Samantha Irby, Meredith Talusan, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Amy Poehler, America Ferrera, Ada Limón, Huma Abedin and many others, who all share how intuition has helped to shape and alter their life choices.
Have you ever had a feeling about something that you just couldn’t explain, but knew was right or wrong? Something that was telling you in your gut what decision to make, which direction to go in, or what to believe? For generations, women have been taught to ignore their intuitive intelligence, whether in their personal lives or professional ones, in favor of making logical, evidence-based decisions. But what if that small voice or deeper knowing was our greatest gift, an untapped power we could use to affect positive change?
Edited by award-winning author, activist, and actress Amber Tamblyn, Listening in the Dark is a compilation of some of today’s most striking women visionaries across industries—in literature, science, art, education, medicine, and politics—who share their experiences engaging with their own inner wisdom in pivotal, crossroad moments.
Filled with deeply personal and revelatory essays, Listening in the Dark will empower readers to reconnect with their own unique intuitive process, to see it as the precious resource it is, and to be unafraid to listen to all that it has to say and all that it has to offer.
Available at:
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The Book Haters Book Club by Gretchen Anthony
All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover…
That was what Elliot—the beloved co-owner of Over the Rainbow Bookshop—believed before his untimely passing. He always had the perfect book suggestion for the self-proclaimed Book Hater. Now his grief-ridden business partner, Irma, has agreed to sell the cozy Over the Rainbow to condo developers.
But others won’t give up the bookshop without a fight. When Irma breaks the news to her daughters, Bree and Laney, and Elliot’s romantic partner, Thom, they are aghast. Over the Rainbow has been Bree and Laney’s sanctuary since childhood, and Thom would do anything to preserve Elliot’s legacy. Together they conspire to save the bookshop, even if it takes some snooping, gossip and minor sabotage.
Filled with humor, family hijinks and actual reading recommendations, The Book Haters’ Book Club is the ideal feel-good read. It’s a love letter to everyday heroes—those booksellers and librarians dedicated to putting the right books in the right hands every day.
Available at:
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When We Were Friends by Holly Bourne
In this darkly funny novel, two women reunite after a decade of estrangement, only to confront the forces that destroyed their friendship in the first place.
From the day they first meet as teenagers, Fern and Jessica are best friends. Despite their differences, they are there for each other throughout everything, navigating the difficulties of growing up and fitting in. That is, until Jessica crosses a line that Fern can’t forgive.
But now, more than ten years later, Jessica has unexpectedly reappeared in Fern’s life.
A lot has changed for them both—but can their relationship be different now that they are older? Is it possible for either of them to rewrite the roles they’ve been cast in? Or will their shared history ultimately be doomed to repeat itself again?
Set between the present day and the early ’00s, When We Were Friends is a blisteringly funny and devastating novel: both a joyful celebration of female friendship and a razor-sharp look at the damage we can all cause to those we claim to love the most.
Available at:
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The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais
A coven of modern-day witches. A magical heist-gone-wrong. A looming threat.
Five octogenarian witches gather as an angry mob threatens to demolish Moonshyne Manor. All eyes turn to the witch in charge, Queenie, who confesses they’ve fallen far behind on their mortgage payments. Still, there’s hope, since the imminent return of Ruby—one of the sisterhood who’s been gone for thirty-three years—will surely be their salvation.
But the mob is only the start of their troubles. One man is hellbent on avenging his family for the theft of a legacy he claims was rightfully his. In an act of desperation, Queenie makes a bargain with an evil far more powerful than anything they’ve ever faced. Then things take a turn for the worse when Ruby’s homecoming reveals a seemingly insurmountable obstacle instead of the solution to all their problems.
The witches are determined to save their home and themselves, but their aging powers are no match for increasingly malicious threats. Thankfully, they get a bit of help from Persephone, a feisty TikToker eager to smash the patriarchy. As the deadline to save the manor approaches, fractures among the sisterhood are revealed, and long-held secrets are exposed, culminating in a fiery confrontation with their enemies.
Funny, tender and uplifting, the novel explores the formidable power that can be discovered in aging, found family and unlikely friendships. Marais’ clever prose offers as much laughter as insight, delving deeply into feminism, identity and power dynamics while stirring up intrigue and drama through secrets, lies and sex. Heartbreaking and heart-mending, it will make you grateful for the amazing women in your life.
Available at:
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