Host: Janelle
Book: A Cold and Broken Hallelujah by Tyler Dilts
Meeting Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis:
On a sweltering September night, Long Beach Homicide Detective Danny Beckett is called to a grisly crime scene at the mouth of the Los Angeles River. A defenseless homeless man has been burned to death by three teenagers with gang ties. The suspects are already in custody, and the evidence is overwhelming―but when one suspect’s brother is targeted for murder, Danny starts to think there may be more to this seemingly clear-cut case. Obsessed with discovering the true identity of the victim, a gentle vagrant who may have been hiding a tortured past, Danny and his team start to uncover a high-reaching conspiracy that puts them all at risk―and threatens to open new wounds that could cut even deeper than Danny’s old ones.
A Cold and Broken Hallelujah
The Light Between Oceans
Book: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Meeting Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis: After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
Wonder
Book: Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Meeting Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis:
August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?
The Witch of Little Italy
Book: The Witch of Little Italy by Suzanne Palmieri
Meeting Date: May 23, 2015
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Lisa's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
In Suzanne Palmieri’s charming debut, The Witch of Little Italy, you will be bewitched by the Amore women. When young Eleanor Amore finds herself pregnant, she returns home to her estranged family in the Bronx, called by “The Sight” they share now growing strong within her. She has only been back once before when she was ten years old during a wonder-filled summer of sun-drenched beaches, laughter and cartwheels. But everyone remembers that summer except her. Eleanor can’t remember anything from before she left the house on her last day there. With her past now coming back to her in flashes, she becomes obsessed with recapturing those memories. Aided by her childhood sweetheart, she learns the secrets still haunting her magical family, secrets buried so deep they no longer know how they began. And, in the process, unlocks a mystery over fifty years old—The Day the Amores Died—and reveals, once and for all, a truth that will either heal or shatter the Amore clan.
Big Little Lies
Book: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Meeting Date: May 23, 2015
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Lisa's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.
Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.
The Collectors
Book: The Collectors by David Baldacci
Meeting Date: August 24, 2014
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis:
The assassination of the speaker of the House has rocked the nation. And the Camel Club has found a chilling connection with another death: that of the director of the Library of Congress’s Rare Books and Special Collections Division.
The club’s unofficial leader, a man who calls himself Oliver Stone, discovers that someone is selling America to its enemies one secret at a time. Then Annabelle Conroy, the greatest con artist of her generation, comes to town and joins forces with the Camel Club for her own reasons. And Stone will need all the help she can give, because the two murders are hurtling the Camel Club into a world of espionage that is bringing America to its knees.
Vienna Prelude
Book: Vienna Prelude by Bodie & Brock Thoene
Meeting Date: August 24, 2014
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis: No one is safe...
In 1936 Nazi darkness descends upon Europe. Every person is only one step away from being swept into the nightmarish tide of evil. Blond Elisa Lindheim, and violinist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, adopts an Aryan stage name for protection. But her closest friend, Leah, a talented Jewish cellist, is in perilous position.
There are those who choose to fight Hitler's madness. Elisa's father Theo. A courageous American reporter, John Murphy. Winston Churchill, the British statesman. A farm family in the Tyrolean Alps. The Jewish Underground. But will all their efforts be enough to stop the coming Holocaust?
And now Elisa must decide. If she becomes part of the Underground, she will risk everything... and puts everyone she loves in danger.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Book: Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Meeting Date: August 24, 2014
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis:
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle – and people in general – has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence – creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a daughter’s unflinching love for her imperfect mother.
The Road
Book: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Meeting Date: August 24, 2014
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis: A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
The Husband's Secret
Book: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Meeting Date: February 23, 2014
Time: 1:30 PM
Location: Lisa's (Sacramento)
Synopsis: My Darling Cecilia If you're reading this, then I've died . . .
Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret - something so terrible it would destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others too. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive . . .Cecilia Fitzpatrick achieved it all - she's an incredibly successful business woman, a pillar of her small community and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia - or each other - but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband's devastating secret
The Selection
Book: The Selection by Kiera Cass
Meeting Date: February 23, 2014
Time: 1:30 PM
Location: Lisa's (Sacramento)
Synopsis: For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks. Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself—and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.
The Cuckoos's Calling
Host: JanelleBook: The Cuckoos's Calling by Robert Galbraith
Meeting Date: November 2, 2013
Time: 11:15 AM
Location: Macchia Winery
Synopsis: A brilliant mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel's suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man. You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.
