Book Club Voting by Ashley Wells

7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 16:44:09 UTC

Quick Take: In The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, a man must solve a murder by reliving the same day in different bodies, unraveling secrets in a twisted, time-looped mystery mansion.

The Golem and the Jinni

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 16:54:37 UTC

Quick Take: The Golem and the Jinni weaves myth and magic into 1899 New York, where a golem and a jinni—creatures of clay and fire—forge an unlikely friendship amid human struggles.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 16:56:38 UTC

Quick Take: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone offers a candid, humorous, and heartfelt look into therapy through the eyes of a therapist facing her own struggles, revealing our shared humanity and vulnerability.

The House in the Cerulean Sea

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 16:59:32 UTC

Quick Take: The House in the Cerulean Sea is a heartwarming fantasy about a caseworker who discovers love, acceptance, and magical misfits at a mysterious orphanage that challenges everything he believes.

The Impossible Girl

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 17:02:11 UTC

Quick Take: In The Impossible Girl, Cora Lee—born with two hearts—navigates 1850s Manhattan as a resurrectionist, hiding her identity while uncovering a deadly mystery targeting those with rare medical anomalies.

Lessons in Chemistry

angwells768 — 2025-09-23 17:04:11 UTC

Quick Take: Lessons in Chemistry follows brilliant chemist Elizabeth Zott as she defies 1960s gender norms, becoming an unexpected TV cooking star who teaches women—and men—about science, resilience, and self-worth.

The President's Lawyer

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 19:50:37 UTC

Quick Take: Rob Jacobson defends a former president accused of murder. Twisting loyalties and courtroom drama drive this sharp legal thriller with a shocking, high-stakes conclusion.

White Oleander

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 19:52:56 UTC

Quick Take: White Oleander traces Astrid’s journey through foster care after her mother’s imprisonment. Lyrical and haunting, it explores identity, resilience, and the complex bond between mother and daughter.

My Next Breath

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 19:55:04 UTC

Quick Take: Jeremy Renner’s memoir recounts his near-fatal snowplow accident, exploring trauma, resilience, and love. A gripping survival story that transforms pain into purpose and personal growth.

Flying Solo

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 19:57:18 UTC

Quick Take: In Flying Solo, Laurie returns home after a canceled wedding, uncovering family secrets and a mysterious duck. A witty, heartfelt journey of independence, love, and self-discovery.

The Maid

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 19:59:05 UTC

Quick Take: In The Maid, socially awkward Molly discovers a dead guest and becomes a suspect. Her keen eye and quiet resilience unravel a web of secrets and justice.

When We Had Wings

angwells768 — 2025-10-15 20:02:07 UTC

Quick Take: When We Had Wings follows three WWII nurses in the Philippines whose friendship and resilience carry them through war, captivity, and heartbreak in this powerful, historically rich novel.

The Amalfi Curse

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:21:25 UTC

Quick Take: The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner is a dual-timeline historical thriller set on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. In 1821, sea-witch Mari protects Positano with stregheria. In the present, archaeologist Haven investigates sunken treasure—and cursed currents. Forbidden love, ancient magic and deadly secrets intertwine amid ocean-borne peril.

The Poisonwood Bible

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:23:22 UTC

Quick Take: The Poisonwood Bible follows the Price family—Patriarch Nathan, wife Orleanna, and their four daughters—on a 1959 missionary venture to the Belgian Congo. Driven by rigid faith, Nathan’s cultural arrogance leads to tragedy: crop failures, village alienation, and the death of youngest daughter Ruth May. The women endure, transform, and confront guilt amid tumultuous political change.

Lessons in Chemistry

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:25:18 UTC

Quick Take: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is a witty, feminist novel set in the 1960s. It follows Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist who defies gender norms and becomes an unexpected TV cooking star. Blending humor, science, and social critique, it explores resilience, equality, and the power of challenging stereotypes.

When We Had Wings

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:27:18 UTC

Quick Take: When We Had Wings follows three nurses—US Navy’s Eleanor, Army’s Penny, and Filipina Lita—stationed in Manila just before Pearl Harbor. Bonding amid lush paradise, they endure the Japanese invasion, brutal combat conditions, and become the first female POWs of WWII. Their friendship, resilience, and hope shine during harrowing captivity.

The Stillwater Girls

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:29:08 UTC

Quick Take: The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent is a psychological thriller about two sisters raised in isolation who encounter a stranger, unraveling dark secrets about their past. Alternating perspectives reveal lies, survival, and shocking truths, blending suspense with emotional depth in a story of resilience and betrayal.

The Uncool: A Memoir

angwells768 — 2025-11-19 21:31:22 UTC

Quick Take: The Uncool: A Memoir by Cameron Crowe chronicles his unlikely rise from a 15-year-old music critic to Rolling Stone contributor and future filmmaker. With charm and self-deprecating humor, he describes backstage encounters with legends—Bowie, Zeppelin, Dylan—revealing intimate family moments alongside rock’s wild ’70s.

