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!
The Maid Book Club Questions and Recipe
The Maid is Nita Prose’s debut novel. This cozy mystery set in a hotel is sure to appeal to fans of Agatha Christie.
Featuring a neurodivergent main character, the novel follows Molly, the hotel maid, as she’s suspected of murder and tries to clear her name. The entire hotel staff is full of friend and foe, and in a Clue-like mystery, Molly must determine where each person lies.
The Last Thing He Told Me Book Club Questions and Recipe
The Last Thing He Told Me is Laura Dave’s latest thriller that begins when Hannah receives the last thing her husband will ever tell her–Protect her.
A twisty thriller that takes Hannah through Owen’s unexpected past, the novel is also unexpectedly about who we chose to call family and the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.
Once We Were Home Book Club Questions and Recipe
Once We Were Home is Jennifer Rosner’s newest novel. Her first, The Yellow Bird Sings, was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist.
Once We Were Home is beautiful, moving story about the Jewish children who were displaced during the Holocaust and never returned to family, it is a little-explored area of WWII fiction. Delving into the definition of family, identity and heritage, and ultimately themes of forgiveness and peace, there is plenty to talk about for your book club.
Code Name Edelweiss Book Club Questions and Recipe
Code Name Edelweiss is Stephanie Landsem’s newest novel about the rise of Nazi influence in 1930s Hollywood and one man’s mission to curtail the efforts.
Based on true events, the novel follows Leon Lewis (the real man behind the fight against Hitler in Hollywood) and one of his fictionalized spies.
If you love WWII fiction, you’ll likely love this historical spy novel based on events that occurred on American soil (an unusual setting for WWII fiction!). The tie-in to old Hollywood is also fun and interesting!
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.
