DISCUSSION GUIDES

In this story of secrets, self-discovery and forgiveness, a disgraced star flees to Lowcountry SC in search of refuge, connection to family she’s never known, and a great new love story—if only she is brave enough to leave her old life behind.

Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a hand­some husband; a palatial house in the heart of glittering Lagos, Nigeria; and a glamorous group of friends. She left gloomy London and a troubled family past behind for sunny, moneyed Lagos, becoming part of the Nigerwives—a com­munity of foreign women married to Nigerian men.

But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. As the investigation turns up nothing but dead ends, her auntie Claudine decides to take matters into her own hands. Armed with only a cell phone and a plane ticket to Nigeria, she digs into her niece’s life and uncov­ers a hidden side filled with dark secrets, isolation, and even violence. But the more she discovers about Nicole, the more Claudine’s own buried history threatens to come to light.

An inventively told and keenly observant thriller where nothing is as it seems, The Nigerwife offers a razor-sharp look at the bonds of family, the echoing consequences of secrets, and whether we can ever truly outrun our past.

What would you want to remember if you lost all the memories of someone you love? New York Times bestselling phenoms Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher's NEVER NEVER is an angsty, twisty and ultimately beautiful read about two soulmates trying to find their way back to each other, and the secrets that stand in their way.

A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what the younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper, Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin Cukie looks for a father who doesn’t want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.

Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret.

Through this glorious story of land and family, spanning the years 1900 to 1977, you will witness unthinkable changes, joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, and the constant pull of faith and love. "This majestic, sweeping story of family secrets—their curse, their legacy, and their cure—is intimate and profound."—Dani Shapiro, author of SIGNAL FIRES

Both a gritty paranormal thriller and a poignant coming-of-age story set in the Navajo Nation, Ramona Emerson’s Shutter follows Rita Todacheene, a forensic photographer tormented by the crime victims she documents. An explosive debut from one of crime fiction's most powerful new voices, this blood-chilling debut set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation is equal parts gripping thriller, supernatural horror, and poignant portrayal of coming of age on the reservation.

Indigo Isle is a Southern retelling of Beauty and the Beast that’s a perfect summer book club read. When Sonny discovers a secluded island, she comes across “the Monster of Indigo Isle.” Discover if two people haunted by their pasts can find a second chance in each other in this romance.

Don't trust anyone at Blackwood Abbey…  

A young woman inherits a mysterious library and must untangle its powerful secrets.

Far in the future, earth has split apart into thousands of islands dangling between the stars. Privateers search for relics, artifacts, and manuscripts that were lost when the earth split, ships sail the stars like they once sailed oceans, and banished Olde Beings lurk in the Mysts between the islands.

A family wedding. A summer of secrets. A chance to start over again.