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January 14, 2023

This week, after our monthly “Bookaccino Live” preview event, readers who attended brought up the topic of online book groups. They shared the names of the groups in which they had participated both during this conversation and in email follow-up. We are planning to share a list of these groups once we have had time to give them a closer look. If you have participated in an online book group that you have enjoyed, let us know the name of the group, what you enjoy about it, and some of the books they have discussed. Send me an email with the subject line “Online Book Groups.”

Laura Zigman, author of Small World

A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again and has developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site Small World for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister, Lydia, calls to tell her she’s moving back east after almost 30 years away, Joyce invites Lydia to temporarily move into her Cambridge apartment. But instead of forging the bond she always dreamed of having with Lydia, their relationship frays. And they rarely discuss the loss of their sister, Eleanor, who was significantly disabled and died when she was only 10 years old. When new revelations from their family’s history come to light, will those secrets further split them apart, or course-correct their connection for the future?

Stephen Markley, author of The Deluge

In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters --- a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come.

Paul Levine, author of Early Grave: A Jake Lassiter Thriller

When his godson suffers a catastrophic injury in a high school football game, lawyer Jake Lassiter sues to abolish the sport and becomes Public Enemy Number One. The former NFL linebacker also battles CTE, the fatal brain disease. With his personal life in tatters, he's in couple's therapy with fiancée Dr. Melissa Gold and vows to live long enough to fix his relationship and achieve justice for his godson. EARLY GRAVE is the final novel of the series that began with the international bestseller TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD in 1990.

Mary Kubica, author of Just the Nicest Couple

Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found. Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.

Brad Meltzer, author of The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill

In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape --- an assassination plot that would’ve changed history. A true story filled with daring rescues, body doubles and political intrigue, THE NAZI CONSPIRACY details FDR’s pivotal meeting in Tehran and the deadly Nazi plot against the heads of state of the three major Allied powers who attended it.

Editorial Content for The Blackhouse

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Kate Ayers

On an island in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of mainland Scotland, visitors, rare though they may be, are greeted with a sign reading “Welcome to the Isle of Kilmeray.” But when Maggie MacKay returns in her mid-20s, there is little about the island that is welcoming --- from the weather to the inhabitants to the Blackhouse that she has rented. She had last been to Kilmeray when she was five years old, and she caused quite a stir with her claim of being Andrew MacNeil, a man who lived and died on the island. Read More

Teaser

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is. When she was five years old, Maggie announced that a man on the remote island of Kilmeray in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides --- a place she’d never visited --- was murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended. Now, nearly 20 years later, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, the island’s legendary and violent storms begin to rage again, and Maggie’s own life is in danger.

Promo

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is. When she was five years old, Maggie announced that a man on the remote island of Kilmeray in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides --- a place she’d never visited --- was murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended. Now, nearly 20 years later, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, the island’s legendary and violent storms begin to rage again, and Maggie’s own life is in danger.

About the Book

From the author of the “dark and devious...beautifully written” (Stephen King) MIRRORLAND comes an “atmospheric, thrilling, and utterly captivating” (Booklist) gothic tale set on a remote Scottish island where the locals are hiding a deadly secret.

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is.

When she was five years old, Maggie announced that a man on the remote island of Kilmeray in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides --- a place she’d never visited --- was murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended.

Now, nearly 20 years later, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, the island’s legendary and violent storms begin to rage again, and Maggie’s own life is in danger.

Unnerving, enthralling and filled with gothic suspense, THE BLACKHOUSE is a spectacularly sinister tale readers won’t soon forget.

Audiobook available; read by Joe McFadden, Eilidh Beaton, Joe McFadden and Eilidh Beaton

Editorial Content for Moonrise Over New Jessup

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Susan Miura

Alice Young leaves her tiny, segregated Alabama town in 1957 with an evil landlord hot on her heels and just one goal: find her sister, Rosie, in Chicago. But her meager funds won’t stretch that far, so she heads for Birmingham, never imagining that her bus ride will end sooner than expected. At a rest stop in New Jessup, Alice discovers her own wonderland. No “whites only” signs on the store fronts and restaurants. No white people with condescending words or expressions. In fact, no white people at all. Read More

Teaser

In 1957, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion --- or worse --- from the home they both hold dear. But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup’s political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.

Promo

In 1957, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion --- or worse --- from the home they both hold dear. But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup’s political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.

About the Book

Winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a thought-provoking and enchanting debut about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama.
 
It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion --- or worse --- from the home they both hold dear.

But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup’s political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.

Jamila Minnicks’ debut novel is both a celebration of Black joy and a timely examination of the opposing viewpoints that attended desegregation in America. Readers of Brit Bennett’s THE VANISHING HALF and Robert Jones, Jr.’s THE PROPHETS will love MOONRISE OVER JESSUP.

Audiobook available, read by Karen Chilton

Editorial Content for The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jesse Kornbluth for HeadButler.com

In 1974, when Pico Iyer was a teenager, he traveled to India, where his father was meeting with the Dalai Lama. There the boy and the most exalted monk in Buddhism began a friendship that has deepened over nearly half a century. Read More

Teaser

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some, it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst --- or just across the ocean --- if only we can find eyes to see it. Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into war zones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld --- or can it be found in the here and now?

Promo

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some, it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst --- or just across the ocean --- if only we can find eyes to see it. Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into war zones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld --- or can it be found in the here and now?

About the Book

From “one of the most soulful and perceptive writers of our time” (Brain Pickings): a journey through competing ideas of paradise to see how we can live more peacefully in an ever more divided and distracted world.

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some, it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst --- or just across the ocean --- if only we can find eyes to see it.
 
Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into war zones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld --- or can it be found in the here and now?
 
For almost 50 years, Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

Audiobook available, read by Pico Iyer

Editorial Content for The Night Traveler

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Internationally bestselling author Armando Lucas Correa returns with THE NIGHT TRAVELER. This time- and continent-spanning work of historical fiction traces the paths of four generations of women through war, revolution and reparations, beginning with the Nazi occupation of Germany and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Read More

Teaser

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, she sets in motion a dangerous plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety. Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads. Berlin, 1988: Nadine’s daughter, Luna, encourages her to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

Promo

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, she sets in motion a dangerous plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety. Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads. Berlin, 1988: Nadine’s daughter, Luna, encourages her to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

About the Book

Four generations of women experience love, loss, war and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and, finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of the “timely must-read” (People) THE GERMAN GIRL.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden, so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. Besides, she’s too excited for her future with her beloved Martin, a Cuban pilot with strong ties to the Batista government. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads.

Berlin, 1988: As a scientist in Berlin, Nadine is dedicated to ensuring the dignity of the remains of all those who were murdered by the Nazis. Yet she has spent her entire lifetime avoiding the truth about her own family’s history. It takes her daughter, Luna, to encourage Nadine to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

“A stunning multigenerational story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), THE NIGHT TRAVELER reveals the power of self-discovery and motherly love.

Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini