Happy September, friends! I am SO excited about this month’s book club selections. I feel like this is the perfect blend of old and new.
Before we get into what we are reading this month, let’s recap last month’s selections:
Just to refresh your memory, August’s books were Thank You for Listening and Never Coming Home. You can read about them here.
This month we’re reading:
All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers
and
Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering
You can order both of these books here.
All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers
Add to Goodreads/Purchase on Amazon
All Good People Here, the mystery/thriller pick, was just released last month, and it’s gotten some rave reviews! It reminds me of A Flicker in the Dark. I have high hopes for it. Mystery/thrillers haven’t been a huge hit for me for this year, but I did love A Flicker in the Dark (our March selection) so hopefully this one will be just as good!
Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the case of January Jacobs, who was found dead in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January—and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist, but she’s always been haunted by the fear that it could’ve been her. And the worst part is, January’s killer has never been brought to justice.
When Margot returns home to help care for her sick uncle, it feels like walking into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembered: genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who’s gone missing under eerily similar circumstances. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and solve January’s murder once and for all.
But the police, the family, the townspeople—they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie’s disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January’s case feels. Could the killer still be out there? Could it be the same person who kidnapped Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night?
Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering
Add to Goodreads/Purchase on Amazon
Now, let’s talk about Tell Me Lies. This book first came out in 2018, and I immediately purchased it. It sounds exactly like something I would love. I even posted about it as I started it while waiting for my car to be serviced.
This was in August, right before school started back. It was also a few weeks before I moved out of my first house and in with my mom while construction began on my house. It was a very busy time, and I feel like that was why I could not get into this book. I wanted to so bad, but I just could not concentrate on it. But I’ve always wanted to revisit and try again. When I heard that Hulu was developing it, I knew I had to attempt to read it again before watching. Plus, I’ve read Carola Lovering’s two other books ( Too Good to Be True and Can’t Look Away) since and loved both of them. I feel like I will have much better luck with this one the second time around, and I think it would be fun for us all to read it together!
A thrilling, sexy coming-of-age story exploring toxic love, ruthless ambition, and shocking betrayal, Tell Me Lies is about that one person who still haunts you—the other one. The wrong one. The one you couldn’t let go of. The one you’ll never forget.
Lucy Albright is far from her Long Island upbringing when she arrives on the campus of her small California college, and happy to be hundreds of miles from her mother, whom she’s never forgiven for an act of betrayal in her early teen years. Quickly grasping at her fresh start, Lucy embraces college life and all it has to offer—new friends, wild parties, stimulating classes. And then she meets Stephen DeMarco. Charming. Attractive. Complicated. Devastating.
Confident and cocksure, Stephen sees something in Lucy that no one else has, and she’s quickly seduced by this vision of herself, and the sense of possibility that his attention brings her. Meanwhile, Stephen is determined to forget an incident buried in his past that, if exposed, could ruin him, and his single-minded drive for success extends to winning, and keeping, Lucy’s heart.
Alternating between Lucy’s and Stephen’s voices, Tell Me Lies follows their connection through college and post-college life in New York City. Deep down, Lucy knows she has to acknowledge the truth about Stephen. But before she can free herself from this addicting entanglement, she must confront and heal her relationship with her mother—or risk losing herself in a delusion about what it truly means to love.
With the psychological insight and biting wit of Luckiest Girl Alive, and the yearning ambitions and desires of Sweetbitter, this keenly intelligent and staggeringly resonant novel chronicles the exhilaration and dilemmas of young adulthood, and the difficulty of letting go, even when you know you should.
Who’s excited about this month’s selections? I can’t wait to get started reading! If you want more info on how to join our online book club, check out this post. You can also join our Facebook group to chat about the books with others.
January 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selection
February 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selections
March 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selections
April 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selections
May 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selections
June 2022 LaLa Life Book Club Selections
