Win a Copy of THE INQUISITOR’S WIFE by Jeanne Kalogridis for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The Inquisitor’s Wife by Jeanne Kalogridis --- a tale of love, loss and treachery set during the perilous days of the Spanish Inquisition --- with a special contest. Five readers will have the opportunity to each win a copy of the book, which is now in stores, for their group. To enter, please fill out this form by Tuesday, June 4th at noon ET.

More about The Inquisitor’s Wife:
1481 Seville: The Inquisition makes its first appearance in Spain. Its target: conversos, Christians of Jewish descent --- specifically those who practice Judaism secretly in their homes. The penalty for “crypto-Judaism”: Burning at the stake. Marisol Garcia, a young conversa, is hurriedly wed to Gabriel, a civil lawyer working for the Inquisition, in hopes that he will protect her. But she still yearns for the childhood love who abandoned her four years earlier, and she’s shocked when he reappears suddenly at her wedding.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Chat with Wendy Webb and 12 Copies of THE FATE OF MERCY ALBAN for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb --- a modern take on a gothic ghost story with long-buried family secrets bubbling to the surface --- with a special contest. Three book groups will win a chat with Wendy (by phone, via Skype, or in person) and 12 copies of The Fate of Mercy Alban, while 20-25 other groups will win one copy of the book. To enter, please fill out this form by Tuesday, June 4th at noon ET..

More about The Fate of Mercy Alban:
Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters and a lost manuscript plunge Grace Alban into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at the stately Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's aunt disappeared without a trace. The night has been shrouded in secrecy by the powerful Alban family for years, and Grace realizes her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the secret passages of Alban House. Her mother was intending to tell the truth about that night to a reporter on the very day she died. Could it have been murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse?

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win 12 Copies of THE ONE-WAY BRIDGE by Cathie Pelletier for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The One-Way Bridge by Cathie Pelletier --- an unforgettable portrait of loneliness, family, community, and the kinds of changes we make for love --- with a special contest. Three readers will have the opportunity to each win 12 copies of the book, which is now in stores, for their group. To enter, please fill out this form by Tuesday, June 4th at noon ET.

More about The One-Way Bridge:
Cathie Pelletier draws readers back to the beloved town of Mattagash, a seemingly quiet New England outpost in Maine. Yet Mattagash is anything but tranquil. While its citizens bicker publicly over small-town theft or their neighbors’ offensive mailboxes, they privately struggle through deeper life issues: scandal, loss, failed ambitions, and the scars of war. Reaching across the vastness of America and into the jungles of Vietnam, The One-Way Bridge is an unforgettable portrait of loneliness, family and community --- and the kinds of changes we make for love.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Skype Chat with Deborah Harkness and Copies of SHADOW OF NIGHT for Your Group

We are celebrating the May 28th paperback release of Shadow of Night --- the much-anticipated sequel to Deborah Harkness’s debut novel, A Discovery of Witches --- with an exciting contest. One book group will win a Skype chat with Debor ah and copies of Shadow of Night, while five other groups will win copies of the book. All Skype chats must be scheduled between June 2nd and June 8th.

To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, May 22nd at noon ET.
 
More about Shadow of Night:
Shadow of Night picks up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending. Diana and Matthew time-travel to Elizabethan London and are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana searches for a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different --- and vastly more dangerous --- journey.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here read more about the book.

Fly Away
by Kristin Hannah

A single, tragic choice and a middle-of-the-night phone call will bring three women together and set them on a poignant, powerful journey of redemption. Each has lost her way, and they will need one another --- and maybe a miracle --- to transform their lives. An emotionally complex, heart-wrenching novel about love, motherhood, loss and new beginnings, Fly Away reminds us that where there is life, there is hope, and where there is love, there is forgiveness. Told with her trademark powerful storytelling and illuminating prose, Kristin Hannah reveals why she is one of the most beloved writers of our day.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

And Then I Found You
by Patti Callahan Henry

Kate Vaughan has a secret, something tucked away in her past. And she’s getting on with her life. Her business is thriving. She has a strong relationship with her family, and a devoted boyfriend whom she wants to love with all her heart. If Kate had ever made a list, Rowan would fill the imagined boxes of a perfect mate. But she wants more than the perfect on paper relationship; she wants a real and imperfect love. That's why, when Kate discovers the small velvet box hidden in Rowan's drawer, she panics. It always happens this way. Just when Kate thinks she can love, just when she believes she can conquer the fear, she’s filled with dread. And she wants more than anything to make this feeling go away. But how?

