Shelf Indulgence Book Club

We at Shelf Indulgence Book Club had a great year, we hope you did too. Here is to hoping next year is just as exciting but a little glimpse of how this year wrapped up...

  Synopsis Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time. But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes. Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a con...

 Hey to all our Shelf Indulgence Followers.  Our 2022 Reading list is officially ready for review. Will you be joining us to discuss? Just want to follow along on your own? Check out the list here: We have a bookmark for easy printing or a larger format if you want to put it on your wall.  We can't wait for this upcoming year!!

I was fortunate enough to work with the publishers and to get the book club kit for Mother May I with Joshilyn Jackson. I'm going to leave you today with our Q&A for the book. Q: Mother May I is your tenth novel! Congrats! Can you tell us in your own words a little bit about this book?  JJ: It’s the story of a young mother, Bree Cabbat, who briefly looks away from her youngest child—and he’s gone. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. We’ve all had that moment. For ninety-nine-point-near-infinity percent of us, our kid saw a bird and squirted off sideways, and that dizzying, stomach-drop horror is resolved to the good in three seconds.  Bree is not so lucky. Her son has been taken. Because this is a Joshilyn Jackson novel, I think you’ve already guessed that this is not about anything as simple as money. In this book, the past has a pulse, and teeth, and it has caught up to Bree Cabbat.  The woman who took the baby is a mother herself, and while what she asks f...

About the Book:  The  New York Times  bestselling author of the critically acclaimed  Never Have I Ever  builds on her success with this addictive novel of domestic suspense in which a mother must decide how far she is willing to go to protect her child and the life she loves—a chilling and thoughtful tale of power, privilege, lies, revenge, and the choices we make, ones that transform our lives in unforeseen ways. Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected her mother’s fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Having married into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world. Until the day she awakens and sees a witch peering into her bedroom window— an old gray-haired woman dressed all in black w...

Samantha Downing’s  For Your Own Good  isn’t a who done it thriller; it’s a will they catch the killer thriller. And with a complex set of intertwined, fallible characters, that indeed is the question: will someone catch Teddy, and if so, who will survive to catch him? Samantha herself didn’t know how her thriller would end when she set out, or who would still be alive by the end. And neither did we! What makes Samantha works so pleasant to read (or listen to) is Samantha herself; she’s a pleasant person in general, and she’s very open about her writing process. With a laugh, she admits that she had no idea that her detail about Teddy’s after work drink being milk would garner such a visceral reaction. Milk is supposed to do a body good, right? Our takeaway: milk drinkers must be sociopaths (sorry Becky!). Teddy was Samantha’s favorite character to write, and whether you see him as Joshua Jackson or Joseph Gordon Levitt (beauty is in the doll’s eye of the beholder, after all),...

Synopsis: Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the esteemed Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn't be more proud—though no one has seen her in a while. Teddy really can’t be bothered with the death of a school parent that’s looking more and more like murder or the student digging a little too deep into Teddy’s personal life. His main focus is on pushing these kids to their full academic potential. All he wants is for his colleagues—and the endlessly meddlesome parents—to stay out of his way. It's really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost. USA Today bestselling author Samantha Downing is back with her latest sneaky thriller set at a prestigious private school—complete with interfering parents, overeager students, and one teacher who just wants to teach them all a lesson… Discussion Questions: Overall, which characters did like? Which ones did you hate?  Is there anyone you rooted for? Why? How does the ...

  We were so lucky today to have Samantha Downing join us for our discussion of For Your Own Good. 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!