Last month we trialed a new system for the book club reads and I think it worked pretty well. We have had some positive feedback from members which is always encouraging and it ran smoothly which was what had me the most worried.
A successful first run has meant we are going to run the August book clubs on the same system.
We have 7 book clubs booked in for August, I have them all ready and I have all but one of the books on my shelf. So I am going to give you a little info on each of the books here and you can let us know what you want to read and how much you want it.
This month we have a memoir, some romance, YA fantasy and suspense. I’m sure there will be something for everyone.
Lost for Words – Stephanie Butland
You can trust a book to keep your secret . . .
Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look closely, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are things she’ll never show you.
Fifteen years ago Loveday lost all she knew and loved in one unspeakable night. Now, she finds refuge in the unique little York bookshop where she works.
Everything is about to change for Loveday. Someone knows about her past. Someone is trying to send her a message. And she can’t hide any longer.
Lost for Words is a compelling, irresistible and heart-rending novel, with the emotional intensity of The Shock of the Fall and all the charm of The Little Paris Bookshop and 84 Charing Cross Road.
Sam’s Best Shot – Dr James Best
A father and son’s life-changing journey through Autism, adolescence and Africa. Inspiring, entertaining and a beacon of hope for those touched by autism.
Life with a teenage boy on the autism spectrum has its challenges. Fourteen-year-old Sam is a world authority on Harry Potter but can’t get to the corner store on his own.
Sam’s parents Dr James Best and Benison O’Reilly decide to think radically to help their son. They sell the family home to finance a six-month-long trip to Africa for James and Sam, in the hope that it will have far-reaching and life-changing results for Sam.
Their plan is to take Sam a long way out of his comfort zone, so that he has to face new challenges and learn to navigate the completely unexpected – and that the exposure of all of these new experiences will help Sam grow emotionally and conversationally to achieve what he hasn’t been able to in a familiar environment.
The results were extraordinary and will give hope to many families dealing with autism.
Sam’s Best Shot is the moving and inspiring account of the amazing journey James and Sam took through the teeming cities and stunning landscapes of ten African countries – nerve-wracking and hugely challenging, but also transformative, fulfilling and entertaining. This is a father and son story like no other.
‘James Best and his son travel across Africa in the search for nothing other than randomness and unpredictability. It presents as a travelogue with autism as a sub-plot but, in fact, it is a divine love story of a father and son who are bound together in the adventure of their lifetime.’ Nicole Rogerson, CEO Autism Awareness Australia
The Making of Christina – Meredith Jaffé
Interior designer Christina Clemente is caught off guard by an intense affair with her charismatic client. Jackson Plummer quickly becomes the cure to Christina’s loneliness and a surrogate father to her young daughter Bianca.
When Jackson suggests moving to a run-down farm in the mountains, Christina is uncertain about uprooting their lives in the city. She soon forgets her hesitation, absorbing herself in restoring the rambling century-old house, Bartholomews Run, and becoming obsessed with solving its mysterious history.
But while living on the isolated farm, her once effervescent child transforms into a quiet sullen teenager and Christina increasingly struggles to connect with her.
Because Bianca has a secret. And the monstrous truth threatens to destroy them all.
Poignant and thought-provoking, The Making of Christina will have you questioning how well you know the people you love, the price of truth, and how easily it could happen to you.
Beneath the Skin – Melissa James
I’m coming for you. This time, it’s forever…’
Flying Doctor Elly Lavender has spent years on the run from a violent stalker. Her obsessive former patient will do anything and threaten anyone in his campaign to force her to love him. When her most recent cover is blown, she runs for help to the childhood friend she could never get out of her mind — outback cop Adam Jepson.
Isolated, hurting, all Adam wants is to forget. After the deaths of his wife and son three years before, he’s moved to the outback with his young daughter, Zoe, to put the past behind him for good. But when Elly walks into his station, she reminds him of all the childhood joy and love he’d forgotten. Soon, he’s lost in a desire he never knew could exist. And while his guilt at leaving Elly behind years ago and the vow he made to his dying wife means he can never be the man she needs, he can’t stop caring, can’t stop trying to make Elly’s life right. Though the whole town seems against them, he can’t stop wanting the forbidden.
But when anonymous harassment escalates to murder, Elly knows her presence in Macks Lake has put Adam and Zoe’s lives at risk. Everyone’s safer if she remains alone — a fact that her stalker is very much counting on as he gets ever closer to his prey…
The House on Jindalee Lane – Jennie Jones
The launch of the warm and witty new Daughters of Swallow’s Fall series, from the author of the internationally bestselling The House on Burra Burra Lane.
Actress Edie Granger is in a spot of trouble. When a big-time producer threatens to ruin her career—and possibly the rest of her life—she flees to her remote hometown in the Snowy Mountains and opens a Little Theatre to put on her comedy whodunnit Who Shot the Producer.
Childhood friend and ex-Commando Ryan Munroe has returned to Swallow’s Fall to see if there’s a future for him and Edie after their disastrous but unforgettable first and only kiss three years ago. She’s still dazzling, still in love with her career and still out of his reach. He’s about to leave town when he learns that Edie might have trouble on her heels.
Struggling with her growing attraction to Ryan, and torn between her career and a rekindled love for her hometown, Edie focuses on generating her cast and crew from the 182 Swallow’s Fall residents, and producing her play. But when elements from the play start happening for real, the comedy turns dangerous.
Edie is suddenly centre stage in the biggest role of her life.
Can she pull it off? And can Ryan ensure everyone survives to make it to the curtain call?
Daughter of the Burning City – Amanda Foody
A darkly irresistible new fantasy set in the infamous Gomorrah Festival, a traveling carnival of debauchery that caters to the strangest of dreams and desires.
Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival’s Freak Show.
But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered.
Desperate to protect her family, Sorina must track down the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn’t actually exist. Her search for answers leads her to the self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca, and their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance, and into the most sinister corners of the Festival. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions one by one, she must unravel the horrifying truth before all of her loved ones disappear.
Nineteen Letters – Jodi Perry
Braxton
Nineteen. There’s something about that number; it not only brought us together, bonding us forever, it also played a hand in tearing us apart.
The nineteenth of January 1996. I’ll never forget it. It was the day we met. I was seven and she was six. It was the day she moved in next door, and the day I developed my first crush on a girl.
Exactly nineteen years later, all my dreams came true when she became my wife. She was the love of my life. My soul mate. My everything. The reason I looked forward to waking up every morning.
Then tragedy struck. Nineteen days after we married, she was in an accident that would change our lives forever. When she woke from her coma, she had no memory of me, of us, of the love we shared.
I was crushed. She was my air, and without her I couldn’t breathe.
The sparkle that once glistened her eyes when she looked at me was gone. To her, now, I was a stranger. I had not only lost my wife, I had lost my best friend.
But I refused to let this tragedy be the end of us. That’s when I started to write her letters, stories of our life. Of when we met. About the happier times, and everything we had experienced together.
What we had was far too beautiful to be forgotten.
What a wonderful selection on offer in August. I look forward to reading with our members, and hearing what they think.
A huge thanks goes out to the publishers without whom we could not offer such great reads.
If you aren’t yet a member of the Beauty and Lace Club there is still time to join, head over to the signup page and take a look: yoursay.beautyandlace.net.
Keep an eye out for the reviews to start coming in! Good luck and happy reading!
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
July was fantastic in the way it was organised. LOVE seeing the complete selections and enough detail to be able to make informed choices. Great work, Michelle, Anna and the Team. Looking forward to August reading.
Thanks Trish,
it was one of those things that could have been very hit and miss.
I’m glad it’s been so well received.