Editorial Content for Belonging
Book
Teaser
Appealing to readers of Delia Owens’ WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, Kristin Hannah’s FIREFLY LANE and Ann Packer’s THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER, BELONGING is a heartbreaking and hopeful coming-of-age story that traverses lifelong friendship, first love and a young woman’s fierce desire to transcend her traumatic childhood.
Promo
Appealing to readers of Delia Owens’ WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, Kristin Hannah’s FIREFLY LANE and Ann Packer’s THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER, BELONGING is a heartbreaking and hopeful coming-of-age story that traverses lifelong friendship, first love and a young woman’s fierce desire to transcend her traumatic childhood.
About the Book
Appealing to readers of Delia Owens’ WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, Kristin Hannah’s FIREFLY LANE and Ann Packer’s THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER, BELONGING is a heartbreaking and hopeful coming-of-age story that traverses lifelong friendship, first love and a young woman’s fierce desire to transcend her traumatic childhood.
Jenny is 13 when an epic dust storm rolls into her central California town in December 1977. Bedridden after contracting a life-threatening illness in the storm and suffering a shocking loss, Jenny realizes she will never be cared for by the mother who both neglects and terrifies her or the father who allows it. She relies on her cousin, Heather, who has the loving home Jenny longs for; her beloved great-uncle, Gino, the last link between generations; her best friend, Henry, a free spirit with whom she shares an inexplicable bond; and earnest baseball star, Billy, who becomes her first love.
After a stunning turn of events in both their lives, Jenny and Henry leave for college in LA together in the summer of 1982 --- Jenny fleeing a broken heart, and Henry running from something he can’t reveal, even to his best friend. When she returns home years later, the life Jenny so carefully created collides with the one she left behind.
Spanning three decades, BELONGING is about first love and heartbreak, friendship and secrets, family and forgiveness, hometowns and coming of age, and memory and music. The heart of the story is Jenny’s struggle to undo the binds of a childhood that have deeply affected her life, the painful path to love endured by children raised in alcoholic families, and the grim reality of believing you must hide a part of yourself in order to belong.
Editorial Content for Come and Get It
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Teaser
From the celebrated New York Times bestselling author of SUCH A FUN AGE comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
Promo
From the celebrated New York Times bestselling author of SUCH A FUN AGE comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
About the Book
From the celebrated New York Times bestselling author of SUCH A FUN AGE comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.
A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, COME AND GET IT is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion and bad behavior --- and the highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed and award-winning author Kiley Reid.
Editorial Content for Good Material
Book
Teaser
From the New York Times bestselling author of GHOSTS and EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE comes a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.
Promo
From the New York Times bestselling author of GHOSTS and EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE comes a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.
About the Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of GHOSTS and EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE: a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.
Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped. Now he is without a home, waiting for his stand-up career to take off, and wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking.
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.
In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.
Editorial Content for A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
Teaser
In this enchanting love story from the New York Times bestselling author of SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician are irreversibly linked through the history, art and magic of Harlem.
Promo
In this enchanting love story from the New York Times bestselling author of SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician are irreversibly linked through the history, art and magic of Harlem.
About the Book
In this enchanting love story from the New York Times bestselling author of SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician are irreversibly linked through the history, art and magic of Harlem.
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.
Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.
When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.
One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.
Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A LOVE SONG FOR RICKI WILDE is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.
Editorial Content for One Wrong Word
Book
Teaser
Hank Phillippi Ryan's heart-racing psychological thriller explores the insidious nature of gossip, scandal and lies --- and how careers, friendships and even marriages can be shattered forever.
Promo
Hank Phillippi Ryan's heart-racing psychological thriller explores the insidious nature of gossip, scandal and lies --- and how careers, friendships and even marriages can be shattered forever.
About the Book
A heart-racing new psychological thriller from USA Today bestselling and multiple award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan.
One wrong word can ruin your life. And no one knows that better than savvy crisis management expert Arden Ward. Problem is, she's now forced to handle a shocking crisis of her own. Unfairly accused of having an affair with a powerful client, Arden’s life and dreams are about to crash and burn. Then Arden is given an ultimatum. She has just two weeks to save her career and her reputation.
Is Cordelia Bannister the answer to her prayers?
Cordelia needs Arden’s help for her husband Ned, a Boston real estate mogul. Though he was recently acquitted in a fatal drunk driving accident, his reputation is ruined, and the fallout is devastating not only to the Bannisters' lives, but to the lives of their two adorable children.
Arden devotes her skill and determination --- and maybe her final days on the job --- to helping this shattered family. But revelations soon begin to emerge about what really happened the night of the accident. And then another car crash throws Ned back into the spotlight.
This case is Arden’s final chance to protect her own future and clear her name. But the more she tries to untangle the truth, the more she’s haunted by one disturbing question: What if she’s also protecting a killer?
Gossip. Lies. Rumors. Words like that can hurt you. And Arden knows the reality. Sometimes one wrong word can kill.
Editorial Content for Redwood Court
Book
Teaser
Award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel is about one unforgettable Southern Black family and its youngest daughter’s coming of age in the 1990s.
Promo
Award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel is about one unforgettable Southern Black family and its youngest daughter’s coming of age in the 1990s.
About the Book
A “nuanced, brilliant” (Essence) debut about one unforgettable Southern Black family and its youngest daughter’s coming of age in the 1990s.
“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside you: 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.
February 17, 2024
In the January 18th newsletter, I wrote about my book group and what makes our meetings so special. I then asked you to tell me about your group and share any stories you had about your discussions or how your group was formed. We heard from a number of readers and compiled their comments into a blog post that you can take a look at here.