Books with Mystery and Suspense
Do you love books with a little mystery and suspense? Are you looking for your next fiction pick or trying to decide on a novel for your book club? If so, check out the novels with mystery or suspense featured here on Book Club Bites. Each includes a book club guide just for you!
Ashton Hall Book Club Questions and Recipe
Touted by many as a gothic mystery, Ashton Hall has gothic vibes as well as a mystery, but I didn’t feel like that was the center story. To me, it read very closely in feel and theme to The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. While that novel also features a mystery, its core was about women’s rights and independence. I felt the same can be said of Ashton Hall.
Double Exposure Book Club Questions and Recipe
Double Exposure follows photojournalist Annie Hawkins as she returns to Afghanistan in 2015 to rebuild a school for girls destroyed by the Taliban.
Set during the unstable period when the Taliban desperately tried to regain power by launching terrorist attacks against Afghans, the novel is a fast-paced, heart-wrenching tale of the people who stood strong in the face of terrorism.
Best Years of Your Life Book Club Questions and Recipe
With short chapters and likable characters who make devastating choices, you’ll find yourself flying through Jen Craven’s first contemporary novel. Best Years of Your Life follows a family—two professor moms and their daughter—as they navigate the most difficult year of their lives, professionally and personally. As someone who worked for a university for over ten years, I found Craven captured campus life perfectly.
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie Book Club Questions and Food Ideas
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie, you probably know that in 1926 Mrs. Christie went missing for 11 days. When she surfaced, she claimed to have no memory of what happened during that time and to this day it remains a mystery.
That is until Marie Benedict hypothesized perhaps the most logical reason for Mrs. Christie’s disappearance in her latest novel The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. While I was skeptical that Benedict could offer a plausible story for Mrs. Christie’s disappearance after all these years, I’m happy to tell you that she does!
The Maidens Book Club Questions and Food Ideas
After his wildly popular debut, The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides has finally released his sophomore novel, The Maidens. Another thriller, The Maidens, takes place in England, primarily on the Cambridge campus.
The novel follows a Mariana Andros, a grieving widow and a group therapist, who becomes obsessed with a series of murders that occur at Cambridge. Her main suspect is Greek tragedy professor, Edward Fosca. So readers who love the recent themes from Greek mythology taking the book world by storm (think Circe and A Thousand Ships, among others), will love this thriller rife with Greek mythology references.
Elizabeth is Missing Book Club Discussion Questions
In present day England, Maud is slowly losing her memory and her independence, but she won’t let it stop her from finding out exactly where her best friend, Elizabeth, has gone. Certain that Elizabeth is in grave danger, she resolves to find her despite the fact that no one–not her daughter or son, not the police, nor Elizabeth’s son–will listen to her.
Elizabeth is Missing Book Club Food Ideas
Elizabeth is Missing is a novel with so much food mentioned that it was a little hard to get everything down! I love books with lots of sensory details like smells and tastes of food. Don’t you?
Elizabeth is Missing Book Club Ideas
Has someone you loved battled dementia? If so, you are not alone.Elizabeth is Missing is a novel about a woman, Maud, who suffers from dementia and believes her best friend, Elizabeth, is missing. The novel is structured like a mystery/suspense and Maud’s current thoughts are often garbled with past memories of the brief period when her sister, Sukey, goes missing after WWII.
Ordinary Grace Book Club Questions and Food Ideas
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger has been floating around as a potential read for me for some time. Like many of you, my TBR list is quiet long.
It’s a story about a community that fractures when tragedy strikes, but ultimately finds redemption. It’s a coming-of-age story for Frank Drum and his younger brother, Jake, as they witness the adults in their lives respond to tragedy and try to process their own feelings.
Ask Again, Yes Book Club Questions and Recipe
If your book club is looking for a book about second chances, a story about forgiveness despite continued messiness, a novel with characters that ring true-to-life, then Ask Again, Yes, should be on your list. If you love character-driven novels and struggle to find books where the characters seem fully fleshed-out, this is the book for you.
Where the Crawdads Sing Book Club Questions and Recipe
If you haven’t heard of Where the Crawdads Sing yet, I’d be surprised. The book, released in 2018, has already sold 7 million copies as of this writing. Still, it’s a pretty new release, especially for some book clubs who require that a book is readily available through a library before they select it to read. Delia Owens’ background in zoology adds a significant depth to Kya’s love for the marsh and its creatures, taking the novel beyond a normal love-triangle and murder mystery plot.
The Alice Network Book Club Questions and Recipe
The Alice Network is a Reese’s Book Club pick and I loved it. The novel is a dual timeline story featuring two women as they deal with both WWI and WWII. It is set primarily in France. When the two women meet in the aftermath of WWII, their stories converge and they set out on a journey of discovery and revenge. In fact, I’ve read quite a lot of WWII fiction (less WWI fiction) and I have to say that this was one of the only books I can remember feeling excited about throughout the read and happy at the ending.
