This post contains links to products that I may receive compensation from at no additional cost to you. View my Affiliate Disclosure page here.
It’s time for a look at book club picks for February 2024!
It’s about that time to start thinking about which books to select for your February book club meeting! There are so many book publishing this time of year so it can be overwhelming a bit in making of a selection.
So every month, I like to highlight three new books as well as two previously-released titles. That way your book club can have lots of options, whether you want to go with a new read or an older one. And bonus, the older titles already have book club questions written!
Each of the books all centered around relationships—whether it’s romantic or friendships. After all, February is the month about love and some people want to read romantic love while others prefer to focus more on friendships.
And if you want even more newly published books, check out my huge must-read book club picks for 2024 list! This list covers new books publishing each month.
Let’s get to the February list!
New Releases
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams (Feb. 6)
No one writes romance quite like Tia Williams—I love how her characters feel real and vivid. She also establishes such a great sense of place as well. Highly recommend Seven Days in June if you haven’t read it yet.
She returns with a new novel this February, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde. This novel is about a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician who are irreversibly linked through the history, art, and magic of Harlem. Here’s the full synopsis:
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.
Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.
When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.
One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.
Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.
The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka (Jan. 23)
Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka are married and co-write books together! They say their novels are inspired from their own love story. In their latest novel, a rising-star musician has a second chance at love with an old flame she remembers all too well. Here’s the full synopsis:
Riley Wynn went from a promising singer-songwriter to a superstar overnight, thanks to her breakup song concept album and its unforgettable lead single. When Riley’s ex-husband claims the hit song is about him, she does something she hasn’t in ten years and calls Max Harcourt, her college boyfriend and the real inspiration for the song of the summer.
Max hasn’t spoken to Riley since their relationship ended. He’s content with managing the retirement home his family owns, but it’s not the life filled with music he dreamed of. When Riley asks him to go public as her songwriting muse, he agrees on one condition: he’ll join her band on tour.
As they perform across the country, Max and Riley start to realize that while they hit some wrong notes in the past, their future could hold incredible things.And their rekindled relationship will either last forever or go down in flames.
Significant Others by Zoë Eisenberg (Feb. 6)
If you’re looking for a novel that focuses on friendships and features women in their mid-30s, Significant Others sounds like a promising fit. The story centers around two women who have been close since college. But soon their relationship will be tested in ways they never expected. Here’s the full synopsis:
Roommates since college, Jess and Ren have built a strong—if at times codependent—friendship. Now navigating their late thirties, the women co-own a weathered beachfront home, comother a rescued shelter pup and have inadvertently centered their lives around each other.
Jess is clever and driven with a lucrative career running her own real estate brokerage. Magnetic but aimless, Ren has been making margaritas at the same local dive and teaching dance classes at the same run-down gym for well over a decade. After a one-night stand with a tourist leads to pregnancy, Ren realizes motherhood may be the change she’s been waiting for, and the friends make a plan to raise the child together.
Ren is excitedly pushing toward her due date when the baby’s father resurfaces, forcing Jess to face the foreboding notion that for the first time in eighteen years, they may not want the same thing.
Older Titles
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
One of my favorite novels I read last year was Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s such a good love story with a completely relatable protagonist. You all definitely have to read this one! Here’s the full synopsis:
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.
But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called The Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.
Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy—it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right?
Check out my book club questions here.
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Steven Rowley writes stories that truly are heartfelt and impactful. His novel last year The Celebrants is a poignant look at long-term friendships and how they evolve over time. Here’s the full synopsis:
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.
But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
Check out my book club questions here.
Happy reading!
