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March 29, 2025

Wow, ReadingGroupGuides.com is almost a quarter-century old! That means we have been celebrating the fabulousness of book groups for nearly 25 years. We have so enjoyed sharing ideas for book groups and discussion guides with you --- and hearing from you about things that make your book group meetings interesting. Over the years, we have brought you features that we feel would enhance your discussions. Some of our best ideas for content have come from readers. So if you have any ideas to share with us as we get ready to celebrate 25, please let me know!

Anna Quindlen Book Group Event

Laura Anthony, author of The Women on Platform Two

Dublin, 1969: Maura has just married Dr. Christy Davenport, and they look forward to growing their family. But as her husband’s vicious temper emerges, Maura worries that her home might never be safe for a child. Meanwhile, her close friend Bernie, a mother of three, learns the devastating news that if she conceives again, her health complications could prove fatal. Dublin, 2023: A close call makes Saoirse realize that she may never want to be a mother. Little does she know that only a few decades ago, a group of women made this option possible for her. And she’s about to meet one of them.

Christina Clancy, author of The Snowbirds

A couple for 30 years, Kim and Grant’s "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age: Grant’s mother has died, the college where he taught philosophy was shuttered, and their twin girls are grown and gone. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face. When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape. When Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time, he has really left her.

Susan Meissner, author of A Map to Paradise

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation. Then one early morning, Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone? As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own.

Jill Santopolo, author of The Love We Found

It’s been nearly 10 years since Gabe has been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute plane ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her. Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Armstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place --- one that no one has neared since Gabe. But her old life awaits, along with an earth-shattering decision --- whether she and Darren should tell their son, Samuel, the truth about his father. How can Lucy move forward while she’s rooted in the past? Fate broke her heart once. Can finding new love set her free?

Emma Donoghue, author of The Paris Express

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, THE PARIS EXPRESS is set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

Patti Callahan Henry, author of The Story She Left Behind

In 1927, Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just 12 years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. One day, a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. At the Jameson family’s retreat, Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

Editorial Content for Broken Country

Teaser

A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of THE PAPER PALACE and WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING.

Promo

A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of THE PAPER PALACE and WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING.

About the Book

A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of THE PAPER PALACE and WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING.

“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”

Beth and her gentle, kind husband, Frank, are happily married, though their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager --- the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son, Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, BROKEN COUNTRY is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.

Editorial Content for Count My Lies

Teaser

This read-in-one-night thriller is narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves.

Promo

This read-in-one-night thriller is narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves.

About the Book

A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley and Laura Dave.

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.

So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself. She tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad that she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot.

With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. They’re the perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island.

But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.

The thing about lies is that they add up, form their own truth and a twisted prison of a world. And in COUNT MY LIES, Sophie Stava spins a breakneck, unputdownable thriller about the secrets we keep and the terrifying dangers that lurk just under the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.

Careful what you lie for.