Shelf Indulgence Book Club

The Synopsis  Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year:  Protect her . Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.   The Last Thing He Told Me Book Club Questions  When you first read that Owen went missing, what did you think happened? Owen’s note to Hannah says—protect her. We know he’s talking about Bailey and protecting her from the past. Why didn’t Owen write more to Hannah? Do you believe ...

What was your inspiration for this book?  I’ve always been fascinated by true crime, particularly cases that involve fraud and embezzlement. In the early 2000s, I was intrigued by the financial scandal at Enron. I remember watching Linda Lay [wife of Enron’s CEO, Kenneth Lay] give an interview proclaiming that her husband did nothing wrong. I started to imagine, then, the story of a woman who felt certain of her husband’s innocence despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I didn’t put pen to paper for  The Last Thing He Told Me , though, until almost a decade later when I came to the question I wanted to explore in writing this novel. I wanted to think about what it is to know the people closest to us. To know the people we love the most.  Which character was the easiest and most challenging to write?  Hannah was the easiest because I was experiencing everything through her journey. Owen was the hardest because he made decisions I don't agree with.  Protect he...

EXCLUSIVE :  Jennifer Garner  is set to headline and executive produce Apple TV+ limited series  The Last Thing He Told Me . Based on the  New York Times No. 1 bestseller, the series is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, who optioned the book from author Laura Dave and serves as the studio on the project with 20th Television. Created by Dave and co-created by Oscar winner Josh Singer ( Spotlight ), the  Last Thing He Told Me  adaptation follows a woman (Garner) who forms an unexpected relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter while searching for the truth about why her husband has mysteriously disappeared. The Last Thing He Told Me  is executive produced by Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine, as well as Garner and married duo Dave and Singer. This marks the second Apple TV+ limited series Garner is headlining and executive producing, alongside an adaptation of Amy Silverstein’s memoir  My Glory Was I Had Such Fr...

  **SPOILERS AHEAD** This author review discusses Christina McDonald’s first book,   The Night Olivia Fell . If you haven’t read it yet, (and we certainly recommend you do), go grab a copy, a cup of coffee, and find a cozy spot to read before continuing.   We started off our discussion with a who’s who of who has had Covid and which variants. Small talk and ice breakers have certainly changed in the past two years, haven’t they?   Christina was pregnant, and then raising an infant when she was writing this book. One day, while rocking her newborn for two hours just to get the little guy to sleep, she read a tragic news story about a young girl who had become brain dead due to complications from a medical procedure. Processing this tragedy, combined with caring for an infant, got her ‘what ifs’ going, and they led her to her story’s premise.   The chapters of   The Night Olivia Fell   alternate between two narrators; Protective mom Abi, and good teen go...

We were so lucky today to have Christina Mcdonald back for a second time with our book club to join us for our discussion of The Night Olivia Fell. 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: In the vein of  Big Little Lies  and  Reconstructing Amelia  comes an emotionally charged domestic suspense novel about a mother unraveling the truth behind how her daughter became brain dead. And pregnant. A search for the truth. A lifetime of lies. In the small hours of the morning, Abi Knight is startled awake by the phone call no mother ever wants to get: her teenage daughter Olivia has fallen off a bridge. Not only is Olivia brain dead, she’s pregnant and must remain on life support to keep her baby alive. And then Abi sees the angry bruises circling Olivia’s wrists. When the police unexpectedly rule Olivia’s fall an accident, Abi decides to find out what really happened that night. Heartbroken and grieving, she unravels the threads of her daughter’s life. Was Olivia’s fall an accident? Or something far more sinister? Christina McDonald weaves a suspenseful and heartwrenching tale of hidden relationships, devastating lies, and the power of a mother’s l...

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...