April 29, 2021
Our book group read SUNFLOWERS SISTERS by Martha Hall Kelly this month (which we all loved), and for next month we are reading THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave. We typically read new books --- we have fun at our meetings talking about what’s new that we want to explore. Reading through the submissions for our “What’s Your Book Group Reading This Month?" feature, we see there is a whole range of timing for book releases in what you are reading. And I see the same thing when I answer requests from readers who write looking for discussion guides. I often get a request for a guide for a much older or lesser known title, and I really should ask the sender what had them gravitate towards that book. I love that there is not “one kind” of book group, but rather a wonderful variety of them.
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Bookaccino Live Book Group Event on May 20th
Editorial Content for The Girls in the Stilt House
Teaser
Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder --- perfect for readers of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING and IF THE CREEK DON'T RISE.
Promo
Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder --- perfect for readers of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING and IF THE CREEK DON'T RISE.
About the Book
Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder --- perfect for readers of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING and IF THE CREEK DON'T RISE.
Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.
Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio.
As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.
Editorial Content for Good Company
Book
Teaser
GOOD COMPANY is a warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller THE NEST.
Promo
GOOD COMPANY is a warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller THE NEST.
About the Book
A warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller THE NEST.
Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than 20 years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring --- the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.
Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian’s small theater company --- Good Company --- afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?
With Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature tenderness, humor and insight, GOOD COMPANY tells a bighearted story of the lifelong relationships that both wound and heal us.
Editorial Content for Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale
Teaser
In her vibrant debut novel, Pamela Hamilton delivers glamour, romance, tragedy, a close and stormy friendship with famed playwright and Vogue and Vanity Fair editor Clare Boothe Luce, and the enchanting story of a woman navigating a world of incredible wealth and power in New York, Paris, Hollywood and grand estates of the Gold Coast.
Promo
In her vibrant debut novel, Pamela Hamilton delivers glamour, romance, tragedy, a close and stormy friendship with famed playwright and Vogue and Vanity Fair editor Clare Boothe Luce, and the enchanting story of a woman navigating a world of incredible wealth and power in New York, Paris, Hollywood and grand estates of the Gold Coast.
About the Book
A moving portrait of Dorothy Hale, the legendary 1930s socialite immortalized in one of Frida Kahlo's most celebrated paintings.
In her vibrant debut novel, Pamela Hamilton delivers glamour, romance, tragedy, a close and stormy friendship with famed playwright and Vogue and Vanity Fair editor Clare Boothe Luce, and the enchanting story of a woman navigating a world of incredible wealth and power in New York, Paris, Hollywood and grand estates of the Gold Coast --- a perfect book club read.
LADY BE GOOD transports us to the glittering, sumptuous era of 1920s New York to follow the life of aspiring actress Dorothy Hale as she comes of age. Breaking societal rules imposed on women, "Peck's Bad Girl of Pittsburgh Society" leaves behind her privileged world for the bright lights of Broadway to chase her dream. From convent school debutante runaway to Ziegfeld showgirl to Hollywood star, Hale transforms herself into one of the most adored figures in the highest echelons of society. Yet behind the public façade, the darling of the press contends with heart-rending loss, gossip and betrayal, and a tempestuous friendship with Luce.
Surrounded by her fabulous circle of friends --- Gertrude Stein, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, James Roosevelt, Elsa Maxwell and other iconic figures --- Dorothy finds her way to the other side of heartbreak and prepares for a White House wedding. Then, suddenly, at age 33, at the height of happiness and peak of her fame, she falls to her death. Her life story is revised and written into history by the tabloids and the famed and fêted --- leading to this novel's stunning conclusion.
Former NBC News producer Pamela Hamilton turns her journalism skills on discovering the facts about Dorothy Hale's story, then spins them with color and life into breathtaking revelations about the irresistible and misunderstood glamour girl whose legend has endured for more than half a century.
