June - The Life & Loves of Becca Valentine

Sarah has picked the book The Life and Loves of Becca Valentine (The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine) by Laura Pearson for June

Info about the book:

These are the things Becca Valentine doesn’t know yet:

She doesn’t know that two men are about to come into her life. Both seeking her heart.

She also doesn’t know that everything rests on her love story.

Because there are four children she might have. And Fate has a secret little twist for Becca: if she doesn’t choose the right man at the right time, she may never meet those children.

But what if someone could influence her to follow her heart? Even if they knew it might risk their own chance of coming into being? Because the other thing Becca doesn’t know is that somewhere – in a place they call the Beforelife – there are four beings waiting. And where they are, almost anything is possible…

We will meet on June 17 at 7:30 to discuss the book.

Planning ahead, Donna has picked The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson for our book for July.

Happy Reading!

Cherry Pie Cookie Bars

Kellyn had some yummy cherry themed treats for book club. Here's the recipe for the Cherry Pie Cookie Bars she brought. They were delicious. 

May - Tom Lake

Kellyn chose Tom Lake for our May book. 

Here's some information about the book: 

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.

We will be meeting on the fourth Tuesday in May since Debby's having cataract surgery the third week. We will meet on Tuesday May 27 at 7:30 at Debby's house. 

Happy Reading!

April 2025 - The Midnight Library

 

Tracie has chosen The Midnight Library as our book for April. 

Due to Spring Break, we will be meeting on the fourth Tuesday of the month. So we will meet on April 22, 2025 at 7:30, at Debby's house. 

Here's some information about the book:

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

I've read the book already and I'm looking forward to our discussion. 

Happy Reading and hope to see you there!

March 2025 - Only The Beautiful

Sarah Aina has picked the book, Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner for our March book club discussion. 

Here's some information about the book:

California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place that seeks to forcibly take her baby – and the chance for any future babies – from her.

Austria, 1947—After witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler’s brutal pursuit of hereditary purity—especially with regard to “different children”—Helen Calvert, Truman’s sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard after decades working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser’s daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers a shocking American eugenics program—and learns that that while the war had been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.

We will meet on Tuesday March 18, at 7:30 at Debby's house for our discussion. Happy Reading!

Date Change For Book Club

We are pushing our February book club a week later than normal. Book club will meet on Tuesday February 25, at 7:30 at Debby's house. Hope to see you there. 

Looking forward to a great discussion about The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. 

February 2025 - The Lost Bookshop

Jess has chosen The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods as our book for February. We will meet at 7:30pm at Debby's house on February 18 to discuss the book. Hope to see you there!

Here is some information about the book: 

‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

Happy Reading!

Book Exchange

Here are the books that were given at our book exchange this year. I've got some new titles to add to my "To Read" list. Which one would you like to read?