WNBA-Charlotte’s Book Club, featuring Great Group Reads picks from National Reading Group Month

We have a terrific book club in our chapter! 

As our reading guide, we use the list of 2016 Great Group Reads titles recommended for book clubs during WNBA’s National Reading Group Month. Starting in November 2016, we’re reading books from the current 2016 Great Group Reads list.  See below!

Our book for our December 6, 2016 meeting is….

300 DAYS OF SUN
Deborah Lawrenson
Harper Paperbacks

“A deeply satisfying novel, a rich story with a strong feeling for time and place and the expert pacing of the best thrillers. Readers will appreciate Lawrenson’s ability to combine stunning atmosphere with a fascinating historical backstory.” — Booklist, starred review

“Beautiful storytelling along with a beautiful setting….With an intricately layered plot and enigmatic, complex characters, Lawrenson crafts a story edged in mystery that blends the past during World War II with the present day. An intriguing read.” — Romantic Times

“Merges past and present, doubling identities and events to dazzling… effect. Set against the lush but corrupt coastal resorts of southern Portugal, the novel’s shadowy deeds seem only more dangerous in this sunny clime…. Sure to please those who relish the untangling of crimes in exotic locales.” — Library Journal

Combining the atmosphere of Jess Walters’ Beautiful Ruins with the intriguing historical backstory of Christina Baker Kline’s The Orphan Train, Deborah Lawrenson’s mesmerizing novel transports readers to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past—where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes.

Traveling to Faro, Portugal, journalist Joanna Millard hopes to escape an unsatisfying relationship and a stalled career. Faro is an enchanting town, and the seaside views are enhanced by the company of Nathan Emberlin, a charismatic younger man. But behind the crumbling facades of Moorish buildings, Joanna soon realizes, Faro has a seedy underbelly, its economy compromised by corruption and wartime spoils. And Nathan has an ulterior motive for seeking her company: he is determined to discover the truth involving a child’s kidnapping that may have taken place on this dramatic coastline over two decades ago.

Joanna’s subsequent search leads her to Ian Rylands, an English expat who cryptically insists she will find answers in The Alliance, a novel written by American Esta Hartford. The book recounts an American couple’s experience in Portugal during World War II, and their entanglements both personal and professional with their German enemies. Only Rylands insists the book isn’t fiction, and as Joanna reads deeper into The Alliance, she begins to suspect that Esta Hartford’s story and Nathan Emberlin’s may indeed converge in Faro—where the past not only casts a long shadow but still exerts a very present danger.

Deborah Lawrenson studied English at Cambridge University and worked as a journalist in London. She is married with a daughter, and lives in Kent, England. Deborah’s previous novels include The Lantern and The Sea Garden.

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Our meetings take place on the first Tuesday of each month, 7 PM, at the Panera on Fairview near SouthPark — see dates below. We have chosen books to take us through to next October when there will be a new Great Group Reads list released. If you have questions about our Book Club, please contact Kristen Knox at whitreidsmama@yahoo.com.

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Here are the terrific books we’ll be reading in 2016-2017!

November 1 — OVER THE PLAIN HOUSES by Julia Franks
(Hub City Press, HC 978-1938235214)

December 6 — 300 DAYS OF SUN by Deborah Lawrenson
(Harper Paperbacks, TP 978-0062390165)

January 3 — THE CURIOUS CHARMS OF ARTHUR PEPPER by Phaedra Patrick
(MIRA/Harlequin, HC 978-0778319337)

February 7 — THE DRONE EATS WITH ME: A GAZA DIARY by Atef Abu Saif
(Beacon Press, TP 978-0807049105)

March 7 — THE HONEYMOON by Dinitia Smith
(Other Press, HC 978-1590517789)

April 4 — MISS JANE by Brad Watson
(W.W. Norton & Company, HC 978-0393241730)

May 2 — THIS IS YOUR LIFE, HARRIET CHANCE! by Jonathan Evison
(Algonquin Books, TP 978-1616206017)

June 6 — THE COSMOPOLITANS by Sarah Schulman
(Feminist Press at CUNY, TP 978-1558619043)

July 5 — HEAT AND LIGHT by Jennifer Haigh
(Ecco, HC 978-0061763298)

August 8 — THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND by Katarina Bivald
(Sourcebooks Landmark, TP 978-1492623441)

September 5 — THE TSAR OF LOVE AND TECHNO: STORIES by Anthony Marra
(Hogarth, TP 978-0770436452)

October 3 — BRITT-MARIE WAS HERE by Fredrik Backman
(Atria Books, HC 978-1501142536)