July 2025: An Inconvenient Wife by Karen Olson

 Susan selected "An Inconvenient Wife" by Karen Olson for our July 2025 book. Don't get it confused with the other "An Inconvenient Wife" out there (which Cass accidentally read and recommends).

ABOUT THE BOOK

This astonishing crime novel—inspired by the Tudor era—takes the reader into the world of Kate Parker, who has just married billionaire Hank Tudor when a headless body is discovered near their summer home . . .

Kate Parker knows what she’s getting into when she marries billionaire businessman Hank Tudor—she’s his sixth wife, after all, and was by his side (as his assistant) when his fifth marriage to actress Caitlyn Howard fell apart.

But honeymoon plans go awry when a headless body is discovered near Hank’s summer home, forcing Kate to contend with two more of his exes: Catherine Alvarez—the first—who lives as a shut-in with her computers, carefully following Tudor Enterprises; and Anna Klein—the fourth—who runs a bed-and-breakfast where she and her wife keep a steady eye on things—particularly Hank’s children, Lizzie and Teddy.

In this clever and suspenseful reimagining of Tudor era betrayals, these three women become entwined in a deadly game of cat and mouse—with each other, Hank, and Hank’s brilliant fixer, Tom Cromwell—as Kate seeks to solve the puzzle of who the murdered woman is, who killed her, and whether her death has any connection to the other headless body from eight years ago.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Twenty years of working in newsrooms with mice, moldy carpeting, out-of-date computer systems, cranky editors, weird reporters and an even odder public lent itself nicely to writing a mystery series about a police reporter. Once I left the newsroom, I decided to disregard all that "write what you know" stuff. I wrote four books about a tattoo artist who solves crimes in Las Vegas and then a thriller series about a woman computer hacker on the run. Now I've indulged my longtime Tudor obsession and have written a retelling of Henry VIII and his wives as a crime novel. 

June 2025: 'Don't Swipe Right' by LM Chilton

 Andrea has picked "Don't Swipe Right" by LM Chilton for our June book.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

'Kept me guessing and was so fun to read.' BRITNEY SPEARS, People Magazine Favorite Beach Read Pick

'Utterly compelling and laugh-out-loud funny.' KATY BRENT

DATING APPS ARE SO DEAD.

Gwen Turner, 29, entrepreneur and part-time barista.

Likes: true-crime podcasts, cheese-based snacks (the more unnaturally orange the better) and constantly refreshing her dating apps.

Dislikes: two-day hangovers, people who refer to themselves as entrepreneurs... and discovering her latest match is actually a serial killer (probably should have put that top of the list).

They say romance is dead, but if Gwen can't catch the mystery killer who's targeting every man she's ever dated, it's about to get a whole lot deadlier.

A twisty, fast-paced and darkly hilarious modern murder mystery set in the terrifying and mystifying world of online dating, Don't Swipe Right is perfect for fans of Bella Mackie's How To Kill Your Family and Netflix's You. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

L.M. Chilton has been a journalist for 15 years, working for TV shows like This Morning, The One Show and Loose Women, as well as magazines and newspapers such as The Times, The Mirror, Metro, New!, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.

He started his journalism career writing for ‘real life’ magazines, interviewing people from all over the world about the terrifying, hilarious and heart-breaking things that had happened to them. And also funny things their pets had done.

He works from home in London, thinking of twists for murder mysteries and practicing the banjo instead of writing (much to the annoyance of his neighbours).

May 2025: Solito by Javier Zamora

For May, Cass has picked Solito by Javier Zamora.

She said, "It is a book about a young boy who crosses into the US via a 'coyote' from El Salvador, a 3,000 mile trip, to be reunited with his parents who had crossed ahead of him. It's an awesome memoir!"

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

 

New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography • Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award

A young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping memoir” (NPR) of bravery, hope, and finding family.  

Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • One of the New York Public Library’s Ten Best Books of the Year

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the PEN/Open Book Award

“I read Solito with my heart in my throat and did not burst into tears until the last sentence. What a person, what a writer, what a book.”—Emma Straub

“A riveting tale of perseverance and the lengths humans will go to help each other in times of struggle.”—Dave Eggers

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Vulture, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews

Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago—“one day, you’ll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.”  

Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
 
At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
 
A memoir as gripping as it is moving,

Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador in 1990. His father fled the country when he was one, and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents' migrations were caused by the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War. When he was nine Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. His debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied, explores the impact of the war and immigration on his family. Zamora has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

April 2025 : Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes

 Becky has chosen Murder Your Employer:The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes for the April 2025 book club pick. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

A New York Times bestseller! From Edgar Award–winning novelist, playwright, and story-songwriter Rupert Holmes comes a diabolical thriller with a killer concept: The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, “a fantasy academy laid out like a combination of Hogwarts, Downton Abbey, and a White Lotus–style resort” (Los Angeles Times) dedicated to the art of murder where students study how best to “delete” their most deserving victim.

Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.

Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A “fiendishly funny” (Booklist) mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 New York Times Top Ten Bestselling novelist-playwright-composer-arranger-screenwriter-conductor-singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes is the first person in theatrical history to solely win Tony® awards as an author, a composer and a lyricist. A two-time recipient of the coveted Edgar Award, creator and writer of AMC’s first original TV series, and #1 Billboard singer/songwriter, Rupert Holmes’ songs have been recorded by Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwick, Vanessa Williams, Melissa Manchester, Dolly Parton, Rita Coolidge, Judy Collins, Patti LuPone, opera star Renée Fleming, Frank Sinatra Jr., and most notably Barbra Streisand.

More at https://www.rupertholmes.com

March 2025: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

 Amy picked The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers for our March read. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

National Bestseller!

The acclaimed modern science fiction masterpiece, Hugo Award winner for Best Series!

Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Becky Chambers was raised in California as the progeny of an astrobiology educator, an aerospace engineer, and an Apollo-era rocket scientist. Her first novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, was originally funded via Kickstarter in 2012. Her books have been nominated for the Kitschies Award, the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, the Arthus C. Clarke Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others, and won the Prix Julia Verlanger.

After living in Scotland and Iceland, Becky is now back in her home state, where she lives with her spouse. She is a devotee of video and tabletop games, and enjoys spending time in nature. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.

February 2025: Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez

 Tesha picked Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez for us to read in February.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued.  If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population.  It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.

Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are excluded from the very building blocks of the world we live in, and the impact this has on their health and wellbeing.   From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media – Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women.  In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Caroline Criado Perez is the author of the #1 international best-seller, INVISIBLE WOMEN: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Chatto & Windus, Abrams, 2019), highlighting the systematic biases behind the data and assumptions impacting our everyday lives. It is the winner of Financial Times Book of the Year Award 2019 and the 2019 Royal Society Science Book prize. Caroline is currently working on a new book, as well as an updated version of Invisible Women. She writes a regular newsletter that goes out to over 56,000 subscribers.

Her first book, Do it Like a Woman (Portobello, 2015), introduces pioneering women from around the world and what it means to be female in a culture where power and basic freedoms are too often equated with being male.

January 2025: "Yarn Harlot" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

 Kass picked "Yarn Harlot" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee for the January 2025 book.

 

"It's a pretty fast read and one that should get us talking about all kinds of "It's a new year" topics. It seems to be readily available, but only a few copies at a time, so let me know if you have a hard time tracking it down. "Yarn Harlot" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee... and please don't let this book scare you if you're not a knitter. We all have our "thing" and knitting just happens to be hers. I read this years ago and loved it... excited to read it all with you," said Kass.

 

About the book:

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's deepest wish is that everyone understand that knitting is at least as fun as baseball and way cooler than the evil looped path of crochet. Every project, from a misshapen hat to the most magnificent sweater, holds a story. Yarn Harlot tells all those stories with humor, insight, and sympathy for the obsessed.

Over 50 million people in America knit. The average knitter spends between $500 and $1,700 a year on yarn, patterns, needles, and books. No longer just a fad or a hobby, knitting has advanced to a lifestyle.

Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter moves beyond instructions and patterns into the purest elements of knitting: obsession, frustration, reflection, and fun. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's humorous and poignant essays find humor in knitting an enormous afghan that requires a whopping 30 balls of wool, having a husband with size 13 feet who loves to wear hand-knit socks, and earns her "yarn harlot" title with her love of any new yarn--she'll quickly drop an old project for the fresh saucy look of a new interesting yarn.

Since the upsurge in knitting began in the early '90s, the number of women under 45 who knit has doubled. Knitting is no longer a hobby for just grandmothers--women and men of all ages are embracing this art. Describing its allure is best left to Stephanie who explains: "It is a well-known fact that knitting is a sparkling form of entertainment, as spiritual as yoga, as relaxing as a massage, and as funny as Erma Bombeck trapped in a PTA meeting."

About the author:

 Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is the author of Yarn Harlot, At Knit's End, Knitting Rules!, and Casts Off. She maintains a popular blog at www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/. She lives with her family in an untidy, wool-filled house in Toronto, where she avoids doing the laundry and knits whenever she gets a minute.