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Book Chat's Recommendations January 2024 |
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The bookshop by the bay
by Pamela M. Kelley
"The Bookshop by the Bay is a breezy, escapist beach read from powerhouse bestselling women's fiction author Pamela Kelley. Two lifelong friends. One bookshop by the beach. And the summer that could change everything. Jess loves her work as a high-profile lawyer in the respectable and austere city of Charleston. But when she finds her husband, Parker, has been cheating on her with his assistant, she retreats, with her thirty year-old daughter Caitlin for support, to her childhood home on Cape Cod, in Chatham. And Jess needs to regroup with the help of good food and wine, the company of her best friend, Allison, and come up with a plan for the future. When Allison stops into her beloved local bookstore one day and learns that the owner wants to sell, a long-held dream turns into a reality, thanks to Jess. Allison and Jess set a plan in motion and what was once a place that held warm childhood memories is now theirs to run. As the two friends, along with the help of their daughters, reopen the doors of the cherished bookstore and adjacent coffee shop to the community, they also open themselves up to the possibility of romance, the bonds of mothers and daughters, and the magic of second chances"
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The appeal : a novel
by Janice Hallett
When the cast of a local theater group raises money for an experimental treatment for the director's granddaughter, who has a rare form of cancer, one member raises her concerns, creating tensions within the community, which leads to murder
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The bee sting
by Paul Murray
"The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home. Where did it all gowrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil--can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written--is there still time to find a happyending?"
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The bookbinder : a novel
by Pip Williams
As World War I draws the young men of Britain away to fight, Peggy, who works in the bindery at Oxford's university press, sees the possibility of another future when refugees arrive from Belgium, but as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier threatens to hold her back.
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Fourth wing
by Rebecca Yarros
Despite hoping to enter the Scribe Quadrant, the bookish Violet Sorrengail is forced to become one of the hundreds of candidates risking their lives to be a dragon rider in the first novel of a new series
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Happiness falls : a novel
by Angie Kim
Mia isn't initially concerned when her family fails to return from a walk, until her mute brother Eugene, who suffers from a rare genetic condition, returns bloody and alone and is unable to describe what happened to their father.
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The little liar : a novel
by Mitch Albom
A trustworthy boy who has never told a lie, 11-year-old Nico Krispis, duped by a German officer into leading his family and fellow Jewish residents to their doom, becomes a pathological liar, in a story that explores honesty, devotion and revenge—and the power of love to ultimately redeem us.
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Maybe next time : a novel
by Cesca Major
"One Day meets Groundhog Day, in this heartwarming and emotionally poignant novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to spare her husband from an unfortunate fate"
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The museum of failures : a novel by Thrity N. UmrigarReturning to Bombay to adopt a baby and see his elderly mother, Remy Wadia, stumbling upon a photograph that reveals shocking family secrets, reevaluates his entire childhood, his relationship to his parents and his harsh judgment on the decisions and events long hidden from him.
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Only the beautiful
by Susan Meissner
In 1947, Helen Calvert, returning to her brother's vineyard in America for good after witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler's brutal pursuit of hereditary purity, is drawn into battle at home when she discovers what really happened to the vinedresser's pregnant daughter she had long ago befriended
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The thread collectors : a novel
by Shaunna J. Edwards
In 1863, a young black woman who embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army crosses paths with a Jewish seamstress who helps her discover that even the most delicate threads have the capacity to save
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A day in the life of Abed Salama : anatomy of a Jerusalem tragedy
by Nathan Thrall
"Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for the school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos-the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad's fate. It is every parent's worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed's quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge: a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy. Immersive and gripping, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is an indelibly human portrait of the Jewish-Palestinian struggle that offers a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth"
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In Order to Live : a North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
by Yeonmi Park
A young North Korean defector and activist describes her father's imprisonment by the regime of Kim Jong-Il, her enslavement in China and her walk through the freezing Gobi Desert to freedom in South Korea, where she dedicated her life to human rights activism. 200,000 first printing.
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Pageboy : a memoir
by Elliot Page
The Oscar-nominated star who, after the success of Juno, became one of the world's most beloved actors, reveals how his career turned into a nightmare as he navigated criticism and abuse in Hollywood until he had enough and stepped into who he truly is with defiance, strength and joy.
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Wild game : my mother, her lover, and me
by Adrienne Brodeur
Describes the author's teenage experience of condoning and helping to facilitate her mother's epic affair with her husband's best friend, serving as confident and helpmate, and the catastrophic and reverberating consequences that affected everyone involved.
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