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Beneath the Book Club: It’s time to ring in the new year with a new book. Which one intrigues you?



 

Hello Beneath the Book Clubbers!

 

We are kicking off our January selections with three of Goodreads reader-favorites of 2024.

 

I chose three intriguing books that rated highest on its favorite fiction list with a total of 530,191 votes.

 

These authors are all new to me, so I’m excited to see which one you pick.

 


1. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

 

Goodreads Choice Award, 50,659 votes

 

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity and the complexities of family.


“The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways.

 

“They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.


“But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.”

 


2. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

 

Goodreads Choice Award, 78,864 votes

 

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?


“Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.


“Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens.

 

“People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future - age 103! - and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.


“How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as ‘The Death Lady.’


“Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.


“A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.


“If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?"

 


3. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

 

Goodreads Choice Award, 78,425 votes

 

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “An exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family - but especially love - from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.


“Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.


“Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties - successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women - his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.


“Ivan is a 22-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother.

 

“Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.


“For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude - a period of desire, despair and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.”



Vote for which book you want to read in January on the Beneath the Surface News Facebook page.

 

The book with the most votes will be announced on Wednesday, Jan. 1.

 

We will discuss it on Tuesday, Jan. 28.



 

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