Garden of Stones
Host: JanetBook: Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield
Meeting Date: November 2, 2013
Time: 11:15 AM
Location: Macchia Winery
Synopsis: In the dark days of war, a mother makes the ultimate sacrifice. Lucy Takeda is just fourteen years old, living in Los Angeles, when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are ripped from their home, rounded up—along with thousands of other innocent Japanese-Americans—and taken to the Manzanar prison camp. Buffeted by blistering heat and choking dust, Lucy and Miyako must endure the harsh living conditions of the camp. Corruption and abuse creep into every corner of Manzanar, eventually ensnaring beautiful, vulnerable Miyako. Ruined and unwilling to surrender her daughter to the same fate, Miyako soon breaks. Her final act of desperation will stay with Lucy forever...and spur her to sins of her own. Garden Of Stones is a harrowing tale of stolen innocence and survival that echoes through generations, reverberating between mothers and daughters. It is a moving chronicle of injustice, triumph and the unspeakable acts we commit in the name of love.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Book: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Meeting Date: August 11
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.
As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here - one of whom was his own grandfather - were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason.
And somehow - impossible though it seems - they may still be alive
The Fault In Our Stars
Book: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Meeting Date: April 6, 2013
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: The Dancing Fox, Lodi
Synopsis: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind
The Distant Hours
Host: Mary KennardSynopsis:
Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl, Edie’s mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Milderhurst Castle with the Blythe family:Juniper, her twin sisters and their father, Raymond, author of the 1918 children’s classic the true history of the mud man. In the grand and glorious Milderhurst Castle, a new world opens up for Edie’s mother. She discovers the joys of books and fantasy and writing, but also, ultimately, the dangers.
Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother’s riddle, she, too, is drawn to Milderhurst Castle and the eccentric sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiancé in 1941 plunged her into madness. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Red Velvet Revenge
Book: Red Velvet Revenge by Jenn McKinlay
Meeting Date: Saturday, September 29, 2012
Time: 11:00
Location: Darla's (Placerville)
Synopsis: It may be summertime, but sales at Fairy Tale Cupcakes are below zero--and owners Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura are willing to try anything to heat things up. So when local legend Slim Hazard offers them the chance to sell cupcakes at the annual Juniper Pass rodeo, they're determined to rope in a pretty payday!
But not everyone at the Juniper Pass is as sweet for Fairy Tale Cupcakes as Slim--including star bull-rider Ty Stokes. Mel and Angie try to steer clear of the cowboy's short fuse, but when his dead body is found face down in the hay, it's a whole different rodeo. With a vengeful murderer on the loose, the ladies are quickly realizing that while they came to save their business, they may have to save themselves--and that's no bull.
A Reliable Wife
Book: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Meeting Date: Saturday, July 14, 2012
Time: 10:30 AM
Location: Jenny's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for "a reliable wife." She responded, saying that she was "a simple, honest woman." She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved. What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Host: Kristin Kennard
Book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Meeting Date: April 29, 2012
Time: 2:00
Location: Kristin's (Dublin)
Synopsis:
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vanger’s great-niece Harriet. Henrik suspects that someone in his family, the powerful Vanger clan, murdered Harriet over forty years ago. Starting his investigation, Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. He now crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness. Together they form an unlikely couple as they dive deeper into the violent past of the secretive Vanger family.
Room
Book: Room by Emma Donoghue
Meeting Date: Sunday, December 11, 2011
Time: 12:30 PM
Location: Janet's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time.
The Forgotten Garden
Book: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Meeting Date: October 1, 2011
Time: 10:00
Location: Lisa's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
A lost child... On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.
A terrible secret... On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.
A mysterious inheritance... On Nell's death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold - secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost.
The Help
Host: Mary Kennard
Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Meeting Date: June 11, 2011
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis:
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Book: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Meeting Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Synopsis:
Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer.
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
Host: Lisa Leggett
Book: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice
Meeting Date: Sunday, August 29th
Time: 1:00pm
Location: The Dancing Fox, 203 South School Street,Lodi, CA 95240-3511
Synopsis:
Set in 1950s London, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets centers around Penelope, the wide- eyed daughter of a legendary beauty, Talitha, who lost her husband to the war. Penelope, with her mother and brother, struggles to maintain their vast and crumbling ancestral home—while postwar London spins toward the next decade's cultural revolution.
Penelope wants nothing more than to fall in love, and when her new best friend, Charlotte, a free spirit in the young society set, drags Penelope into London with all of its grand parties, she sets in motion great change for them all. Charlotte's mysterious and attractive brother Harry uses Penelope to make his American ex-girlfriend jealous, with unforeseen consequences, and a dashing, wealthy American movie producer arrives with what might be the key to Penelope's— and her family's—future happiness.
