The Friendship Club

January 1, 2023

In this follow-up to Audrain's New York Times best-selling debut, The Push, a child loudly berated by his mother at a suburban barbeque later slips from his window and ends up in a coma, prompting Whispers in the neighborhood about what really happened. After debuting with the all-star A Proposal They Can't Refuse, Ca�a cooks up A Dish Best Served Hot, featuring a single dad who falls for his daughter's teacher but jeopardizes their relationship with actions (undertaken for familial duty) of which she disapproves (50,000-copy first printing). In mega-popular Carr's The Friendship Table, four women working together on a highly rated cooking show join forces when they discover that their youngest member has an abusive boyfriend (200,000-copy first printing). When her mother, badly injured in an accident, asks Cornelia Brown to bring her the Northern Lights, a puzzled but obliging Cornelia sorts through her mother's secret past to figure out what she means in Watch Us Shine; from New York Times best-selling de los Santos (75,000-copy first printing). In Trinity author Hall's Reproduction, a novelist abandons a book about Mary Shelley that touches on her challenging pregnancies when she confronts her own painful pregnancy and childbirth and instead turns to writing a modern Frankenstein (75,000-copy first printing). The young man who walks into the Cape Cod bookstore where unassuming Harlow Smith works isn't exactly A Little Ray of Sunshine--he's the child she secretly birthed and gave up for adoption 17 years previously; from the New York Times best-selling Higgins. With the death of her husband, popular food blogger Hollis Shaw decides to heal by engaging in something called The Five-Star Weekend, which entails inviting a best friend from each stage of her life to a special gathering--in this case, on mega-best-selling author Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket (750,000-copy first printing). Moderately contented Heather is surprised to find herself gobsmacked when a former flame finds new love, and friends Daphne and Tori have their own troubles, but in Mallery's latest, will The Happiness Plan of each woman work? In Monaghan's Same Time Next Summer, following the LibraryReads pick Nora Goes Off Script, Sam is hunting for a wedding venue near her family's Long Island beach house when she encounters Wyatt, the love of her life until he broke her heart at age 17. Following the LJ-starred The Messy Lives of Book People, also a LibraryReads pick, Patrick's The Little Italian Hotel features relationship expert Ginny Splinter, who's sideswiped when husband Adrian asks for a divorce and recovers by taking four strangers to Italy on the vacation she had originally planned with Aidan in the (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Pride and Piazza's You Were Always Mine, a Black woman named Cinnamon is grateful to be leading a secure, quiet life when she causes an uproar by keeping a white baby she finds abandoned in the park by teenage Daisy, whose grandparents threaten to take custody. In this latest from the beloved Shipman, daring Mary Jackson is Famous in a Small Town in Michigan for her 65-year-old record in the annual cherry pit-spitting contest until modest schoolteacher Becky, determined to shatter her shell, lands in town and breaks the record (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). When her parents die in an accident when she is 23, Cosima Saverio inherits their fabulous Palazzo and haute couture Italian leather brand, but she's all work until...

November 6, 2023
The middling latest from Carr (A Family Affair) follows a Nevada celebrity chef and her friends across the rocky terrain of their love lives. Marni McGuire, 57, has nurtured her culinary empire for decades. Twice married—first to an abusive man who died, then to a husband she divorced for infidelity—she’s reluctant to look for love again. Ellen, her business partner of 20 years, shares the sentiment after spending many years caring for her late husband following his debilitating aneurism. Both women are surprised to connect with new men in their lives: Ellen with a retired fireman who’s working to start a food truck for families displaced by tragedies, and Marni with a farmer and professor who’s the father of her intern Sophia. The women, including Marni’s pregnant daughter, rally around Sophia when she reveals she’s being stalked by her ex, a situation that gives Marni an opportunity to share a story of her own abuse. While the characters are charming, the story goes in circles and rehashes points that have already been covered. Carr occasionally finds momentum, but stalls too many times to keep the reader on board. This one never takes flight.

December 1, 2023
With two streaming television series, Virgin River and Sullivan's Crossing, Carr definitely has a following. This stand-alone novel will offer her fans the same supportive, talented, and kind characters they expect, individuals standing up to abusers and doing their best to make their community a better place. In Breckenridge, Nevada, a suburb of Reno, a syndicated cooking show filmed in Marni's real kitchen has brought several women together. Marni is soon to be a grandmother, courtesy of her daughter, Bella, an attorney. Reclusive Ellen, a fellow chef and co-producer of the show, is befriended by her neighbor, a former firefighter with big dreams. Sophia, the daughter of an agricultural scientist, is a college student interning with the show and caught in what may be a harmful relationship. In the course of a few months, they band together with new men in their lives to protect Sophia and embark on new adventures. Along the way, Carr delves into domestic violence, contemporary agricultural trends, food trends, and wildfires. Readers looking for a good story with relatable characters will be well pleased

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.