DISCUSSION GUIDES

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.

The follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Mister, a passionate and thrilling love story from E L James, author of the phenomenal bestselling Fifty Shades Trilogies.

From the majestic mountains of Albania, through the rural idyll of the English countryside, to the shady glamour of contemporary London, The Missus is a spellbinding journey of love, longing, acceptance, and redemption.

Three best friends decide they’re finally done with their ex-husbands taking their work as wives and moms for granted. They’re ready to monetize the mental load, stick it to their exes, and have a wild ride in the process.

Do You Follow? is a psychological thriller about twin sisters, Alexa and Beth, dodging their wickedly dark history. What exactly happened when the twins were only nine that set this vile trajectory in motion? Things get more complicated, and one treacherous act threatens everything Alexa has been working toward.

The award-winning novel Firekeeper’s Daughter set the literary world ablaze. Now, #1 bestselling author Angeline Boulley returns with Warrior Girl Unearthed, a new high-stakes thriller about the power of discovering your stolen history.

Nancy Horan, author of the million-copy New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, returns with a sweeping historical novel, which tells the story of Abraham Lincoln’s ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to the Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young asylum-seeker who arrives in Lincoln’s home of Springfield from Madeira, Portugal.

The acclaimed authors of the “emotional literary roller coaster” (The Washington Post) and Good Morning America Book Club pick We Are Not Like Them return with this moving and provocative novel about a Black woman who finds an abandoned white baby, sending her on a collision course with her past, her family, and a birth mother who doesn’t want to be found.

“A big, sprawling saga of a novel” (San Francisco Chronicle), this epic family drama is a masterwork by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Great Santini. Tom Wingo travels to New York to attend his twin sister after her suicide attempt, and while caring for her unravels his South Carolinian family’s amazing history, tracing a legacy of violence, creativity, abandonment, and love. Along the way, Tom realizes that trying to save his sister is perhaps his last chance to save himself.

A dazzling party.

A daring heist.

Never underestimate the women downstairs. 

When Kathleen Deane’s husband, Tom, tells her he’s no longer happy with his life and their marriage, Kathleen is confused. They live in Kansas. They’ve been married thirty years. Who said anything about being happy? But with Tom off finding himself, Kathleen starts to think about what she wants. And her thoughts lead her to a small beach community on the east coast, a town called Whitbey that has always looked lovely in the Christmas letters her childhood friend Josie sends every year.

It turns out, though, that life in Whitbey is nothing like Josie’s letters. Kathleen’s new neighbor, Rosemary, is cantankerous, and the town’s supervisor won’t return Kathleen’s emails, but worst of all is the Sugar Cube, the monstrosity masquerading as a holiday home that Kathleen’s absentee neighbors are building next door to her quaint (read: tiny) cottage. As Kathleen gets more and more involved in the fight against the Sugar Cube and town politics overall, she realizes that Whitbey may not be a fairytale, but it just might be exactly what she needed.

Save What’s Left can best be described as the “un-beach read.” It pulls back the curtain on life in a beach town, revealing the true cost of a pretty view. Told from the candid and irreverent perspective of a newcomer turned local, this is a story of forgiveness, fortitude, and second chances.