The Golem and the Jinni

angwells768 — 2026-01-26 17:04:55 UTC

Quick Take: The Golem and the Jinni weaves myth and magic into 1899 New York, where a golem and a jinni—creatures of clay and fire—forge an unlikely friendship amid human struggles.

Lessons in Chemistry

angwells768 — 2026-01-26 17:05:22 UTC

The Queens of Crime

angwells768 — 2026-01-26 17:11:24 UTC

Quick Take: A richly imagined historical mystery uniting five trailblazing women crime writers as they challenge sexism, investigate a nurse’s disappearance, and prove their brilliance. Blending real authors with a fictional case, the novel highlights female solidarity, justice, and resilience in a male‑dominated literary world.

Circe

angwells768 — 2026-01-26 17:13:48 UTC

Quick Take: A vivid feminist retelling of the myth, Circe follows a misunderstood goddess discovering her power, confronting divine cruelty, and forging her identity in exile. Miller transforms a maligned witch into a complex, empathetic heroine whose encounters with gods and mortals illuminate love, loss, and self‑determination.

My Friends

angwells768 — 2026-03-18 19:09:16 UTC

Quick Take: Warm, wry, and quietly devastating, My Friends captures Fredrik Backman at his best: finding humor inside grief. Through art, memory, and unlikely bonds, the novel celebrates how friendship rescues damaged people, across time, with tenderness rather than sentimentality. It’s funny, humane, and hopeful without ever denying pain and loss itself.

The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits

angwells768 — 2026-03-18 19:12:21 UTC

Quick Take: A juicy, emotionally grounded look at fame’s fallout, The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits blends early‑2000s pop nostalgia with a tender story of sisterhood. Jennifer Weiner explores ambition, betrayal, and second chances, showing how music can both fracture families and offer a way back to forgiveness.

The Ten Year Affair

angwells768 — 2026-03-18 19:15:48 UTC

Quick Take: A sharp, darkly funny “sliding doors” novel, The Ten Year Affair examines marriage, desire, and millennial discontent. Erin Somers traces a near‑affair across parallel timelines, revealing how fantasy and routine collide—and how the lives we imagine can be as disruptive as the ones we choose.

Care and Feeding

angwells768 — 2026-03-18 19:17:57 UTC

Quick Take: In this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain.

The Wind Knows My Name

angwells768 — 2026-03-18 19:20:38 UTC

Quick Take: A sweeping, compassionate novel linking Holocaust Europe and today’s immigration crises, The Wind Knows My Name traces children separated by violence and borders. Isabel Allende blends history, resilience, and light touches of magical realism to honor survival, memory, and the enduring human need for family and belonging.

Bunny

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:33:59 UTC

Quick Take: Bunny is a darkly surreal campus novel that blends horror, satire, and psychological unraveling. Mona Awad explores female friendship, creativity, and belonging through grotesque twists and dreamy violence, creating a story that’s unsettling, funny, and emotionally disorienting long after it ends.

Reel

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:36:27 UTC

Quick Take: Reel is a layered, unapologetic romance set in Hollywood, centering a Black female director navigating art, power, and love. Kennedy Ryan blends social commentary, sensuality, and ambition into a story about visibility, compromise, and claiming space—on screen and off—with emotional depth and purpose that feels timely, intentional, resonant, bold, confident.

Yellow Wife

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:38:41 UTC

Quick Take: Yellow Wife is a powerful historical novel that confronts slavery, survival, and moral compromise. Sadeqa Johnson tells the story of a woman forced into impossible choices, illuminating resilience, love, and the devastating cost of navigating power within an inhuman system—unflinching, devastating, and deeply human.

Take My Hand

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:41:36 UTC

Quick Take: Take My Hand is a quietly devastating novel inspired by true events, following a Black nurse confronted with coerced sterilizations in 1970s Alabama. Dolen Perkins‑Valdez explores bodily autonomy, trust, and ethical courage, centering compassion and resistance in a story that is intimate, enraging, necessary, and profoundly humane for modern readers.

The Elsewhere Express

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:44:27 UTC

Quick Take: The Elsewhere Express is a whimsical yet reflective novel about grief, second chances, and the roads not taken. Samantha Sotto Yambao blends magical realism and tenderness as characters ride a mystical train to revisit pivotal moments, exploring regret, healing, and hope of choosing differently when given one impossible chance again.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

angwells768 — 2026-04-16 19:47:19 UTC

Quick Take: The Adventures of Amina al‑Sirafi is a swashbuckling fantasy starring a legendary middle‑aged pirate pulled back into danger. Shannon Chakraborty blends myth, humor, and heart in a vibrant tale of motherhood, faith, aging, and chosen family—epic yet intimate, adventurous without losing emotional depth, with wit, spectacle, and sincerity throughout, beautifully.