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The Calamity Club
by Kathryn Stockett
So immersive, exciting, and downright fabulous, you never want it to end.--Oprah DailyThe multimillion-copy-selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what's rightfully theirs--and the power of friendship to change everything.Pure, hell-raising entertainment.--The New York Times Book ReviewOxford, Mississippi, 1933.Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable big girls at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates--and Meg's--converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences. The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer--an epic testament to underestimated women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings. This is Kathryn Stockett at her most confident, heartfelt, and hilarious--the triumphant return of one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.
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| A Good Animal by Sara MaurerHigh school senior Everett never wants to leave Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He embraces tradition and dreams of running the family sheep farm like his father and grandfather. Then he falls hard for newcomer Mary, who's lived all over the country with her Coast Guard dad and plans to attend art school in California. Rooted in its rural locale, this lyrical, bittersweet debut movingly explores first love. Try this next: Donnaldson Brown's Because I Loved You. |
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| Laws of Love and Logic by Debra CurtisLily and Jane grow up in 1970s Rhode Island with their feminist mom, who dies when they're teens, and their Catholic boarding-school teacher dad. After Lily falls for the school's star quarterback, a tragedy changes everything, dividing Lily and the boy she loves and sending grief-stricken Jane further off course. Decades later, Lily and her love meet again, and a now-married Lily has to figure out what her future looks like. For fans of: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune; Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors. |
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A Perfect Hand
by Ayelet Waldman
A richly drawn, captivating, and endlessly amusing novel of love and subterfuge between a lady's maid and her clandestine lover, set in the country estates of nineteenth-century England. Ayelet Waldman's clever, fast-paced historical romp turned out to be not only great fun but also surprisingly stirring. This book is a pleasure. --Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion Miss Alice Lockey, daughter of a tenant farmer, has by dint of hard work, innate intelligence, and a cunning ability to predict the moods of her betters, raised herself to the lofty status of lady's maid at Alderwick Park. Though her mother has advised Alice to work only until marriage, Alice has thus far resisted the temptations of matrimony among the neighboring widowers and pig farmers, more content to enjoy the fruits of her labor--or at least the portion of it her father will share after it is paid to him. Alice spends her days arranging Lady Jemima Alderwick's blond hair into the latest French styles, chignons and plaits, laundering her lady's surprisingly malodorous petticoats and drawers, and carefully sewing all manner of fripperies, ribbons, lace, and silk flowers, to her lady's bonnets and gowns. But when a visiting servant, a valet named Charlie Wells, catches her eye, Alice begins to understand the constraints of her position. In a ploy to spend time with the object of her affection, Alice attempts to arrange a romance between Lady Jemima Alderwick and Charlie's employer, one Baronet Sir Nigel Wynstowe. If only they would fall in love--then Alice and Charlie might live together as man and wife Challenged by Lady Jemima's love for another and Sir Wynstowe's eccentric personality, Alice must use all of her cunning to bring about this unlikely romantic union. Will this low-born servant successfully manipulate the hearts of these lords and ladies? Will Charlie and Alice ever improve their stations? Or, as the beginning of women's suffrage begins to percolate in the drawing rooms and salons of London, will Alice discover a different sort of path for herself? A deliciously funny, gorgeously detailed, utter enthralling novel, A Perfect Hand is a glorious novel of class, gender, and England on the cusp of enormous change.
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| Whidbey by T Kira MaddenBirdie Chang travels to Whidbey Island, Washington to escape the massive amounts of publicity surrounding reality star Linzie King's memoir. The bestseller covers Linzie's and others' abuse by pedophile Calvin, who also assaulted a young Birdie. In Florida, Calvin is released from prison and then murdered, but who did it? Focusing on Birdie, Linzie, and Calvin's mom, this multifaceted debut novel by abuse survivor and acclaimed memoirist T Kira Madden (Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls) works great for book clubs. |
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| Yesteryear by Caro Claire BurkeWith millions of social media followers, Natalie Heller Mills carefully curates her tradwife life featuring a charming Utah ranch, a cowboy/political scion husband, and five children (with one on the way!). What her followers don't know is that she has nannies and plenty of other help. Then one morning, it's somehow 1805, and she's forced to live the tradwife life for real. Anne Hathaway has snagged film rights for this buzzy, twisty debut that's great for book clubs. Try these next: Anna-Marie McLemore's The Influencers; Alli Hoff Kosik's Too Blessed to Stress. |
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| The Wedding People by Alison EspachHopeless Phoebe Stone is ready to end her life at a gorgeous Rhode Island inn. But she’s the only one not there for an expensive wedding, and when the bride learns Phoebe’s plan, she refuses to let Phoebe ruin her nuptials. The two become confidants, as surprising events and characters propel this funny, poignant story forward. Read-alikes: This Disaster Loves You by Richard Roper; Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason. |
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| By Her Own Design by Piper HuguleyThis richly detailed historical novel traces the life of Black designer Ann Lowe, who created the gown Jacqueline Bouvier wore to marry John F. Kennedy. Born in 1898 Alabama, Ann learns to sew from her mother and her formerly enslaved grandmother, endures an abusive marriage, and becomes a teen mom. Eventually attending design school, she opens shops in Florida and New York. For fans of: historical novels by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. |
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| What Is Wrong with You? by Paul RudnickAs a former flight attendant prepares to marry a tech billionaire at his private Maine island, hijinks ensue with the arrival of the guests. They include a 60-something gay editor who just got fired, a sensitivity reader who might be after the groom, and the bride's bodybuilder ex-husband. Fans of eccentric characters and lighthearted stories will want to read this "hilarious farce" (Publishers Weekly). For fans of: Carl Hiaasen. |
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| Women of Good Fortune by Sophie WanLulu's wedding will be a huge Shanghai society event -- but she doesn't actually want to get married, and her two best friends aren't happy with their lives either. So they hatch a plan to steal the red money envelopes at the wedding in order to procure the different futures they each want. Read-alikes: Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen; Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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