Shelf Indulgence Book Club

The disappearance of a young woman leaves her best friend reeling and an NYPD homicide detective digging into her own past in this twisty mystery about the power of female friendships. From the  New York Times  bestselling author of  The Better Sister  and  The Wife. Some pasts won’t stay forgotten . . .  She calls herself Hope Miller, but she has no idea who she actually is. Fifteen years ago, she was found in a small New Jersey town thrown from an overturned vehicle, with no clue to her identity. Doctors assumed her amnesia was a temporary side effect of her injuries, but she never regained her memory. Hope eventually started a new life with a new name in a new town that welcomed her, yet always wondered what she may have left behind—or been running from. Now, she’s leaving New Jersey to start over once again. Manhattan defense lawyer Lindsay Kelly, Hope’s best friend and the one who found her after the accident, understands why Hope wants a new beginning...

 Synopsis ABOUT  THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT What would happen if we called on God for help and God actually appeared? In Mitch Albom’s profound new novel of hope and faith, a group of shipwrecked passengers pull a strange man from the sea. He claims to be “the Lord.” And he says he can only save them if they all believe in him. Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in. “Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says. “I am the Lord,” the man whispers. So begins Mitch Albom’s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet. Albom has written of heaven in the celebrated number one bestsellers  The Five People You Meet in Heaven  and  The First Phone Call from Heaven . Now, for the first time in his fiction, he ponders what we would do if, after crying out for divine help, God actually appeared before us? What might the L...

What if God was one of us? If not as old as time, it’s a question at least as old as Joan Osborne. In Mitch Albom’s latest thought-provoking novel, THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT, God is one of us. He is a fellow passenger aboard a small lifeboat. The book is segmented into three sections: Land, Sea and News. In the chapters labeled Sea, we read the chronicles of nine near-strangers stranded at sea in the aftermath of their ship’s suspicious explosion. Each was either a crew member or a guest upon the sunken vessel,  Galaxy , a mega-million-dollar yacht belonging to billionaire Jason Lambert. The boat harbors two chefs, an Olympian, a makeup mogul, a silent girl, a Greek ambassador to the United Nations, a hairdresser, a British media executive, Jason Lambert himself, and a deckhand named Benji who chronicles the events upon the lifeboat. "Evocative, tragic and beautiful, THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT is a book with the potential to reach far beyond its own pages." While this st...

  About the Book: He saw what you did. He knows who you are… From the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Pieces of Her  and  The Silent Wife , an electrifying standalone thriller. AN ORDINARY LIFE… Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life.  She’s an up-and-coming defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta, would do anything for her sixteen-year-old daughter Maddy, and is managing to successfully co-parent through a pandemic after an amicable separation from her husband Walter. HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST… But Leigh’s ordinary life masks a childhood no one should have to endure … a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and ultimately destroyed by a brutal act of violence. BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP… On a Sunday night at her daughter’s school play, she gets a call from one of the partners who wants Leigh to come on board to defend a wealthy man accused of multiple counts of rape. Though wary of ...

Synopsis:  From the author of  The Longest Ride  and  The Return  comes a novel about the enduring legacy of first love—and the decisions that haunt us forever.   1996 is the year that changes everything for Maggie Dawes. Sent away at 16 to live with an aunt she barely knows in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, she can think only of the friends and family she left behind . . . until her aunt introduces her to Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly admitted to West Point Academy, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the wind-swept beach town—and introduces her to photography, a passion that will define the rest of her life . . . as will Bryce.   By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer. She splits her time between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing remote locations around the world. But this year, she finds herself unexpectedly g...

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...