Curse of Penryth Hall
Jess Armstrong

This is the book I found the most enjoyable to read of my Afternoon-In picks this year. It’s a mystery, which of course is a very broad genre, so let me get specific— it’s a gothic, historical, British mystery. Our heroine is Ruby Vaughn, an adult orphan American heiress living and working in Exeter. Ruby works at a rare books bookstore for an octogenarian who is also her housemate and in many ways surrogate parent, or maybe grandparent. Ruby is sent to deliver some books to the Cornish countryside, and she ends up staying at a home well-known to her from the past, Penryth Hall, which is now where her once-dearest friend Tamsyn is living with her stuffy husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. After suffering through supper with Tamsyn and Sir Edward and all have turned in for the night, Sir Edward is found dead, which is blamed on the curse of the home Penryth Hall, in which a number of its occupants have died of unnatural causes. Of course Ruby can’t leave now, there’s a murder to solve! Ruby is plucky and the book is filled with characters to love and to hate, or puzzle over, when it comes to Pellar, the man who ordered the box of books that Ruby delivered and is believed by the locals to have the power to break the Penryth Hall curse. This book is for fans of Midsomer Murders and Downton Abbey. This is the first book in a series. The second book was just released last month in hardcover and the third book is scheduled to release in November, so I’m looking forward to more Ruby!

My Friends
Hisham Matar

While I’m a bit of a book snob in terms of good writing, I don’t usually take the time to pore over especially good writing in longer pieces, but with this book, I got to the end of the first page, set the book down, let the writing sink in, texted a friend to say O M G and then picked it up and re-read the page. I didn’t do that with every page, or I’d still be reading it, but I don’t think I’m overstating it to say if you appreciated the beauty of Khaled Hosseini’s books, Kite Runner, for example, you’ll likely appreciate the writing of My Friends by Hisham Matar. As it turns out, I’m not the only one who likes his writing, he’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Anyway, My Friends: A boy named Khaled and his family living in Libya in the 1980s hear a short story read on the radio - it’s a strange, unsettling story that stays with the family for years, especially Khaled. When Khaled is old enough to go away to school, he moves to London and begins to become more politically aware of the world in general and more specifically, his home Libya. At a political protest, an incident occurs that permanently ties him to a fellow friend and has the consequence that he cannot return to Libya. In a chance encounter at a hotel in Paris, Khaled meets the author of the short story he heard as a boy and they become friends. This novel really is the biography so to speak of Khaled’s friendships. I think this book has a not-great cover and the title is so very boring, but when you read the book, you understand that My Friends is really the only option for this book title. It’s an in-depth exploration of friendship, of course, family, country, and politics. It has a lot of meat for those who give it the space and time it demands.

Poor Deer
Claire Oshetsky

Typically for Night-In, one of us ends up reading a book that can best be described as “quirky.” This year, the quirky book is a novel titled Poor Deer. Margaret and Agnes, two neighbor young girls, maybe 5 years old are playing and an accident takes the life of Agnes. Margaret overhears adults say “Poor Dear,” in talking about the death of Agnes. Margaret hears this as “poor deer,” and her imagination creates a sort of imaginary friend that is a deer, that Margaret calls Poor Deer. As Margaret grows up, Poor Deer stays with her. Poor Deer is sometimes helpful and comforting, but often a trial. The book is Margaret recounting, at age 16, the tragedy that occurred when she was a young child. Along the way, the reader understands that Margaret’s home life is not perfect, her mother has her own struggles and living next door to Agnes’ mother is hard until Agnes’ mother moves away and then, it’s even harder. If you’re a reader that needs a book to be absolutely linear, this is not for you. If you’re a reader who is willing to wander the convoluted mind of a child who has suffered a terrible loss, give this book a try. It’s a fairly short book that reads quickly, but don’t be surprised if you get to the last page, and then flip to the first page again and decide to give it another go—it’s that kind of book. This could be springboard for some really terrific discussion. If you read it, let me know what you think, if you agree that it’s quirky.

Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
Marion Gibson

This is most definitely a work of nonfiction and the key part of the title is the subtitle, A History in Thirteen Trials. It’s not a comprehensive history of witchcraft, which would be pretty unwieldy. The thing about witchcraft is, is it a religious issue? A criminal issue? A civil issue? If it’s a criminal issue, then it’s interesting that for the most part, it’s women that are accused of witchcraft, when so often serious crimes are committed by men. In this book, the author focuses on 13 criminal trials, spanning from the 1480s to today. (To be completely honest, I wasn't thrilled with #13, but still, 12 out of 13 ain’t bad and who knows, maybe that chapter would provide the most fodder for discussion.) What I liked about this book was the way the author would continue to refer back to earlier trials as you read new ones, it kept the history as a whole fresh in my mind. These are trials that happened around the world, not just on this continent. 