Vibrant, witty, and filled with vivid historical detail, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is an utterly unique debut novel about a time and place just slipping into history.
Twenties Girl
Host: Christa Williams
Book: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Meeting Date: Sunday, May 23, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM
Location: Mel & Chris' (Elk Grove)
Synopsis:Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?
When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie–a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance–mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man.
Sadie, however, could care less.
Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “twenties” girls learn some surprising truths from each other along the way. Written with all the irrepressible charm and humor that have made Sophie Kinsella’s books beloved by millions, Twenties Girl is also a deeply moving testament to the transcendent bonds of friendship and family.
3 Cups of Tea
Book: 3 Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David O. Relin
Meeting Date: April 24, 2010
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis:
The inspiring account of one man's campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Asia
In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time—Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.
Award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin has collaborated on this spellbinding account of Mortenson's incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are often feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself. At last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools. Three Cups of Tea is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.
3 out of 11 members voted.
75% gave this book 3 Stars
22% gave this book 2 Stars
In the Woods
Book: In the Woods by Tana French
Meeting Date: February 5-7, 2010
RETREAT WEEKEND
Location: Noma's -Tortuga (Pioneer)
Synopsis:
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled shoes, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox – his partner and closest friend – find themselves investigating a case with chilling links to that long-ago disappearance. Now, with only snippets of buried memories to guide him, Rob has the chance to unravel both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.
5 out of 11 members voted.
80% gave this book 3 Stars
20% gave this book 2 Stars
The House at Riverton
Host: Vanessa Kesterson
Book: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Meeting Date: December 5, 2009
Meeting Time: 10:30 AM
Location: Vanessa's (Oakdale)
Synopsis:
Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline.
In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they-and Grace-know the truth.
In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight years old and living out her last days in a nursing home, she is visited by a young director who is making a film about the events of that summer. She takes Grace back to Riverton House and reawakens her memories. Told in flashback, this is the story of Grace's youth during the last days of Edwardian aristocratic privilege shattered by war, of the vibrant twenties, and the changes she witnessed as an entire way of life vanished forever.
The novel is full of secrets-some revealed, others hidden forever, reminiscent of the romantic suspense of Daphne Du Maurier. It is also a meditation on memory, the devastation of war, and a beautifully rendered window into a fascinating time in history.
3 out of 11 members voted.
75% gave this book 5 Stars
25% gave this book 4 Stars
Firefly Lane
Host: Kristin Kennard
Book: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Meeting Date: October 31, 2009
Meeting Time: 10:00 AM
Location: Kristin's (Walnut Creek)
Synopsis:
In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.
From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success… and loneliness.
Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend…
For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart…and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.
7 out of 11 members voted.
71% gave this book 4 Stars
28% gave this book 3 Stars
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Host: Lisa Noma
Book: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Meeting Date: September 12, 2009
Meeting Time: 10:30 AM
Location: The Noma's (Lodi)
Synopsis:
A spellbinding, beautifully written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history – the Salem witch trials.
Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest—to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.
5 out of 11 members voted.
20% gave this book 5 Stars
20% gave this book 4 Stars
60% gave this book 3 Stars
Twilight
Host:Melissa Williams
Book: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Meeting Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009
Meeting Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Williams/Sorensen's Home (Elk Grove)
Synopsis:
Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife -- between desire and danger.
Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
57% gave this book 5 stars
42% gave this book 4 stars
Promise Not to Tell
Host:Janelle Chapdelaine
Book: Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon
Location: Olive Garden, Stockton
Meeting Date: Wednesday, July 1st
Meeting Time: 6:30 PM
Synopsis:
Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
66% gave this book 3 stars
33% gave this book 2 stars
A Thread of Grace
Host:Janet Noma
Book: A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Location: Janet's (Lodi)
Meeting Date: May 9, 2009
Meeting Time: 10:30 am
Synopsis
It is September 8, 1943, and fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum is learning Italian with a suitcase in her hand. She and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to be safe at last, now that the Italians have broken with Germany and made a separate peace with the Allies. The Blums will soon discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it becomes overnight an open battleground among the Nazis, the Allies, resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive.
RATINGS:
3 out of 11 members voted.
