Shelf Indulgence Book Club

For Your Own Good  by Samantha Downing is being adapted into a TV series at HBO Max. For all the details about this upcoming show, here’s what we know about the For Your Own Good HBO Max TV Series: What’s it about? What’s the plot? From the Hollywood Reporter:  For Your Own Good  “takes place within the halls of New England’s prestigious Belmont Academy. Set amid Ivy League admissions rolling in, stiff competition for this year’s coveted Teacher of the Year Award and planning for the memorial statue for the recently deceased headmaster, the book and potential series also explore the run of poisonings and dead bodies that have started to pile up at the university.” What format will it be? Will the For Your Own Good adaptation be a Movie or a Series? It’s planned as a  limited series , to be aired on  HBO Max .  Who’s behind it? Robert Downey Jr.’s production company, Team Downey, and Greg Berlanti  ( Dawson’s Creek, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood , et...

Our past shapes our future, but how are our choices also shaped by desperation? Do No Harm explores the lengths a mother will go to save her son, at any cost. Author Christina McDonald joined us to discuss her connection to her story, and why she wanted her story to be as gray and hazy as a Seattle winter day. Christina takes herself along for a ride with the reader as she writes; she knew her arc for Emma, but she lets Emma figure out where to go and what to do rather than plot her steps for her. Emma’s frantic desperation to keep her web of lies together is   real ; she doesn’t know what’s going to happen, only that she must grasp at whatever she can to save her son. If Christina’s writing felt personal, this was intentional. Many of us in Shelf Indulgence have a connection in some form to the addiction epidemic, whether through family, friends, or work. Christina’s own experience shadows Emma’s; a brother battling addiction, in and out of treatment and relational awareness. When...

We were so lucky today to have Christina Mcdonald join us for our discussion of Do No Harm. We wanted to share the discussion with those that couldn't make it but may have loved the book as much as we did:  Play Video Enjoy! 

Introduction From the  USA TODAY  bestselling author of  Behind Every Lie  and  The Night Olivia Fell  comes an unforgettable and heart-wrenching novel about the lengths one woman will go to save her son. Emma loves her life. She’s the mother of a precocious kindergartener, married to her soulmate—a loyal and loving police detective—and has a rewarding career as a doctor at the local hospital. But everything comes crashing down when her son, Josh, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Determined to save him, Emma makes the risky decision to sell opioids to fund the life-saving treatment he needs. But when somebody ends up dead, a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues, her own husband leading the chase. With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Emma is dragged into the dark world of drugs, lies, and murder. Will the truth catch up to her before she can save Josh? A timely and moving exploration of a town gripped by the opioid epidemic, and featuring Chris...

How honored we are at Shelf Indulgence Book Club to be featured in Evie Green's first novel in the acknowledgements section of We Hear Voices, paperback.  You sure did make this book club feel special. You will always have our full support.  Check it and the book out for yourself:  We Hear Voices by   Evie Green     3.62   ·    An eerie horror debut about a little boy who recovers from a mysterious pandemic and inherits an imaginary friend who makes him do violent things... Kids have imaginary friends. Rachel knows this. So when her young son, Billy, miraculously recovers from a horrible flu that has proven fatal for many, she thinks nothing of Delfy, his new invisible friend. After all, her family is healthy and that's all that matters. But soon Delfy is telling Billy what to do, and the boy is acting up and lashing out in ways he never has before. As Delfy's influence is growing stranger and more sinister by the day, and rising tension...

As an author, a big part of my writing process is distilling things from my life into the fictional worlds I create. All of my books include these little peaks into my life; my characters are built from what I see and hear, things people do, unique characteristics I notice, like a flick of the hair or a love of Bocelli or a loathing for the grate of a nail file. Do No Harm, however, is my most personal book yet. While the plot and the characters are entirely from my imagination, much of the story is emotionally authentic to me as its author.   The most strikingly personal aspect of Do No Harm is the central theme around the opioid epidemic. Dr. Emma Sweeney, my protagonist, has a brother who’s struggled with addiction most of her life, and this is true for me as well. I’ve spent most of my life watching my brother’s addiction to opioids, and this is why I’ve known for a while that I wanted to set a book against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic.   But there are other moments...

What an honor it was today to find out that Shelf Indulgence Book Club was featured on Mitch Albums Reading Group Page. Mitch is one of my all time favorite authors. I re-read Tuesday's With Morrie annually and find that I always take something different away depending on what is going on with life. It is a book that has shaped me, moved me, and will always be with me. I can never thank Mitch enough for writing it.  Mitch says that hearing someone discuss your book or read a favorite line aloud with others is a writer’s dream. He said it is such an honor to hear from reading groups like ours who have had valuable and formative discussion because of one of his books. He loves reading groups, and wishes he could visit with all of us. Since that’s just not possible, he's created this section for reading groups and book clubs to build a profile.  I registered our group earlier this year and was honored that we were posted and featured.  We're so excited to...

  So, was our Nov. 7th meeting a book club discussion OR a free wheeling graduate course in the history of horror in fiction and cinema, along with thoughts on Jungian psychology, feminism in slasher films, and insights into how authors navigate the transformation of their books into films and television series? You’re right. All of the above. As for how author Grady Hendrix, who has had considerable success with his novels being turned into movies, manages that conversion: simple. He becomes an integral part of the process. Grady is, understatement, a wealth of knowledge. Here are just a few of his references that surfaced during our discussion (they are all very intriguing): The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - a compilation of short stories which are reworked well known folk stories.  Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, a book by Carol J. Clover - here is the origin of the “final girl” term. Clover’s book doesn’t condescend to the horror fan, bu...

We were so lucky today to have Grady Hendrix join us for our discussion of The Final Girl Support Group. We wanted to share the discussion with those that couldn't make it but may have loved the book as much as we did:  Play Video Enjoy! 

Synopsis:  A fast-paced, thrilling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for, from the brilliant New York Times bestselling author of  The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires . In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her? Lynnette Tarkington survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by...