Mercury
Amy Jo Burns

Of all the books I read for this event, this is the one I feel is the most solidly good book group material. It’s a family story, set in a town named Mercury. When Marley West and her mom roll into Mercury in 1990, Marley is almost immediately drawn into the Joseph family - parents Mick and Elise and their three sons: Baylor, Waylon, and the baby of the family, Shay. The Joseph men run a roofing business, with dad Mick at the helm. Marley begins eating supper at the Joseph table, and slowly becomes part of the family. Mom Elise is initially friendly but eventually becomes standoffish for reasons Marley doesn’t understand. When Marley marries one of the sons, has a baby, and takes Shay under her wing, she becomes further enmeshed with the family. As with any good family saga, there’s love and tension and secrets. Mercury delivers all of this. It even includes a dead body and a mystery, although that’s in the background not the foreground, believe it or not. These characters are people you know - either you are one of them, you’ve lived with them, or at the very least, you live among them.

Mother, Nature
Jedidiah Jenkins

In the 1970s, Peter and Barbara Jenkins wrote an enormously popular series of books based on their 5,000 mile walk across the United States. You may have heard of this series, Walk Across America.

Fast forward to the 2020s. Peter and Barbara have been divorced for years. One of their children, Jedidiah, is close to both of them. When his mother turns 70, Jedidiah realizes with a jolt that she won’t live forever. They’ve talked for a long time about taking a trip together, just the two of them, and he realizes it’s time to do it while they still can. They decide to retrace, by car, the trip Barbara and Peter made on foot.

The back story is that Jedidah and Barbara disagree about just about everything: politics, religion, music.  But they love each other and are determined to make their trip work. Jedidiah’s relationship with his mother is further complicated because he is gay, and she has a strong conservation faith which sees his sexual orientation as sinful. On the trip, Jedidiah is determined to ask her if she would attend his wedding if he were to marry a man.

Every trip can be challenging, don’t you think? Negotiating all sorts of differences. Jedidiah and Barbara have just enough in common to make it work. They listen together to podcasts about true crime, eat in roadside diners, and stop at thrift stores. Along the way, Jedidiah learns the ways in which the original trip shaped Barbara into the woman she is today. Underneath it all, they explore how to stay in a relationship which hurts but is grounded in love.

I won’t tell you how the book ends, but I will say that Barbara and her son’s journey is as unforgettable as their relationship is. Read the book and tell me if you agree.

Note: last month, the Beagle Women’s Book Group had a good and lively discussion of this book. Whew!

The Crescent Moon Tearoom
Stacy Sivinski

You’ve probably noticed that the books in our store are arranged in categories: fiction, kids’ books, and non-fiction, for example. Books we can’t easily fit in a category are often on display, but that’s a different story.

There are trends in the book world, just as there are in the rest of life, and to keep up with the times we’ve created a new category, “Romantasy.” It straddles fantasy and romance. Not wanting to be left behind, I read my very first romantasy in preparation for Afternoon In.

The Crescent Moon Tearoom is set in Chicago in the 1890s. Three sisters, who are triplets, have run the teashop since the deaths of their parents. They have quite a following—in addition to delicious tea and baked goods, they tell fortunes. Their lives are quiet, predictable, and comfortable—until an unexpected visit from the Council of Witches. The Council gives them a task which seems impossible. At about the same time, a friend of their late mother tells the sisters about a curse which may separate them by their next birthday.

Suddenly, the once inseparable sisters are going in different directions. Violet visits a traveling circus and falls for a trapeze artist and his craft. Beatrix, who has written stories forever, has the opportunity to have a novel published. (And believe me, this part of the book is total fantasy!) And Anne’s magical skills are growing, eclipsing those of her sisters.

There’s a fourth character, too—the house in which the sisters and the tearoom live has delightful magic skills of its own.

If this book were a mystery, it would be called a cozy. It’s a sweet and quiet story which definitely needs to be read with a cup of tea and perhaps some sweetbread.

I listened to this book on LibroFm.

Welcome Home, Stranger
Kate Christensen

Nobody wants to be part of a dysfunctional family, but they sure make for interesting novels, don’t they?

An eco-journalist in her 50’s, Rachel Calloway is reluctantly returning to Maine after the death of her mother. From the outside, she appears to have it all: a great job that she loves, a Pulitzer Prize, a nice condo in Washington DC, and a gay ex-husband who is now her best friend. Naturally, this is a façade which begins to crumble when Rachel is once again with her family.

