There’s nothing quite like a good book club, but it’s often kind of hard to find books that everyone will love. Here are 10 books that I think have wide-appeal but could also be the point of some interesting discussions!
Happy reading!
Mrs England – Stacey Halls
In 1904, Ruby May is a newly graduated Norland Nanny looking for a job when the wealthy England family offer her a role as the nanny of their family in the isolated Hardcastle House in the West Yorkshire countryside. As she gets used to life in the countryside, it becomes clear that there is something not quite right about the beautiful and mysterious Mrs England and this family might not be quite as perfect as they’re made to seem.
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True Crime Story – Joseph Knox
Told as though it’s a true crime novel, this book tells the story of Zoe Nolan, a 19-year-old Manchester University student who walked out of a party at her shared accommodation and was never seen again. 7 years later, 2 writers discuss what happened to her and, through interviews with her friends and family, attempt to piece together what actually happened to her.
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The Paper Palace – Miranda Cowley Heller
55-year-old Elle is a happily married mother of three, but she’s just woken up at her family’s summer place to the knowledge that last night she slept with her oldest friend, Jonas.
Over the next 24 hours, Elle will look back on the life she has made with the husband that she loves and decide what it is she really wants.
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Penance – Eliza Clark
It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of a 16-year-old girl rocked a small seaside town and for the first time, the story of what happened is being published in a book.
Alec Z. Carelli, a journalist, has constructed what he calls the ‘definitive account’ of the murder and everything that led to it. He spent countless hours investigating and interviewing everyone involved. The only question is: how much of it is true?
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Mad Honey – Jodi Picoult + Jennifer Finney Boylan
After her husband revealed a darker side, Olivia and her son, Asher, ended up back in her hometown where she took over her dad’s beekeeping business.
Lily is also familiar with fresh starts – she moved to a new town with her mother in hopes of a new life. And, for a while that’s exactly what she gets. Lily ends up falling for Asher, Olivia’s son, and she feels happy for the first time.
And then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is sure her son is innocent … but she would also be lying if she said she never saw her ex-husband’s temper in him, and as the case unfolds Olivia realises there are secrets her son has hidden from her.
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Heatwave – Victor Jestin
17-year-old Leo is on holiday with his parents at a campsite where, one evening, he sees another boy strangle himself with the ropes of a swing. In a panic, Leo drags the body to the beach and buries him.
Over the next day, Leo wanders around the campsite, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce.
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Mother For Dinner – Shalom Auslander
Seventh receives a call from his estranged mother. She’s on her deathbed and she wishes for all of her children to eat her body after she dies.
Seventh is a Cannibal-American, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, who are now forced to operate in secrecy. Seventh and his siblings all have complicated relationships with their mother and when she finally dies they must decide whether they want to do as she wishes and follow the ancient rituals before eating her.
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Yellowface – R. F. Kuang
June Hayward and Athena Liu met at university and they expected to become literary darlings together… but while everyone is amazed with Athena’s writing, no one cares about the one book June published.
So, when June watches as Athena dies in a freak accident, she makes the split-second decision to steal the manuscript that Athena has just finished and publish it as her own.
It’s an experimental novel about the contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I, and June decides to have it published under a new name – Juniper Song. She uses an ambiguous ethnic author photo and the book becomes more popular than anything she’s ever written.
But then someone begins threatening her… they know her secret and she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
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Bright Young Women – Jessica Knoll
The year is 1978 and the ‘All-American Sex Killer’ has been terrorising women across the Pacific Northwest, but the members of a sorority at Florida State University aren’t thinking about that. Most of them have gone out of the night and when Pamel Schumacher, president of the sorority, is startled awake in the middle of the night, she makes the mistake of deciding to investigate. She finds a horrific scene where her sisters have been maimed and killed. Pamela is quickly thrust into a terrifying mystery that captivates the public interest for decades to come.
On the other side of the country, Tina’s friend has disappeared from a crowded lake in broad daylight and becomes convinced the All-American Sex Killer is to blame. When she hears of the tragedy at the sorority she knows it’s the same killer and travels to Florida to investigate what happened with Pamela.
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Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara is an Artificial Friend with excellent observational qualities who is waiting in a store for the perfect customer to choose her.
But when she is finally chosen to be a companion for a child, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
BUY THE BOOK: bookshop.org | amazon
