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Blurbs |
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May 17, 2024
Hybrid meeting
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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The Club by Ellery Lloyd
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Mystery/Thriller
320 pages
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From Goodreads:
From the author of People Like Her comes a smart and sinister murder mystery set in the secretive world of exclusive celebrity clubs.
Everyone's Dying to Join . . .
The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members' clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media.
The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade.
But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide—and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island.
As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list.
Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out.
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April 19, 2024
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
Scroll down for more!
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The Last of What I am by Abigail Cutter
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Historical Fiction/Paranomal
320 pages
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From Goodreads:
A haunting and beautifully written novel about a Confederate soldier whose own personal war follows him into the afterlife—until one fateful day when his encounters with a modern-day couple change everything.
A ghost in his deserted childhood home in Virginia, Tom Smiley can’t forget the bloody war and its meaningless losses, nor can he shed his revulsion for his role in the Confederate defense of slavery. But when a young couple moves in and makes his home their own in the early twenty-first century, trouble erupts—and Tom is forced not only to face his own terrible secret but also to come to grips with his family’s hidden wartime history. He finds an unexpected ally in the house’s new owner, Phoebe Hunter, whose discoveries will have momentous consequences for them both.
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March 22, 2024
Presented in Collaboration with Ubuntu: a book discussion with author Ana Veciana-Suarez
Click here to register
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
Shalala Student Center
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to those who register.
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Dulcinea: A Novel by Ana Veciana-Suarez
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Historical Fiction/316
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From Goodreads:
The Book of Longings meets Ahab's Wife and the work of Geraldine Brooks in Dulcinea, Ana Veciana-Suarez's beautiful homage to Don Quixote.
Dolça, mistress, muse, and lifelong love of Miguel de Cervantes de Cortinas, paints her story against the rich backdrop of Spain as she travels from Barcelona to Madrid at the behest of her dying paramour.
The daughter of a wealthy merchant, young Dolça was besotted with the dashing, bootstrapping author from their first meeting. Despite Miguel's entreaties, the ever-practical Dolça, with her love of luxury and her devotion to her own art, repeatedly refused to upend her life for him, although she always welcomed his attentions on her own terms. However, when Miguel renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his great Quixote, creating a scandal and revealing their association, he commits an unforgivable offense and their decades-long affinity is severed, until he reaches out to her one last time.
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February 16, 2024
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie
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Mystery/336 pages
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From Goodreads: Christie's classic mystery has Poirot racing to solve a crime before an innocent woman is put to death.
Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Welman are the model English couple, perfect companions set for a life of ease when they inherit Aunt Laura's considerable fortune. But a poison pen letter begins a chain of events which is to end in tragedy. Convinced that Mary Gerrard, a childhood playmate of Elinor's, is attempting to ingratiate herself with her aunt for financial gain, the pair travel to the family home to investigate. They find no evidence but Roddy falls desperately in love with the beautiful Mary, little realising that beneath Elinor's restrained and unemotional exterior lies an almost obsessive passion for him. Elinor obeys her aunt's deathbed wish despite her heartbreak, and gives Mary a large bequest from the estate. But when Mary is found poisoned, the evidence against Elinor is damning. It's up to Hercule Poirot to find out if the case is as simple as it seems...
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January 26, 2024
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt
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Fiction/360 pages
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From Goodreads: Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
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December 8, 2023
In-person:
Frost Institute for Chemistry & Molecular Science, Seminar Room (first floor)
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November 17, 2023
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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The House in the Pines: A Novel by Ana Reyes
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Mystery/Thriller/336 pages
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From Goodreads: Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can't account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer--the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother's house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father's book that didn't stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank's cabin....
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
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October 27, 2023
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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If I Survive You by
Jonathan Escoffery
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Short Stories/Fiction/260 pages
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From Goodreads: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 their 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--himself reckoning with his failures as a parent and his longing for Jamaica--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.
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September 22, 2023
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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The Golden Spoon: A Novel by
Jessa Maxwell
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Mystery/Thriller/288 pages
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From Goodreads: For six amateur bakers, competing in Bake Week is a dream come true.
When they arrive at Grafton Manor to compete, they're ready to do whatever it takes to win the ultimate The Golden Spoon.
But for the show's famous host, Betsy Martin, Bake Week is more than just a competition. Grafton Manor is her family's home and legacy - and Bake Week is her life's work. It's imperative that both continue to succeed.
But as the competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it's small acts of sabotage. Someone switching sugar for salt. A hob turned far too high.
But when a body is discovered, it's clear that for someone in the competition, The Golden Spoon is a prize worth killing for... |
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August 25, 2023
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
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Historical Fiction/390 pages
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Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways. |
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July 28, 2023
Hybrid Meeting
In-person:
230 Ashe Administration Building, Coral Gables Campus
Zoom:
Zoom link will be provided to Listserv members prior to the meeting.
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The Maid by Nita Prose
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Mystery, 304 pages
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GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE “A twist-and-turn whodunit, set in a five-star hotel, from the perspective of the maid who finds the body.
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection. But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late? A Clue -like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart. |
