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Book Chat's Recommendations June 2025 |
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Broken country : a novel
by Clare Leslie Hall
When her brother-in-law's actions reconnect her with a former love, Gabriel, whose son eerily resembles her deceased child, Beth's carefully constructed life unravels as past secrets and jealousies resurface, leading to deadly consequences and a difficult choice.
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The sirens : a novel
by Emilia Hart
Lucy searches for her missing sister Jess in a modern-day coastal Australian town shrouded in eerie legends, uncovering connections to Jess's adolescent past and twin sisters from 1800 whose haunting ties to the sea ripple across generations.
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The book of form and emptiness
by Ruth Ozeki
When he begins hearing voices one year after his father's death, 13-year-old Benny Oh, seeking refuge in the library, meets a colorful cast of characters, including his very own Book, a talking thing, who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.
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Heartwood : a novel
by Amity Gaige
"In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie's disappearance may not be accidental."--Provided by publisher
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We all live here
by Jojo Moyes
Lila Kennedy juggles a broken marriage, rebellious daughters, a crumbling house, and an elderly stepfather when her estranged father unexpectedly shows up after thirty-five years, forcing her to confront unresolved feelings and discover unexpected lessons about love and family amidst her chaotic life.
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The heiress : a novel
by Rachel Hawkins
After North Carolina's richest—and most notorious—heiress dies, her adopted son, Camden, rejects his inheritance until 10 years later, when his uncle's death pulls him and his wife back into the family fold at Ashby House where he realizes the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.
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Blue sisters : a novel
by Coco Mellors
After the unexpected death of their sister Nicky sends them reeling, the remaining three Blue sisters return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in, where they must reckon with disappointments, loss and secrets.
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The boxcar librarian : a novel
by Brianna Labuskes
During the Great Depression, WPA editor Millie Lang is sent to Montana to investigate sabotage at her project and uncovers a mystery surrounding Alice Monroe, her Boxcar Library, and the disappearance of librarian Colette Durand years earlier. Simultaneous.
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The eights
by Joanna Miller
In 1920, four women from different backgrounds - Dora, Beatrice, Otto, and Marianne - forge an enduring bond as the first female students at Oxford, navigating personal loss, societal expectations, and the lingering trauma of World War I.
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Rabbit moon : a novel
by Jennifer Haigh
"Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching English in China during a college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. Ata Shanghai hospital they wait at her bedside, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The accident unearths a deeper fissure in the family: the shocking event that ended the Litvaks' marriage and turned Lindsey against them. Estranged from her parents, she has confided only in her younger sister, Grace, adopted as an infant from China. As Claire and Aaron struggle to get their bearings in bustling, cosmopolitan Shanghai, the newly prosperous "miracle city," they face troubling questions about Lindsey's life there, in which nothing is quite as it seems"
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Wild dark shore
by Charlotte McConaghy
On a remote island near Antarctica, the Salt family's fragile existence is upended by the arrival of Rowan, a mysterious woman who washes ashore during a storm, forcing them to confront rising dangers and the hope of rebuilding trust amidst isolation and loss.
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The falcon's eyes : a novel
by Francesca Stanfill
Illuminating the end of the 12th century and the notorious queen—Eleanor of Aquitaine—who dominated it, this sweeping, suspenseful tale follows Isabelle, a spirited, questing young woman, who defies convention—and her controlling, falconry-obsessed husband—to lead an extraordinary life. 100,000 first printing.
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The names
by Florence Knapp
Cora's hesitation to name her son triggers three alternate paths over thirty-five years, revealing the lasting impact of domestic abuse and the complexities of family in her search for autonomy and healing.
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Count my lies : a novel
by Sophie Stava
When Sloane lies about being a nurse to meet an attractive single father, she becomes his children's nanny, entering a seemingly perfect world that hides dangerous secrets and forces her to confront the consequences of her deceptions.
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What happened to Nina? : a thriller
by Dervla McTiernan
Two families are pitted against each other—one seeking justice in the disappearance of their daughter, the other desperate to clear their son's name.
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The walking people
by Mary Beth Keane
Having escaped her limited prospects and painfully critical family in Ireland, Greta Cahill embarks on a career and starts a family in America, an improved circumstance that forces her to choose between revealing her successes to her relatives back home and exposing her children to her painful past.
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The queens of crime : a novel
by Marie Benedict
In 1930 London, the Queens of Crime, a secret society of renowned women writers led by Dorothy L. Sayers investigates the murder of nurse May Daniels, found strangled in a park, and must navigate a web of intrigue and danger as they challenge societal norms.