100% gave this book 3 stars
High Tea
Host: Lisa Leggett
Book: High Tea by Sandra Harper
Location: Lisa's (Lodi)
Meeting Date: Saturday, March 7
Meeting Time: 1:00 pm
Synopsis
Magpie's Tearoom is a cozy haven in bustling L.A. -- a place for luncheons, baby showers, or simply hanging out. Its owner, British expat Margaret Moore, relishes tradition...but between a frustrated chef preoccupied with her neglectful producer girlfriend and the tearoom's waitstaff -- a talented but desperate TV star who hasn't acted since Detective Buck Love went off the air, and a twenty-something ingénue who'll do anything to get the part -- her grandmother's scones begin to feel irrelevant.
When the critic from Tea Talk announces she is crossing the pond to visit, Margaret attempts to marshal her staff. But, being of the thespian variety, they all want to be doing something else. Yet despite the high personal drama at hand, the customers still demand their perfectly steeped tea and cucumber sandwiches....
As Margaret battles pilot season and produce-coordinator malfunctions, she begins to lose her will to live...in L.A.
But can her L.A. neighborhood do without her tearoom'In this delightful debut novel with delicious recipes thrown in, Sandra Harper creates a hilarious world where Earl Grey and watercress make a meal, buttering the scones may get you scolded, and nobody does eggs anymore.
RATINGS:
4 out of 11 members voted.
25% gave this book 3 stars
75% gave this book 1 star
The Pillars of the Earth
Host: Christa Williams
Book: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Meeting Date: Retreat (January 30, 2009)
Metting Time: TBD
Meeting Location: Noma's Vacation Home-Tortuga(Pioneer, CA)
Synopsis
Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through 40 years of social and political upheaval as internal church politics affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists.
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
16% gave this book 5 stars
50% gave this book 4 stars
33% gave this book 3 stars
Remember Me
Host: Kris Harrington
Book: Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella
Meeting Date: Saturday, December 13, 2008
Metting Time: 10:30AM
Meeting Location: Janet's (Lodi)
Synopsis
When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.
Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.
Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
16% gave this book 4 stars
83% gave this book 3 stars
The Last Lecture
Host: Mary Kennard
Book: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Meeting Date: Saturday, Nov 1, 2008
Metting Time: 10:30 AM
Meeting Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
—Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
14% gave this book 5 stars
14% gave this book 4 stars
42% gave this book 3 stars
28% gave this book 2 stars
Spellman Files
Host: Darla Sorsensen
Book: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
Meeting Date: Saturday, Sept 27, 2008
Metting Time: 10:30 AM
Meeting Location: TBD
Synopsis
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
50% gave this book 5 stars
50% gave this book 4 stars
16% gave this book 3 stars
The Glass Castle
Host: Vanessa Kesterson
Book: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Meeting Date: Saturday, August 30, 2008
Metting Time: 10:30 AM
Meeting Location: Vanessa's (Oakdale)
Synopsis
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.
Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town — and the family — Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.
RATINGS:
5 out of 11 members voted.
40% gave this book 4 stars
60% gave this book 3 stars
The Other Boleyn Girl
Host: Lisa Noma
Book: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Meeting Date: Sunday, July 6, 2008
Metting Time: 11:00 AM
Meeting Location: Janet's (Lodi)
Synopsis
Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: the love of a king
When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled by the king, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realizes just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king, and take her fate into her own hands.
A rich and compelling tale of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe and survived by following her own heart.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
57% gave this book 5 stars
28% gave this book 4 stars
14% gave this book 3 stars
The Thirteenth Tale
Host: Melissa Williams
Book: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Meeting Date: Friday, April 25, 2008
Metting Time: 5:30 pm
Meeting Location: Dave Wongs Restaurant(Stockton)
Synopsis
A compelling emotional mystery in the timeless vein of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, about family secrets and the magic of books and storytelling.
Margaret Lea works in her father's antiquarian bookshop where her fascination for the biographies of the long-dead has led her to write them herself. She gets a letter from one of the most famous authors of the day, the mysterious Vida Winter, whose popularity as a writer has been in no way diminished by her reclusiveness. Until now, Vida has toyed with journalists who interview her, creating outlandish life histories for herself - all of them invention. Now she is old and ailing, and at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to Margaret is a summons.
Somewhat anxiously, the equally reclusive Margaret travels to Yorkshire to meet her subject - and Vida starts to recount her tale. It is one of gothic strangeness featuring the March family; the fascinating, devious and wilful Isabelle and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline.
Margaret is captivated by the power of Vida's storytelling. But as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction, and she doesn't entirely trust Vida's account. She goes to check up on the family, visiting their old home and piecing together their story in her own way. What she discovers on her journey to the truth is for Margaret a chilling and transforming experience.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
100% gave this book 5 stars
Kabul Beauty School
Host: Janet Noma
Book: Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
Meeting Date: Sunday, March 16, 2008
Metting Time: 11:30 AM
Meeting Location: Janet's (Lodi)
Synopsis
Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.
