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Book Chat's Recommendations September 2025 |
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Red clay
by Charles B. Fancher
"Chronicles the interwoven lives of an enslaved Black family and their white owners as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins"
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The Harvey girls
by Juliette Fay
In 1926, runaway socialite Charlotte Crownin-shield and resourceful Nebra-ska teen Billie MacTavish join the Harvey Girls on the Santa Fe railroad, navigating secrets, prejudice, and punishing training as they forge uneasy ties while working at the Grand Canyon's El Tovar hotel. Original.
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The windup girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Living in a future where food is scarce, Anderson Lake tries to find ways to exploit this need, as he comes into conflict with Jaidee, an official of the Environmental Ministry, and encounters Emiko, a engineered windup girl who has been discarded by her creator.
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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 vanishing half
by Brit Bennett
Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
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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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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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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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An American beauty : a novel of the Gilded Age
by Shana Abâe
"When a railroad baron falls for a uniform girl at a gambling parlor thirty years his junior, he moves her to New York posing as a well-heeled Southern widow where her shrewd investing instincts build her a fortune"
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The stolen life of Colette Marceau
by Kristin Harmel
Decades after losing her mother and sister during a wartime raid in Nazi-occupied Paris, jewel thief Colette Marceau is drawn back into her past when a long-missing diamond bracelet resurfaces, prompting a search for truth, justice, and long-buried family revelations.
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Finding grace : a novel
by Loretta Rothschild
Bestselling children's author Honor's longing for another baby threatens to eclipse all her successes—until a shocking tragedy changes her family's life forever, and her husband, Tom, is left to pick up the pieces.
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The days I loved you most
by Amy Neff
Spending a lifetime together, Joseph and Evelyn, when Evelyn receives a tragic diagnosis and he cannot live without her, decide, in one year's time, to end their lives on their own terms, and decide to create new memories to cherish and make peace with the legacy they will leave behind for their family.
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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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Eliza starts a rumor
by Jane L. Rosen
Clinging to the community bulletin board she created 15 years earlier, a suburban housewife struggling with agoraphobia engages in fabricated gossip to keep the site more interesting before community member lives are upended by personal setbacks.
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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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Moby-Dick, or, The whale
by Herman Melville
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage.
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Departure 37 : a novel
by Scott Carson
After pilots across America refuse to fly following mysterious calls from their mothers, some long dead, a teenager in Maine becomes entangled in a decades-old secret tied to a 1962 naval experiment, a deadly discovery and rising global tensions.
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The peculiar gift of July : a novel
by Ashley Ream
When 14-year-old July arrives in the isolated island town of Ebey's End, her uncanny ability to sense what people need begins quietly transforming the community, forcing its residents—and herself—to confront unexpected truths about their lives.
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The book of lost hours : a novel
by Hayley Gelfuso
In 1938, 11-year-old Lisavet Levy becomes trapped in a mysterious library of memory called the time space, where her path intertwines with American timekeeper Ernest Duquesne, whose 1965 death compels his niece Amelia to uncover buried truths amid shifting histories and shadowy CIA intrigue.
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The river is waiting : a novel
by Wally Lamb
Corby Ledbetter, grappling with addiction, prison life, and the tragedy that shattered his family, finds unexpected kindness and connection behind bars, as he seeks redemption and hopes for forgiveness from those he's hurt the most.
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Eddie Winston is looking for love : a novel
by Marianne Cronin
"Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and he has loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love along the way. And it is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life. When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help Eddie Winston finally find love, sparking an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie Winston to the moment he has waited for all his life. A tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again"
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Big gay wedding : a novel
by Byron Lane
Barnette is getting married at his mother's farm in Louisiana with 200 fabulous guests from the “heathen coasts” despite the fact that she doesn't know it yet, in the new novel by the author of A Star is Bored.
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The Storm
by Rachel Hawkins
New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins is back with a thrilling new gothic suspense about a Gulf Coast beach motel that has survived a century of hurricanes-and has also been the site of multiple mysterious deaths.
Coming January 2026!
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She didn't see it coming
by Shari Lapena
When young mother Bryden vanishes from her upscale condo without a trace, her husband Sam and the investigators must unravel the mystery behind her disappearance, exposing hidden tensions, unreliable neighbors, and cracks in the seemingly perfect life they built together.
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The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta MolnarA gripping, inspiring novel based on the true story of Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
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Gaelic & Garlic by Mike BernardAmong the most overlooked ethnic problems in the country was the division between Irish and Italians. Historically two of the poorest immigrant communities, they clashed on everything from jobs to housing to politics. As rivals, both were always treated with suspicion and fear. No Italian boy would ever bring an Irish girl home to dinner, and the Irish were even less welcoming.
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The wedding people : a novel
by Alison Espach
Mistaken for a wedding guest while staying at the grand Cornwall Inn, Phoebe Stone, at rock bottom, is determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself, and unexpectedly becomes bride's confidant and through her, meets a cast of surprising characters who help her start anew.
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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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The tea girl of Hummingbird Lane : a novel
by Lisa See
Explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter, who has been adopted by an American couple, tracing the very different cultural factors that compel them to consume a rare native tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations
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Foster
by Claire Keegan
An Irish child taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm finds the love and affection she never knew before and begins to thrive in the internationally best-selling novel now available as a standalone book.
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Small things like these
by Keegan, Claire
In a small Irish town in 1985, coal merchant and family man, Bill Furlong, while delivering an order to the local convent, makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
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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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Three days in June
by Anne Tyler
As Gail navigates the chaos of her daughter Debbie's wedding preparations—including a job loss, exclusion from family events, and the unexpected arrival of her ex-husband Max—she faces a crisis that threatens the wedding and forces both parents to confront unresolved issues from their past.
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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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Table for two : fictions
by Amor Towles
The New York Times best-selling author shares six stories based in New York City, which consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters, and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood, told from seven different viewpoints, which stars the indomitable Evelyn Ross.
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Lovely one : a memoir
by Ketanji Brown Jackson
In this unflinching account, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court pulls back the curtain to marry the public record of her life with what is less known, chronicling her extraordinary path to become a jurist on America's highest court.
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Daughters of the bamboo grove : from China to America, a true story of abduction, adoption, and separated twins
by Barbara Demick
"On a warm day in September 2000, a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut nestled in bamboo behind her brother's rural home in China's Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions toher young family but also not her first children. Hidden in the hut, they were born under the shadow of China's notorious one-child policy. Fearing the ire of family planning officials, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in late 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away from her aunt's care. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn't imagine she could be sent to the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world. Following her stories written as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick, author of National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy, embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long term impact of China's one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation.
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A marriage at sea : a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
by Sophie Elmhirst
A couple seeking escape sells everything to sail the world, but after a whale sinks their boat, they endure months adrift in a raft, battling starvation, inner demons and the ultimate test of their relationship in this true-life survival struggle.
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One for the money
by Janet Evanovich
After her Miata is repossessed, Stephanie Plum turns to bounty hunting for quick cash, and her first quarry, an ex-cop accused of murder, turns out to be her first lover, with whom she still shares a powerful chemistry. (media tie-in). Simultaneous.
If you want to start at the beginning of this series, check out this title published in 1994!
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Now or never : thirty-one on the run
by Janet Evanovich
With her personal life in turmoil, New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum navigates danger and intrigue in a high-stakes case that could change her life.
This is the 31st book in this series!
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