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It’s time to check out the best book club picks for March 2022!
Spring is looking very bright indeed for the publishing industry. For instance, I’m currently reading One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle (which is also on my huge book club list picks for 2022 list) and it’s so great.
I actually just put together this list of spring book club books, which features all new releases—many of which are publishing in March 2022.
As you can see, one list is never enough, right? So this March list features three additional new releases that you should have on your radar was well as two previously released titles. And bonus, the older titles have links to book club questions I wrote for them!
Let’s get to it!
New Releases
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang is a murder mystery that covers family, betrayal, race and much more. However, despite the fact it’s a murder mystery—the story is said to be quite humorous as well. Hmm, maybe comedic touches will become a new trend with mysteries (as seen with The Maid). This promises to be one that will lead to plenty of discussion. Here’s the synopsis:
The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last.
Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead―presumed murdered―and his sons find they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens―and the family dog meets an unexpected fate―Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father’s outsized appetites and their own future survival.
Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.
The Family Chao published on Feb. 1 and is available on Amazon here. To support local bookstores, buy on Bookshop here.
On a Night of a Thousand Stars by Andrea Yaryura Clark
On a Night of a Thousand Stars by Andrea Yaryura Clark follows a young couple as they confront the start of Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s, and a daughter searches for truth twenty years later. I was especially interested to learn that the author Andrea Yaryura Clark grew up in Argentina amid the political violence of the 1970s until her family moved to North America. According to her bio, after completing her university studies, she returned to Buenos Aires to reconnect with her roots. This sounds like a very compelling and thought provoking read. Here’s the synopsis:
New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago’s university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman’s cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little.
When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago’s UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.—a group whose members are the children of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.
In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding—and redemption—people crave in the face of tragedy.
On a Night of a Thousand Stars publishes on March 1. You can order the book on Amazon here. To support local bookstores, buy on Bookshop here.
Until We Meet by Camille Di Maio
A couple years ago, I read Beautiful Strangers by Camille Di Maio and I so enjoyed it! It focuses on Old Hollywood and features a great setting in 1950s San Diego—I highly recommend it. She’s a must-read for historical fiction fans. Camille Di Maio is back with a new novel, Until We Meet. The story follows three friends living in New York City during wartime in 1943. Here’s the synopsis:
New York City, 1943
Can one small act change the course of a life? Margaret’s job at the Navy Yard brings her freedoms she never dared imagine, but she wants to do something more personal to help the war effort. Knitting socks for soldiers is a way to occupy her quiet nights and provide comfort to the boys abroad. But when a note she tucks inside one of her socks sparks a relationship with a long-distance pen pal, she finds herself drawn to a man she’s never even met.
Can a woman hold on to her independence if she gives away her heart? Gladys has been waiting her whole life for the kinds of opportunities available to her now that so many men are fighting overseas. She’s not going to waste a single one. And she’s not going to let her two best friends waste them either. Then she meets someone who values her opinions as much as she likes giving them, and suddenly she is questioning everything she once held dear.
Can an unwed mother survive on her own? Dottie is in a dire situation—she’s pregnant, her fiancé is off fighting the war, and if her parents find out about the baby, they’ll send her away and make her give up her child. Knitting helps take her mind off her uncertain future—until the worst happens and she must lean on her friends like never before.
With their worlds changing in unimaginable ways, Margaret, Gladys, and Dottie will learn that the unbreakable bond of friendship between them is what matters most of all.
Until We Meet publishes on March 1. You can order the book on Amazon here. To support local bookstores, order on Bookshop here.
Previous Releases
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
If you’re looking for more of a romance but with also plenty of depth, be sure to check out Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. This Reese’s Book Club Pick is compelling, romantic and complicated. It’s not simply a love story. But about survival and accepting who you truly are—flaws included. I really enjoyed it. Here’s the synopsis:
Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget, and seven days to get it all back again…
Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award‑winning novelist, who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can’t deny their chemistry—or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years.
Over the next seven days, amidst a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect—but Eva’s wary of the man who broke her heart, and wants him out of the city so her life can return to normal. Before Shane disappears though, she needs a few questions answered…
With its keen observations of creative life in America today, as well as the joys and complications of being a mother and a daughter, Seven Days in June is a hilarious, romantic, and sexy‑as‑hell story of two writers discovering their second chance at love.
You can order the book on Amazon here. To support local bookstores, buy on Bookshop here. Check out my book club questions here.
The Last Flight by Julie Clark
There was a lot of hype surrounding The Last Flight by Julie Clark and it’s so well deserved! It’s a well-crafted mystery/thriller about two women and two flights. They switch places to disappear but trouble still follows. I was shocked by the ending and that doesn’t happen often. A must-read for you thriller lovers. Here’s the synopsis:
Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns bright and he’s not above using his staff to track Claire’s every move.
What he doesn’t know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A plan that takes her to the airport, poised to run from it all. But a chance meeting in the airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision.
The two women switch tickets, with Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico crashes, Claire realizes it’s no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva’s identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.
You can order the book on Amazon here. To support local bookstores, buy on Bookshop here. Check out my book club questions here.
Happy reading!
