Book of the month

Book of the month

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – October 2024

While growing up in West Belfast, Sean does every­thing he’s supposed to do. He works hard, he studies, and he – mostly – stays out of trouble. The thirty-year conflict is over, he’s told, and his future is lit with promise. But when Sean returns home from university, he finds much of the same – the same friends doing the same gear in the same clubs, the same fathers and brothers missing… One night, he assaults a stranger at a party, and everything begins to come undone. Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //

Mystery Book of the Month – October 2024

How to put a positive spin on a murder mystery... What happens when a ghostwriter for the rich and famous lands the ultimate gig: writing the memoir of a disgraced presidential candidate? Our witty, nosy narrator arrives at a secluded estate to meet Dorothy Gibson, the fallen political star everyone’s talking about. But when a neighbor turns up dead, the ghostwriter finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery she never saw coming. Add in a secret investigation, a suspiciously handsome man, and a plot twist no one expected – and suddenly, the story she’s writing becomes her own.

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – September 2024

One family’s deepest pain. Another’s darkest secret. Who will they be when the truth comes out? On a hot day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields, while their family, Mi’kmaq people from Nova Scotia, pick fruit. That afternoon, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. As the last person to see her, Joe will be forever haunted by grief, guilt, and the agony of imagining how his life could have been… The Berry Pickers is an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and the power of family – even in the face of grief and betrayal.

Mystery Book of the Month – September 2024

Would you kill for a good story? Roach – bookseller, loner and true crime fanatic – is not interested in making friends. She has all the company she needs in her serial killer books, murder podcasts and her pet snail, Bleep. That is, until Laura joins the bookshop. With her cute literary tote bags and sunny smile, she’s everyone’s favourite bookseller.

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – August 2024

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and ’30s. In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community – heaven and earth – that sustain us.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //  

Mystery Book of the Month – August 2024

Six celebrities. One dead singer. No way out. Welcome to the world’s most exclusive rehab clinic – a refuge for the rich and beautiful – and perhaps the perfect place for murder? Meg’s sister Haley was a troubled country singer, hiding away from fans and paparazzi, until she was found dead. Now Meg checks in – to find out why her sister never checked out. You can check in, but you might never check out… //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //  

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – July 2024

”What are you looking for?” So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. But she is no ordinary librarian. Sensing exactly what someone is searching for in life, she provides just the book recommendation to help them find it. We meet five visitors to the library, each at a different crossroads, from a hopeful young manga artist to a mother facing demotion at work – they all go to the library to find that special book only she can find for them.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //  

Mystery Book of the Month – July 2024

Meet Dr. Miriam Price. The most fun you’ll have with a murder mystery all year. She’ll solve this murder if it kills her. Except it already has… ”Hello? Can you hear me? Probably not. I’m Dr Miriam Price . . . and I'm dead. The local police, who couldn't investigate their own nostrils, think I drank myself into an early grave. The nerve! I was murdered. I was just too plastered to know whodunnit, that’s all.”  //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //  

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – June 2024

Their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He's turning into a great white shark, and has less than a year left to live as a human…  An extraordinary novel of love, loss, hope and happiness, Shark Heart explores the shapes that love takes, in all its many forms, and asks us to ask ourselves: what makes us human? Praised by none other than Anthony Doerr as ”a fantastical, original and beautifully written novel”.   // Discuss in the Modern Fiction reading group  //  

Mystery Book of the Month – June 2024

Oxford is a wonderful place to be in the summer, except for perhaps when a suspicious death has occurred… Jesus College, Oxford, 1881. Amongst the scholars, secrets and soporifics of Victorian Oxford, the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow. An undergraduate is found dead at his lodgings and the medical examination reveals some shocking findings.…  //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //  
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