Beach Read Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Beach Read, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

Do you love romantic stories, but pure romance isn’t your thing? Maybe you need a little bit of a darker backstory or a stronger internal struggle that has nothing to do with the leading man. I get it.

The good news is that there are lots of romantic books out there that fit this bill while still centering primarily on the romance element. Beach Read by Emily Henry is one of those books.

Beach Read centers on romance writer January Andrews who finds herself at her father’s secret vacation house after his death. His exposed love affair fresh on her mind, she can’t bring herself to write romance anymore, despite the fact that she’s under contract with a looming deadline.

Enter Augustus Everett, an old college nemesis and literary writer, who finds himself with an equal dose of writer’s block. When the two agree to swap genres in hopes to ignite their writing passions once more, things start to heat up on the page and off.

Picnic in Someday Valley Book Club Discussion Questions

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Picnic in Someday Valley, I provide your book club with a brief summary and book club discussion questions in that order!

If you haven’t checked out the previous post in the series where I share my thoughts on Picnic in Someday Valley and food ideas for your book club, check out that post HERE.

In this post, I’ll review the premise of Picnic in Someday Valley and share book club discussion questions that are sure to get your book club talking!

Picnic in Someday Valley Book Club Ideas and More

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Picnic in Someday Valley, I provide your book club with a brief summary, food ideas, and more!

Are you a fan of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries? How about Hallmark romances? If so, then you’ll love this new book from the Honey Creek Series by Jodi Thomas.

Picnic in Someday Valley is the second book in the Honey Creek series and combines just the right about of mystery and romance.

Set in a small town with a cast of lovable, but quirky characters, Picnic in Someday Valley offers exactly what you love about Hallmark. With an extra dose of the romance (think PG-13 verses PG), but nothing too erotic, Thomas delivers a novel with several story lines that work together.

If you haven’t checked out the first book in the series, you can see my post on that book HERE. In fact, I recommend you read it first because so many of the characters in the first book return for the second.

And, who doesn’t love that?

I usually don’t do this, but I did want to provide a trigger warning for some readers. The main conflict in this novel arises from a serial rapist on the loose. That said, Thomas only writes books with happily ever after’s and this is no different!

If you are looking for book club food ideas and discussion questions for Picnic in Someday Valley, keep reading!

The Tattooist of Auschwitz Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is one of the most popular books of recent years. It tells the true story of Lale Sokolov, who became the tattooist of Auschwitz during his many years at the concentration camp, tattooing numbers on incoming prisoners. One day, Lale tattoos the arm of a beautiful girl and, despite the circumstances, it is love at first sight. The book chronicles the love affair of Lale and Gita, their time at Auschwitz, and their struggle for survival.

The novel is the debut of Heather Morris, who recently released a sequel titled Cilka’s Journey. If you’ve read the novel, you recognize the name from one of the characters.

Morris originally wrote the novel as a screenplay after meeting Lale Sokolov and learning his story. For years she tried to get film interest. When that faltered, she rewrote the story in novel form.

Unfortunately, to me, the novel read like a screenplay that had been lightly filled in with narrative. The story itself is fascinating and, while it could have been one of the best novels I’ve ever read based on the story alone, it fell flat to me due to the sparse writing. I often felt like I was being told, “Lale did this or that,” rather than experiencing what happened through Lale’s narrative.

The good news is that you may not read it in the same way I did. Many readers have absolutely fallen in love with the novel. There are over 25,000 Amazon reviews alone, which is unheard of. And, while I felt like the writing wasn’t what I normally expect from a novel, I did enjoy learning Lale’s story.

Pride and Prejudice Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Pride and Prejudice, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

What is there not to love about Pride and Prejudice? It is a book about nothing and everything at the same time. I love how it’s mundane and extraordinary. That it’s about relationships, which are the most important things in life.

Jane Austen was only 21 when she first drafted the book we would later know as Pride and Prejudice. And, even at that young age, she was able to capture the nuances of love and friendship and family so beautifully. It took 17 years before it was finally published, but, thankfully for all of us, it was. It’s popularity has only grown in the last few decades with well-done television and film adaptions.

I have read Pride and Prejudice at least four times. As many people have said, each reread of a Jane Austen work brings something new to the surface, some intricacy you missed before. Even now, two hundred years after its publication, Pride and Prejudice remains a timeless masterpiece that can speak through the changes of history right to the heart of the reader.