Here are our reading groups’ favorite fiction books of 2021 based on our survey results.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Kevin Wilson
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite…
THE LAST FLIGHT
Julie Clark
Two women. Two flights. One last chance to disappear. Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan town house and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing…
LADY CLEMENTINE
Marie Benedict
From Marie Benedict, the New York Times bestselling author, comes an incredible novel that focuses on one of the people who had the most influence during World War I and World War II: Clementine Churchill. In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman…
THE FOUR WINDS
Kristin Hannah
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have…
MY DARK VANESSA
Kate Elizabeth Russell
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer. Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the…
CILKA'S JOURNEY
Heather Morris
From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on a riveting true story of love and resilience. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is.…
WHEN THE APRICOTS BLOOM
Gina Wilkinson
Inspired by her own experiences stationed in Baghdad during Saddam Hussein's rule, former foreign correspondent Gina Wilkinson's evocative debut is told through the eyes of three very different women in Iraq at the turn of the millennium. A secretary, an artist and a diplomat’s wife, each must confront the complexities…
THE BOOK WOMAN OF TROUBLESOME CREEK
Kim Michele Richardson
The folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome’s got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy’s not only a book woman, however; she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade…
HAMNET
Maggie O’Farrell
England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric…
THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB'S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES
Grady Hendrix
Now in paperback, Steel Magnolias meets Dracula in this '90s-set horror novel about a women's book club that must do battle with a mysterious newcomer to their small Southern town, perfect for murderinos and fans of Stephen King. Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids…
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY
Matt Haig
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time. Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one…
AFTERLIFE
Julia Alvarez
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college…
THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA
TJ Klune
Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy. Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of…