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Eternal
by Lisa Scottoline
An aspiring writer, an athlete from a professional cyclist family and a mathematics prodigy find their bond tested by a love triangle and the spread of anti-Semitism and fascism in 1937 Italy. By the Edgar Award-winning author of Someone Knows.
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Audition
by Katie. Kitamura
An elegant actress meets a troubled young man at a Manhattan lunch, sparking a complex relationship that challenges their identities in their personal and professional lives, in the new novel from the author of A Separation of Intimacies.
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The sound of glass
by Karen White
Unexpectedly inheriting her reclusive grandmother's home in South Carolina, widow Cal investigates her family's shattering history while navigating the challenges of a young stepmother and half-brother. By the best-selling author of A Time Long Gone.
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This book will bury me : a novel
by Ashley Winstead
A once-celebrated amateur detective turned public pariah, Jane Sharp recounts her group's descent into the dark and deadly Delphine Massacres case, where fame, fractured evidence, and their own missteps blurred the line between solving crimes and becoming part of the tragedy.
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Burn : a novel
by Peter Heller
Longtime hunting buddies Jess and Storey stumble out of the woods and into a post-apocalyptic Maine after their two-week, off-the-grid moose hunt, forcing them to fight their way home amidst bewildering secessionist violence and a shocking discovery.
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Ageless
by Renée Schaeffer
Naissa Nolan is a happy child in 1850s Philadelphia―until tragedy strikes while she and her family are on holiday. Alone and heartbroken, she is thrust into an immortal life she never bargained for or imagined. Naissa spends the next few centuries on Earth―and beyond―desperate to learn more about her condition. While working with the esteemed Oberlin Institute in Vienna, she makes an important discovery that could change everything. But trusting the wrong people is a mistake, and Naissa's immortal life enters a new chapter she never anticipated.
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The last flight : a novel
by Julie Clark
Working for months on a plan to escape her secretly violent husband, Claire impulsively swaps airline tickets with a stranger also on the run before a fateful accident compels her to assume the other's identity.
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By any other name : a novel
by Jodi Picoult
Across centuries two women, Melina Green and Emilia Bassano, one a modern playwright and the other her Elizabethan ancestor, each fight societal expectations to have their voices heard on the stage in a world that silences female playwrights.
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Ordinary grace : a novel
by William Kent Krueger
Looking back at a tragic event that occurred during his thirteenth year, Frank Drum explores how a complicated web of secrets, adultery, and betrayal shattered his Methodist family and their small 1961 Minnesota community
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My friends : a novel
by Fredrik Backman
Jarrod has felt distanced from his daughter Liv since the death of Jarrod's partner Charlie, but when Liv finds boyfriend Zel murdered, Jarrod rushes to her aid and they comb for clues across the Coachella Valley while a killer's on the loose.
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The lion women of Tehran
by Marjan Kamali
When Homa, a girl from her childhood, reappears in her privileged world, Ellie, amidst Iran's political turmoil, joins her in pursuing their goals for meaningful futures until one earth-shattering betrayal has far-reaching consequences, altering the course of both their lives,
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The vanishing of Josephine Reynolds : a novel
by Jennifer Moorman
After buying her ancestral home, Josephine Reynolds is mysteriously transported to 1927 where she bonds with her great-grandmother Alma, but when she returns to the present and finds history altered, Josephine must race to rewrite the past to save both Alma's life and her own existence. Original.
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The oligarch's daughter : a novel
by Joseph Finder
Paul Brightman, a former Wall Street star hiding in a New England town with a bounty on his head, is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness as he unravels a conspiracy involving Russian operatives and government agencies after falling in love with Tatyana, the daughter of a powerful oligarch.
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The spy coast
by Tess Gerritsen
Retired CIA operative Maggie Bird, when a body turns up in her driveway, turns to a “Martini Club” of former spies who have useful skills they're eager to use again, but their efforts are complicated by the town's acting police chief as Maggie tries to save the life she's built. (suspense).
This is the 1st in a three book series.
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Everyone in my family has killed someone
by Benjamin Stevenson
A self-published author of crime novel writing guides attends a reunion with his family of expert killers and investigates when a body is found outside in the snow as another storm approaches. 150,000 first printing.
First in a series.
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Sociopath : a memoir
by Patric Gagne
With emotions like fear, guilt and empathy eluding her, the author, trying to replace the nothingness with something, realizes, after connecting with an old flame, if she's capable of love, it must mean she isn't a monster and sets out to prove the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren't all monsters either.
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Ravens in winter
by Bernd Heinrich
A detailed investigation into the feeding behavior of ravens during four winters in Maine comes to several amazing conclusions
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Monsters : a fan's dilemma
by Claire Dederer
"In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monsterin order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how wecan separate artists from their art"
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