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Feature and Contest

Mastering the Art of French Murder: An American in Paris Mystery by Colleen Cambridge

As postwar Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Thanks to her neighbor and friend, Julia Child, another expat who has fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpère and her Oncle Rafe. Between tutoring Americans in French, and sampling the results of Julia's studies at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Tabitha's sojourn is thoroughly delightful.

Our Reader-Selected Best Books of 2024

In our special year-end feature, we asked you to share both your favorite book that you read with your book group and your favorite book that you read outside your group in 2024.

The results are in! Below are the top 10 titles in each category.

Our Reader-Selected Best Books of 2023

Over the last two months, we asked you to share both your favorite book that you read with your book group and your favorite book that you read outside your group in 2023.

The results are in! Below are the top 10 titles in each category.

Our Reader-Selected Best Books of 2022

Over the last two months, we asked you to share both your favorite book that you read with your book group and your favorite book that you read outside your group in 2022.

The results are in! Below are the top 10 selected titles in each category.

Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber

The King of Jordan is turning 60! How better to celebrate the occasion than with his favorite pastime --- fencing --- and with his favorite sparring partner, Gabriel Hamdan. Amani, a divorced poet, jumps at the chance to accompany her father to his homeland for the King’s birthday. Her father’s past is a mystery to her --- even more so since she found a poem on blue airmail paper slipped into one of his old Arabic books, written by his mother, a Palestinian refugee who arrived in Jordan during World War I. Her words hint at a long-kept family secret, carefully guarded by Uncle Hafez, an advisor to the King, who has quite personal reasons for inviting his brother to the birthday party. The Hamdan brothers must face a reckoning, with themselves and with each other --- one that almost costs Amani her life.

Our Reader-Selected Best Books of 2021

Over the last two months, we asked you to share both your favorite book that you read with your book group and your favorite book that you read outside your group in 2021.

The results are in! Below are the top 10 selected titles in each category.

The Husbands by Chandler Baker

Nora Spangler is a successful attorney, but when it comes to domestic life, she packs the lunches, schedules the doctor appointments, knows where the extra paper towel rolls are, and designs and orders the holiday cards. Her husband works hard, too...but why does it seem like she is always working so much harder? When the Spanglers go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch, an exclusive suburban neighborhood, Nora meets a group of high-powered women with enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to help with a resident’s wrongful death case, she is pulled into the lives of the women there. As the case unravels, Nora uncovers a plot that may explain the secret to having it all. One that’s worth killing for.

Masque of Honor: A Historical Novel of the American South by Sharon Virts

General Armistead Mason and John “Jack” Mason McCarty are brothers-in-law, second cousins and descendants of founding father George Mason IV. Ambitious and headstrong, together they set out to find love, acceptance and honor on their own merit. Armistead --- by nature a politician --- demands respect and strives for perfection. Jack --- by inclination a rover --- looks to forge his own path. When Armistead is challenged by corruption in the political machine and is denied a seat in the US Congress, the two become embroiled in a bitter dispute that sets in motion an irrevocable chain of events, leading them to the dueling grounds and an outcome that changes everything.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. She is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother, a Cuban immigrant named Carmen, and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, Carmen must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

The Four Winds (Audiobook) by Kristin Hannah

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work, and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli --- like so many of her neighbors --- must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life.