Rachel and her sister, Celeste, are self-made women who escaped their childhood with an unstable—and sometimes unhinged—mother. But now their mother is dead, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. At their first family dinner in years, resentments and tensions build. Celeste cared for her mother through her illness and resents Rachel for staying away. Celeste and her husband drink too much, a pattern which their children resent. Rachel resents Celeste for inviting the recently married next-door neighbors to the dinner, knowing that the husband, David, and Rachel had a long-term affair, which spanned most of their lives.

And then things begin to fall apart. Rachel learns that, unaccountably, her mother has left Rachel her home. While it needs some work, it’s in an area where houses are in great demand. Staying in the house, preparing it to be sold, and going through her mother’s things cause long-buried hurts to surface. Rachel learns her boss is plotting to force her out of her job. Her ex-husband has ALS. Oh, and David is interested in renewing their relationship.

In some ways, Welcome Home, Stranger is a quiet book, with much of the action focusing on Rachel’s interior life. As she grapples with her past and present, she has the opportunity to come to terms with her life, the life she had as a young person, the life she has now, and the future life she has an opportunity to shape.

It’s perhaps a book best suited for mid-life readers who have had their own struggles. Oh, I guess that’s all of us.

Wild and Distant Seas
Tara Karr Roberts

If you have read Moby Dick, you may recognize that the title of Wild and Distant Seas is a quote from that book. A trend in fiction these days is to take a character from a book and tell their story, separate from the original work. That’s what Roberts did in Wild and Distant Seas. It’s been a long time since I read Moby Dick, so I know I missed lots of references to that book. However, when a man rents a room at an inn in Nantucket and tells the innkeeper, “Call me Ishmael,” I knew what was going on. With this man is another person called Queequeg.

The two men stay at the inn for several days, waiting to ship out. And for several nights, Ishmael and Evangeline, the innkeeper, sleep together. Sometime after he leaves, Evangeline discovers she is pregnant. Evangeline has a strange power. She’s able to see people’s recent memories and to reshape them. Skillfully using this power, the islanders come to believe that Evangeline’s child was conceived with her late husband, who was lost at sea and presumed drowned some time earlier.

Just as Captain Ahab was obsessed with finding Moby Dick, Evangeline and three generations of her female descendants are obsessed with finding Ishmael. Each woman has an unusual power. So, we have a book of historical fiction with a little magical realism mixed in. And it works! Evangeline’s descendants travel the world from mid-nineteenth century Nantucket to Boston, Brazil, Florence, and Idaho. Always searching for the elusive Ishmael.

This is Roberts’ debut novel, and she has succeeded in combining rich historical detail and fascinating characters. If you like historical fiction, literary fiction, or magical realism, this might be your next read!

The River Has Roots
Amal El-Mohtar

I was swept away by the gorgeous writing and lush descriptions in this short book. This whimsical novella explores the enduring bond of sisterhood and the allure of the fae realm. The magic in this world is called grammar and is described using many words associated with language, although the force itself is channeled through nature. The Hawthorne sisters, Esther and Ysabel, sing daily to thank and honor the magic, as their family has done for generations. But, as often happens in fairy tales, a love interest comes into the picture to complicate things. Elder sister Esther wards off the unwanted advances of an enterprising man while harboring a secret fae lover. I highly suggest you pick up the audiobook—the narrator sings short songs and the inclusion of ambient noise creates a very immersive experience. 

Note: this book will be released March 4.

We Could Be Rats
Emily R. Austin

Sigrid isn’t exactly depressed, but she’s ready for her stalled life to be over. She’s a high school dropout working at a dollar store, her best friend is spiraling into addiction, she has to keep her girlfriends a secret, and her relationship with her family is strained. Desperate to connect, Sigrid writes suicide letters directed towards her sister Margit that explore their childhood and lost imagination. The story is revealed primarily through this series of failed suicide notes–despite the dark premise this epistolary style communicates the thoughts and struggles of Sigrid perfectly and I never found it depressing. No author captures the unique mindset of a young, mentally ill woman quite like Austin and I cannot recommend this and her previous works more highly. This story may appeal to readers who liked (and didn’t mind the darker subject matter of) A Man Called Ove and The Midnight Library. 

Banned Together: Our Fight for Reader’s Rights
Ashley Hope Perez

Many of my favorite YA authors contribute writing to this anthology, all of whom have sadly had their wonderful works banned/challenged. Although Banned Together is aimed at a teen audience, the action steps, facts/statistics, and reading lists accompanying each essay will be informative and empowering for all ages. Grab a copy and share this collection with a younger reader in your life. 