With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup.
Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.
RATINGS:
5 out of 11 members voted.
40% gave this book 4 stars
40% gave this book 3 stars
20% gave this book 2 stars
Retreat
Book Club Retreat
February 2-February 3
Angel's Camp, CA
The countdown has begun. The retreat is only a few days away.
(Yes, Lisa Leggett - It's this weekend!!)
If anyone has any questions or comments...
Eating Heaven
Host: Jenny Penner
Book:Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge
Meeting Date: February 2, 2008
Meeting Time: TBD
Meeting Location: Angel's Camp, CA
Synopsis
Nothing gets Eleanor Samuels's heart racing like a double scoop of mocha fudge chunk. Sure, the magazine writer may have some issues aside from food, but she isn't quite ready to face them. Then her beloved Uncle Benny falls ill, and what at first seems scary and daunting becomes a blessing in disguise. Because while she cooks and cares for him-and enjoys a delicious flirtation with a new chef in town-Eleanor begins to uncover some long-buried secrets about her emotionally frayed family and may finally get the chance to become the woman she's always wanted to be.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
14% gave this book 5 stars
57% gave this book 4 stars
28% gave this book 3 stars
Walking in Circles Before Lying Down
Host: Lisa Leggett
Book:Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe
Meeting Date: December 22,2007
Meeting Time: 10:30am
Meeting Location: Lisa's (Lodi)
Synopsis
Twice-divorced Dawn is the product of a fantastically dysfunctional family (Dawn's sister, Halley, is an overly enthusiastic life coach, her mother is a struggling entrepreneur and her former smalltime rockabilly musician father invests "a lot of time into perfecting... authentic fifties outfits"); her dog, Chuck, begins talking to her after dud radio-DJ boyfriend Paxton dumps her. Though other dogs can also suddenly communicate with Dawn (including Johnny Depp, a friend's dog), Chuck remains the leading pooch as he plies his master with sage advice and astute observations—"He seemed humpy," Chuck opines about one suitor; "Who doesn't like puppies? That's psychotic," he muses about Paxton—as she negotiates the standard fare of chick lit (losing her job, getting mixed up with wacky beaus, aiding her friends through their respective crises, finding a place to live). Until, that is, Chuck runs away, forcing Dawn to realize her true love may not be a biped.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
42% gave this book 4 stars
57% gave this book 3 stars
Love in the Time of Cholera
Host: Christa Williams
Book: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Meeting Date: November 24,2007
Location: Jenny's (Lodi)
Time: 10:30 am
Synopsis
Set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it tells the poignant story of the power of unrequited love, and how lovesickness (much like cholera) can plague human existence. The novel involves a love triangle between Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza and Juvenal Urbino which endures for fifty years, revealed through a flashback from childhood to old age.
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
16% gave this book 3 stars
83% gave this book 1 star
Saving Fish from Drowning
Host: Kris Navarra
Book: Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan
Meeting Date: October 26, 2007
Location: Dave Wong's Restaurant - Stockton,CA
Synopsis
Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses.
And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise - and disappear.
RATINGS:
6 out of 11 members voted.
16% gave this book 4 stars
33% gave this book 3 stars
16% gave this book 2 stars
33% gave this book 1 star
Plain Truth
Host: Mary Kennard
Book: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
Meeting Date: September 1, 2007
Location: Mary's (San Ramon)
Synopsis
Paradise, Pennsylvania, is a jewel in Lancaster County. There, a dead infant is found in the barn of an Amish farmer. Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway finds herself caught in a clash of wills with her client, an unmarried Amish teenager, Katie Fisher.
RATINGS:
7 out of 11 members voted.
14% gave this book 5 stars
71% gave this book 4 stars
14% gave this book 3 stars
Eye Contact
Host: Darla Sorensen
Book: Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern
Meeting Date: July 28, 2007
Location: Darla's (Elk Grove)
Synopsis
In Eye Contact, two children vanish in the woods behind their elementary school. Hours later, nine-year-old Adam is found alive, the sole witness to his playmate's murder. But because Adam has autism, he is a silent witness. Only his mother, Cara, can help decode his behavior for the police. As the suspense ratchets, Eye Contact becomes a heart-stopping exploration of the bond between a mother and a very special child.
RATINGS:
5 out of 11 members voted.
20% gave this book 5 stars
20% gave this book 4 stars
60% gave this book 3 stars