» Click here for the reading group guide.

Maya's Notebook
by Isabel Allende

Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Vidal grows up in a rambling old house in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother, Nidia, affectionately known as Nini, is a force of nature --- willful and outspoken, unconventionally wise with a mystical streak, and fiercely protective --- a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya’s grandfather, is an African-American astronomer and professor --- a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya’s adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

The Golem and the Jinni
by Helene Wecker

An immigrant tale that combines elements of Jewish and Arab folk mythology, Helene Wecker’s sparkling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who arrive separately in New York in 1899. The woman is a golem created out of clay in Poland by an aged dabbler in the dark Kabbalistic arts to be the wife of a man who then dies at sea, leaving her unmoored and adrift as the ship comes into New York harbor; the man is a jinni, a being of fire, who is trapped by a Bedouin wizard in a copper flask and released accidentally by a Syrian tinsmith in lower Manhattan. The narrative traces their respective journeys, as they explore the strange human city.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

Unwritten
by Charles Martin

When someone wants to be lost, a home tucked among the Ten Thousand Islands off the Florida coast is a good place to live. A couple of decent boats and a deep knowledge of fishing, and a man can get by without ever having to talk to another soul. It’s a nice enough existence, until the one person who ties him to the world of the living, the reason he’s still among them even if only on the fringes, asks him for help. Father Steady Capri knows quite a bit about helping others. But he is afraid Katie Quinn’s problems may be beyond his abilities. Katie is a world-famous actress with an all-too-familiar story. Fame seems to have driven her to self-destruct. Steady knows that the true cause of her desire to end her life is buried too deeply for him to reach. But there is one person who still may be able to save her from herself.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

The Orphan Master’s Son
by Adam Johnson

Now Available in Paperback
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother --- a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang --- and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy’s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

» Click here for the reading group guide.

City of Women
by David R. Gillham

Now Available in Paperback
It is 1943 --- the height of the Second World War --- and Berlin has essentially become a city of women. Sigrid Schröder is, for all intents and purposes, the model German soldier’s wife: She goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime. But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman who dreams of her former lover, now lost in the chaos of the war. Her lover is a Jew. But Sigrid is not the only one with secrets.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter

Now Available in Paperback
From the moment it opens --- on a rocky patch of Italian coastline, circa 1962, when a daydreaming young innkeeper looks out over the water and spies a mysterious woman approaching him on a boat --- Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, Beautiful Ruins is gloriously inventive and constantly surprising --- a story of flawed yet fascinating people navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
by Matthew Dicks

Now Available in Paperback
Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends. But Budo feels his age, and thinks constantly of the day when eight-year-old Max Delaney will stop believing in him. When that happens, Budo will disappear. Max is different from other children. Some people say that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, but most just say he’s “on the spectrum.” None of this matters to Budo, who loves Max and is charged with protecting him from the class bully, from awkward situations in the cafeteria, and even in the bathroom stalls. But he can’t protect Max from Mrs. Patterson, the woman who works with Max in the Learning Center and who believes that she alone is qualified to care for this young boy.

» Click here for the reading group guide.

The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family
by Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne couldn’t be invisible if he tried. Although he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was 20, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6’7” when --- while serving on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints --- his Tourette’s tics escalated to nightmarish levels. Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. Undeterred, Josh persevered to marry and earn a degree in Library Science.

» Click here for the reading group guide.