They Bloom at Night
Trang Thanh Tran:

I adore unique horror stories. This novel is set in the aftermath of a hurricane in a town in Louisiana and utilizes the subsequent environmental destruction to make an algae bloom (yes algae) scary. Noon and her mother live and work on a boat, trying desperately to stay in their sunken town. They make a living by fishing and catching mutated creatures for an exploitative businessman who only cares about spectacle and money. And now this man has his sights set on capturing whatever it is that’s drowning people. For Noon this is the last straw, but her mother’s grief and hope that the spirits of Noon’s brother and father still exist in the area make leaving impossible. Along with the daughter of the businessman, Noon must fulfill this absurd and dangerous mission before the next storm rolls in. I especially appreciated how this book wove in an exploration of emerging queer teen identity and how it feels to live in a body that doesn’t feel quite right. 

Note: this book will be released March 4.

Victorian Psycho
Virginia Feito

I love reading about ghastly women doing nasty things for no good reason. Winifred Notty is a governess for two spoiled children who puts on the façade of Victorian respectability while harboring some heinous, violent thoughts that sometimes bleed into impulses she can't always restrain. Throughout the story, Winifred gets away with doing and saying outlandish things and it leaves the reader guessing about her reliability as a narrator. This novel is in the same vein as its namesake, American Psycho, but the lower page count and historic setting make it a unique and captivating experience in its own right. Pick this up if you support women's rights and women's wrongs along with a sprinkling of dark humor.

44 Poems on Being with Each Other
Pádraig Ó. Tuama

50 Poems to Open Your World was my favorite poetry collection of 2024 and I dare say this newest installment in the Poetry Unbound series may be an early favorite of 2025. The curation of poems that are explored and the commentary on them is masterful--I will continue to seek out anything Pádraig Ó. Tuama writes or compiles. This volume will appeal to most poetry lovers and may serve as an entry point for people for whom poetry is daunting with Pádraig’s insightful explanation of each poem opening the meaning and possible interpretations up to a wider audience. I originally got access to this collection as an ebook but pretty immediately ordered a physical copy so that I can share this tome with my friends and peruse the contents whenever I need to be reminded of the humanity in the world.

My Friends
Fredrik Backman

I eagerly look forward to each of Fredrik Backman’s new books. After having my heart rearranged by his Beartown series, My Friends carries on with amazing characters, realistic (and funny) dialogue, and such unique and authentic prose that I found myself rereading sections and nodding sagely.

My Friends features four teenagers who spend a summer together that defines who they are.  One of them, the artist, paints a picture of the other three, and that painting, titled “The One of the Sea,” becomes valuable and famous.

Twenty-five years later Louisa, an eighteen-year-old who has aged out of the welfare system and has carried a copy of the painting with her for many years, attends an art show that includes “The One of the Sea.”

Subsequent events send her on a cross-country trip with one of the four teenagers, now a forty-something disillusioned history teacher named Ted. Ted and Louisa are an interesting match but spend the hours on the train talking about the summer and the four. They survive many misadventures along the way, eventually arriving at the town where it all began, hoping to resolve questions of love, friendship and art.

Note: this book comes out May 6, and may be pre-ordered now.

The House of Broken Angels
Luis Alberto Urrea
This raucous family drama was inspired by real events in Urrea’s life. He tells us in notes at the back (do read his Note but not until the end) which things are from his life and which are fiction. Then he provides a family tree, which should be in the front as I didn’t discover it until halfway through and this complicated family is hard to keep track of. 

The book takes place near the end of Big Angel’s life: his mother’s funeral happens the day before his big birthday party. He’s a formerly powerful man who has been reduced by illness to being a small, helpless shell of his former self. Well, maybe not so helpless, as he can still shake people up. The book is very funny and poignant. It provides thought-provoking insights into the lives of Mexican Americans. 

Run
Ann Patchett

This begins with a family quarreling over a sculpture that had always been inherited by the daughter it most resembled. But when the latest owner dies and her sisters come to claim the beautiful Virgin Mary, they are shocked to learn that it has been promised to sons, not even the biological oldest son but the two small adopted Black boys who find solace in this motherly presence. And then we jump up to find them as young men, with strikingly different personalities and, we learn, a sort of shadowy other presence that suddenly becomes the center of their lives. Most of the action happens in a snowstorm in Boston: it made me cold just to read. But it also made me think about nature versus nurture, and how little and how much parents affect their kids. A fine read.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie

Two teenage city boys are sent to a remote mountain village to be “re-educated” during the Cultural Revolution. Their parents are professionals, so the youths must do demanding manual labor and live humbly with the villagers. They don’t know if they’ll ever be able to return home. They desperately want to get their hands on some forbidden western novels they’ve learned about, and are ready for romantic awakenings. I defy anyone to anticipate where this will end. 

The author was himself re-educated in the 1970s, and ended up in France. This, his first novel, was an instant best-seller in France in 2002, and has been made into a film.

The book has special meaning today as China is once again “re-educating,” this time detaining more than a million Uyghurs in “re-education camps.”