January 28, 2022
While some book groups plan a few months or even a year in advance, my book group falls in the month-to-month selection category. Sometime towards the end of our very laid-back meetings, someone chimes in and asks, "What are we going to read next?"
This month we met on Zoom. So as this question came up, I twirled over to my second computer and started flipping through some of our recently reviewed titles and my Bookreporter.com Bets On selections looking for ideas. We just had read two memoirs (GOING THERE and TASTE), so we ruled out doing another. We already had read Fiona Davis and Marie Benedict, though one member would vote for Marie every month!
Editorial Content for Eternal
Book
Teaser
#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome...in the creeping shadow of fascism.
Promo
#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome...in the creeping shadow of fascism.
About the Book
#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome...in the creeping shadow of fascism.
What war destroys, only love can heal.
Elisabetta, Marco and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kindhearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart.
But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear --- their families, their homes and their connection to one another --- is tested in ways they never could have imagined.
As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city's Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.
Unfolding over decades, ETERNAL is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war --- all set in one of the world's most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers.
Editorial Content for Fiona and Jane
Book
Teaser
FIONA AND JANE is a witty, warm and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity and heartbreak over two decades.
Promo
FIONA AND JANE is a witty, warm and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity and heartbreak over two decades.
About the Book
A witty, warm and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity and heartbreak over two decades.
Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition --- qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure.
When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost.
In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship --- the intensity, resentment and boundless love --- to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back.
Spanning countries and selves, FIONA AND JANE is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.
Editorial Content for The Maid
Book
Teaser
A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed. Solving the mystery will turn her once orderly world upside down in this utterly original debut.
Promo
A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed. Solving the mystery will turn her once orderly world upside down in this utterly original debut.
About the Book
A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed. Solving the mystery will turn her once orderly world upside down in this utterly original debut.
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.
Since Gran died a few months ago, 25-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter --- she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.
But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black. But will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?
A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, THE MAID explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different --- and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
Editorial Content for Olga Dies Dreaming
Book
Teaser
A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother and Puerto Rican roots --- all in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
Promo
A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother and Puerto Rican roots --- all in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
About the Book
A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother and Puerto Rican roots --- all in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the one percent, but she can’t seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.
Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.
Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s OLGA DIES DREAMING is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream --- all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.











