DISCUSSION GUIDES

How often have you heard someone say, “I hate change?” That’s because most people do. The reality is, whether you like it or not, life puts us all through changes—some challenging, and many joyful—that shape our day-to-day experiences. Sometimes , though, in the blink of an eye, the unthinkable can happen. This begs the question: when the unexpected occurs, how do successfully navigate change so you land butter side up when life turns the tables?

In Ames Sheldon’s third award-winning historical novel, graduate student Cassie Lyman travels to her sister’s shotgun wedding in 1977. On her way Cassie discovers suffrage cartoons, diaries, and letters of Kate Easton, the founder of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts, and then she discovers that she and Kate are closely related, even though Cassie had never heard of Kate before then.

The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are.

A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future.

From Alison Espach, author of the New York Times Editor’s Choice novel The Adults, comes a breathtaking love story about two broken people who find themselves drawn to each other again and again across their lives, and a funny, uncommonly wise coming-of-age tale set in the early 90s that brims with unexpected moments of joy.

To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan. After her mother died, Julie Metz discovered a keepsake book filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a ten-year-old girl named Eva. This long-hidden memento was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as a refugee and immigrant from Nazi-occupied Vienna, shining a light on a family that had to persevere at every turn to escape the antisemitism and xenophobia that threatened their survival.

A heartbreaking and uplifting mother-daughter drama with a steamy romantic backstory.

“A twisty, fast-paced” (The Sunday Times, London) debut thriller, as electrifying as the #1 New York Times bestseller The Girl on the Train, about impending motherhood, unreliable friendship, and the high price of keeping secrets.

In this “gloriously tangled game of cat and mouse that kept the twists coming until the very last moment” (Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Helen’s idyllic life—handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way—begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class.

There, she meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother-to-be who doesn’t seem very maternal: she smokes, drinks, and professes little interest in parenthood. Still, Helen is drawn to her. Maybe Rachel just needs a friend. And to be honest, Helen’s a bit lonely herself. At least Rachel is fun to be with. She makes Helen laugh, invites her confidences, and distracts her from her fears.

But her increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling. And Helen’s not the only one who’s noticed. Her friends and family begin to suspect that her strange new friend may be linked to their shared history in unexpected ways. When Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy all of their lives, it becomes clear that there are more than a few secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.

A Goodreads Top 20 Book of the Last 5 Years
Don’t miss the #1 New York Times bestselling blockbuster and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick that’s sold over 5 million copies—now streaming on Apple TV+ starring Jennifer Garner!

The “page-turning, exhilarating” (PopSugar) and “heartfelt thriller” (Real Simple) about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life—until he disappears.

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.

With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a “page-turning, exhilarating, and unforgettable” (PopSugar) suspense novel.