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DISCUSSION GUIDES
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The Lost Girls of Willowbrook: A Heartbreaking Novel of Survival Based on True HistorySummary: Instant New York Times Bestseller!
Girl, Interrupted meets American Horror Story in 1970s Staten Island, as the New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector blends fact, fiction, and the urban legend of Cropsey for a haunting story about a young woman mistakenly imprisoned at Willowbrook State School – the real state-run institution that Geraldo Rivera would later expose for its horrifying abuses.
An Indie Next Pick | Peruse Book Club Pick | A Room of Your Own Book Club Pick | A Publishers Lunch Buzz Books Selection
Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world.
Six years after Rosemary’s death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage’s stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted. Yet despite living as near strangers in their Staten Island apartment, Sage is stunned to discover that Alan has kept a shocking secret: Rosemary didn’t die. She was committed to Willowbrook State School and has lingered there until just a few days ago, when she went missing.
Sage knows little about Willowbrook. It’s always been a place shrouded by rumor and mystery. A place local parents threaten to send misbehaving kids. With no idea what to expect, Sage secretly sets out for Willowbrook, determined to find Rosemary. What she learns, once she steps through its doors and is mistakenly believed to be her sister, will change her life in ways she never could imagined . . .
“A heartbreaking yet insightful read, this novel will open one's eyes to the evil in this world.” —New York Journal of Books
“Unvarnished, painful and startlingly clear.” —Bookreporter.com - 272.
Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic TeamSummary:ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE SUMMER BY POPSUGAR, FROLIC, PARADE, TRAVEL & LEISURE, SHE KNOWS, and SHE READS!
NAMED A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF 2020 (SO FAR).
“Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America...Brava to Elise Hooper for bringing these inspiring heroines to the wide audience they so richly deserve.”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and The House Girl
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Perfect for readers who love untold stories of amazing women, such as The Only Woman in the Room, Hidden Figures, and The Lost Girls of Paris.
In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.
Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team.
From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life.
These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
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More Than You'll Ever Know: A NovelSummary: An evocative drama about a woman caught leading a double life after one husband murders the other, and the true-crime writer who becomes obsessed with telling her story—this masterful work of literary suspense marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer. - 274.
The One-In-A-Million BoySummary: Winner of the Nautilus Award and the New England Society Book Award, Monica Wood's The One-in-a-Million Boy is the incandescent story of a 104-year-old woman and the sweet, strange young boy assigned to help her around the house—a friendship that touches each member of the boy's unmoored family.
"The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything at school?"
So says 104-year-old Ona to the 11-year-old boy who's been sent to help her out every Saturday morning. As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she's confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades.
One Saturday, the boy doesn't show up. Ona starts to think he's not so special after all, but then his father arrives on her doorstep, determined to finish his son's good deed. The boy's mother is not so far behind. Ona is set to discover that the world can surprise us at any age, and that sometimes sharing a loss is the only way to find ourselves again.
“Readers won’t be able to resist falling for Ona…The conclusion will leave them smiling through their tears.”—Shelf Awareness
“Poignant…There is much to enjoy in this heartfelt tale of love, loss, and friendship.”—Express
“A must-read book…Whimsical and bittersweet.”—Good Housekeeping - 275.
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Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)Summary:From USA TODAY Bestselling Author Callie Hart comes a brand new, highly addicting enemies-to-lovers Romantasy with razor-sharp banter, heart-stopping action, and blistering hot romance that you won’t be able to put down!
Do not touch the sword.
Do not turn the key.
Do not open the gate.
In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water.
Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.
But a secret is like a knot.
Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.
When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.
The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her.
Death has a name.
It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate.
His past is murky.
His attitude stinks.
And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.
Be careful of the deals you make, dear child.
The devil is in the details...
N.B. Quicksilver contains depictions of graphic violence/adult situations and is therefore recommended for readers 17+. For a full list of tropes and TWs, please visit the author's website at calliehart.com. - 277.
A Daughter of Fair Verona (Daughter of Montague)Summary: I’m the eldest daughter of Romeo and Juliet. Yes, that Romeo and Juliet. No, they didn’t die in the tomb. They’re alive and well and living in fair Verona with their six wildly impetuous children and me, their nineteen-year-old daughter Rosaline…
Knives Out meets Bridgerton in Fair Verona, as New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off a frothy, irreverent, witty new series with an irresistible premise—told from the delightfully engaging point of view of Romeo and Juliet’s clever, rebellious, fiercely independent daughter, Rosie Montague.
“Fun, funny, charming, and absolutely delightful. If you’re looking for a novel to sweep you away and lift your spirits, look no further.” – KRISTIN HANNAH, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended (hint: badly). Only here’s the thing: That’s not how it ended at all.
Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out . . . it’s exhausting.
Each time they’ve presented me with a betrothal, I’ve set out to find the groom-to-be a more suitable bride. After all, someone sensible needs to stay home and manage this household. But their latest match, Duke Stephano, isn’t so easy to palm off on anyone else. The debaucher has had three previous wives—all of whom met unfortunate ends. Conscience forbids me from consigning another woman to that fate. As it turns out, I don’t have to . . .
At our betrothal ball—where, quite by accident, I meet a beautiful young man who makes me wonder if perhaps there is something to love at first sight—I stumble upon Duke Stephano with a dagger in his chest. But who killed him? His late wives’ families, his relatives, his mistress, his servants—half of Verona had motive. And when everyone around the Duke begins dying, disappearing, or descending into madness, I know I must uncover the killer . . . before death lies on me like an untimely frost. - 278.
Fifty Words for Rain: A GMA Book Club Pick: A NovelSummary: A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and New York Times Bestseller!
From debut author Asha Lemmie, “a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together.” —Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Nightingale
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. “Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist.”
Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin.
The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity. But when chance brings her older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him an unlikely ally with whom she forms a powerful bond—a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that just might cost her everything.
Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free. - 279.
Harlem RhapsodySummary: “A gripping narrative, don't miss this historical fiction about the woman who kicked off the Harlem Renaissance.”—People Magazine
“A page turner and history lesson at once, Harlem Rhapsody reminds us that our stories are our generational wealth.”—Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club Pick)
She found the literary voices that would inspire the world…. The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.
In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all.
W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives…every African American writer in the country wants their work published there.
When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success. - 280.
Pictures of You: A NovelSummary:A PEOPLE Magazine's Best Book of November 2024
A November 2024 Book of the Month Selection
A National Bestseller
What would you do if you could start over? Imagine having a second chance with the one you never forgot.
From the author of the global breakout bestseller The Last Love Note comes the story of a young woman struggling to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragic accident, and the man who gives up everything to help her.
Evie Hudson should be grieving her dead husband, but since the car crash that claimed his life and landed her in the hospital, she can't remember him at all. The only person who can help her piece her past together is her high-school best friend Drew Kennedy.
When snippets of her memory start falling into place, Evie wonders exactly how she ended up in a life that couldn't be further from the one she dreamed of. This time around, she's seeing all the things she missed--and the life she gets to choose . . . again.