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It’s time for the book club picks for February 2023 list!
January really flew by! I had plans to read several books but I spent a good amount of time reading Prince Harry’s Spare. And that’s certainly the book of the moment! I highly recommend it as a selection for book clubs—there is so much to discuss. You can find my book club questions here.
Now it’s time to check out some book selections for the month of February! Many book clubs opt for a romance because of Valentine’s Day. So I like to highlight various types of stories centered around love in the list (including the one my IRL book club will read this month).
And as always, I feature both new titles as well as older titles. Let’s get to it!
New Titles
Token by Beverley Kendall
Romance lovers, you have to check out Token by Beverley Kendall. The story follows a Black woman who runs Token, a boutique PR agency that helps “diversity-challenged” companies and celebrities. When her ex shows up needing help with his company’s reputation, things definitely get challenging. Excited for this one. Here’s the synopsis:
Two years ago, Kennedy Mitchell was plucked from the reception desk and placed in the corporate boardroom in the name of diversity. Rather than play along, she and her best friend founded Token, a boutique PR agency that helps “diversity-challenged” companies and celebrities. With corporate America diversifying workplaces and famous people getting into reputation-damaging controversies, Token is in high demand.
Kennedy quickly discovers there’s a lot of on-the-job learning and some messes are not so easily fixed. When Kennedy’s ex shows up needing help repairing his company’s reputation, things get even more complicated. She knows his character is being wrongly maligned, but she’s reluctant to get involved—professionally and emotionally. But soon, she finds herself drawn into a PR scandal of her own.
The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel
I adore Amy Poeppel’s novels! They’re witty, charming and so full of heart. The characters always feel real and you truly connect with them on their journeys. Her latest novel, The Sweet Spot, follows three women who come together when a baby lands on their collective doorstep. Can’t wait for this one. Here’s the synopsis:
Lauren and her family—lucky bastards—have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive 70s wallpaper. Adding to the home’s bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in, Lauren discovers that she has already made an enemy in the neighborhood by inadvertently sparking the divorce of a couple she has never actually met.
Melinda’s husband of thirty years has dumped her for a young celebrity entrepreneur named Felicity, and, to Melinda’s horror, the lovebirds are soon to become parents. In her incandescent rage, Melinda wreaks havoc wherever she can, including in Felicity’s Soho boutique, where she has a fit of epic proportions, which happens to be caught on film.
Olivia—the industrious twenty-something behind the counter, who has big dreams and bigger debt—gets caught in the crossfire. In an effort to diffuse Melinda’s temper, Olivia has a tantrum of her own and gets unceremoniously canned, thanks to TikTok.
When Melinda’s ex follows his lover across the country, leaving their squalling baby behind, the three women rise to the occasion in order to forgive, to forget, to Ferberize, and to track down the wayward parents. But can their little village find a way toward the happily ever afters they all desire? Welcome to The Sweet Spot.
The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges
For those seeking an imaginative and unique novel, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges is for you. The story is called a modern fairy tale—it sounds so lovely. Here’s the synopsis:
From her attic in the Arizona mountains, thirty-four-year-old Myra Malone blogs about a dollhouse mansion that captivates thousands of readers worldwide. Myra’s stories have created legions of fans who breathlessly await every blog post, trade photographs of Mansion-modeled rooms, and swap theories about the enigmatic and reclusive author. Myra herself is tethered to the Mansion by mysteries she can’t understand—rooms that appear and disappear overnight, music that plays in its corridors.
Across the country, Alex Rakes, the scion of a custom furniture business, encounters two Mansion fans trying to recreate a room. The pair show him the Minuscule Mansion, and Alex is shocked to recognize a reflection of his own life mirrored back to him in minute scale. The room is his own bedroom, and the Mansion is his family’s home, handed down from the grandmother who disappeared mysteriously when Alex was a child. Searching for answers, Alex begins corresponding with Myra. Together, the two unwind the lonely paths of their twin worlds—big and small—and trace the stories that entwine them, setting the stage for a meeting rooted in loss, but defined by love.
Older Titles
The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez
The Friend Zone was selected by my IRL book club for February! I read it back in 2019 and really enjoyed it. It has a catchy title and a fun cover but the story does cover some serious topics and is quite heartfelt at times. Here’s the synopsis:
Kristen Peterson doesn’t do drama, will fight to the death for her friends, and has no room in her life for guys who just don’t get her. She’s also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it impossible for her to have children.
Planning her best friend’s wedding is bittersweet for Kristen — especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He’s funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he’d be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it’s harder and harder to keep him at arm’s length.
The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.
Check out my book club questions here.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
For those seeking a different type of love story, be sure to check out Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. The story follows two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—who become creative partners. Here’s the synopsis:
From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
Check out my book club questions here.
Happy reading!