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MY FRIENDS is May's Barnes & Noble Book Club Selection and #1 Indie Next Pick

In Fredrik Backman's new novel, four teenagers create a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life 25 years later.

Jeanine Cummins' SPEAK TO ME OF HOME is a Deeply Felt Multigenerational Family Story

The novel asks: How can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where they come from?

THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS by Ocean Vuong is Oprah's Latest Book Club Pick

This bighearted novel is about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

American Expat Tabitha Knight and Aspiring Chef Julia Child are Back in a New Mystery

In A FASHIONABLY FRENCH MURDER, which is set in postwar Paris, a killer infiltrates one of the city’s most famous fashion houses.

WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE is Set Against the Landscape of the 20th-Century Lowcountry

This first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrates one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.

Florence Knapp's Extraordinary Debut Novel is May's "Read with Jenna" Book Club Pick

THE NAMES explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

Special Features


Featured Guide: A FASHIONABLY FRENCH MURDER: An American in Paris Mystery, by Colleen Cambridge

Fashion is returning to the forefront in Paris, as the somber hues of wartime are replaced by vibrant colors and ultra-feminine silhouettes, influenced by Christian Dior’s “New Look.” Tabitha and Julia join a friend for a private showing at an exclusive fashion atelier, Maison Lannet. The event goes well, but when Tabitha returns later that evening to search for a lost glove, she finds the lights still on --- and the couturier dead, strangled by a length of lace. The shop manager suspects that a jealous rival --- perhaps Dior himself --- committed the crime. Tabitha dismisses that idea, but when another body is found, it’s apparent that someone is targeting employees of Maison Lannet. It’s up to Tabitha to don her investigative hat and find answers before someone commits another fatal fashion faux pas.

» Click here for the featured guide, which includes discussion questions, info about Colleen Cambridge, and more.


Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for May

Each month, we share top book picks from Indie Next and LibraryReads. We also feature a number of other prominent selections, including the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, Oprah’s Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the "Read with Jenna" Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.

Reese’s Book Club pick for May is GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Emily Henry. In it, two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve. Reese calls it “a mystery, romance, and thriller all rolled into one captivating story!”

» Click here for May's Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks.

Latest Guides

The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner - Historical Fantasy/Adventure

Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse. Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance, and the untamed magic of the sea.

Big Chief by Jon Hickey - Fiction

THERE THERE meets THE NIGHT WATCHMAN in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.

Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

American expat Tabitha Knight has found a new life in postwar Paris, along with a delightful friend in aspiring chef Julia Child. Yet there are perils in peacetime too, as a killer infiltrates one of the city’s most famous fashion houses.

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Historical Fiction

A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom --- and her family’s ties to it --- in this enthralling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and NAACP Image Award-winning author of TAKE MY HAND.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige - Literary Mystery

HEARTWOOD takes readers on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team races against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

Kristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.

The Lilac People by Milo Todd - Historical Fiction

THE LILAC PEOPLE is a moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis and then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves.

The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li - Gothic Fiction

MEXICAN GOTHIC meets THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.

MATRIARCH is a revealing personal life story like no other --- enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering --- and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life 25 years later.

With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Florence Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, in an extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life?

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story that asks: What does it mean to call a place home?

From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.