The Wartime Book Club

“No such thing as just a librarian.” Miss Grace La Mottee, acting Chief Librarian, is “a small-town librarian who wishes to live in peace…She didn’t want to be a brave woman. She wanted simply to be a good librarian and live quietly. But…Grace knew that to be a good librarian in wartime, it was impossible not to face terrible choices in the quest for freedom.” And so she taps “into a need most islanders weren’t even aware they had–the simple pleasure of being read to,” and The Wartime Book Club is born. “As Grace unlocked the door to a truly spellbinding story she felt a softening of the group…permission to switch off and escape their lives. What was it about truly great stories whose words had the ability to pass straight through blood and bone and lodge in the soul?...They were helping human beings to escape as much as a rowing boat and a compass.” “Grace felt such a rush of love for their book club. She looked around with a full heart at the proud and resilient group of men and women who gathered here weekly to read, all mourning, all living alongside the enemy but never allowing them to control their thoughts or actions…Who knew how many more secret acts of resistance would bloom with the oxygen of liberation?” But what will happen when “the island’s perennially single librarian was finally a woman in love?” And her boyfriend ends up behind bars, her book club is banned, and her best friend’s life hinges on her sacrifice or betrayal? “All the effort and dedication to our library. All the hours spent reading and wrapping islanders in the solace and sanctuary of books. Four years of surviving. All distilled into this one agonizing moment. ‘If you will write down your confession in full and sign it your friend will go free.’” “Poison pens, secret babies, stolen letters…a tangled web of such deception and complexity. And nestled right in the heart of it” is a bibliophile, her bestie, and a book club that saves a community. Kate Thompson’s The Wartime Book Club is “A story I shan’t forget!” And the rest is history—literally! Liquid sunshine!