The Girlfriend Book Club

No one was as surprised as Shelley Read when her book hit the top of the charts. Her coming-of-age story, set in beautiful Colorado peach country, takes readers on a journey of displacement, courage and self-discovery. It took her nearly 13 years to write the book, which she shared with no one. She now relishes the chance to share her deep Colorado roots. “I've talked to so many readers that said the book has inspired them just to recultivate their own relationship with nature.” Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!

Get a peek behind the curtain at the Rockettes, Radio City and a thrilling Big Apple whodunit in Fiona Davis’ bestseller, ‘The Spectacular,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s pick for January 2024. Fans of her historical fiction chart-topper, ‘The Lions of Fifth Avenue,’ will learn why New York City landmarks take center stage in all her books and how an email from an 80-year-old former Rockette inspired this newest novel.

The summer’s runaway bestseller hit home with readers managing menopause and family. Set in Cape Cod during a week-long multigenerational vacation, author Catherine Newman says she “wanted to write about the way women are always living in this body that seems to be going through so much all the time.” Her candor and incredible sense of humor have fans sending her “messages about menopause saying now I feel less crazy. Which, I mean, if I have one goal, it's that, for people to feel less crazy.”

Ariel Lawhon learned about Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife and healer who delivered over a thousand babies years before she wrote ‘The Frozen River.’ Lawhon remembers ‘thinking that would make an incredible novel.’ She wrote several books before penning this latest hit, which served her well. ‘I am now in the stage of life where Martha Ballard is in this story. My children are growing up. I've got two in college, two in high school. The primary work I've done all these years is kind of winding down. I relate to her in ways I could have never related to her as a younger woman.’ Learn about the in-depth research she did to recreate the era (from candle-making to cooking) and how Martha’s own diary served as a reference guide and inspiration.

You won’t want to miss our candid conversation with author Kristin Hannah, who explains her motivation for writing “The Women” about women's critical, underreported contributions in the Vietnam War. "I knew that people would be reading it who had actually experienced this, so it was important for me to honor the nurses with authenticity and honesty and truth.” Plus, the prolific writer shares why Frankie is her favorite female character ever written.

Learn about the real-life dress that inspired Ruth Reichl to write about a woman’s transformation in 1980s Paris. Her former book editor encouraged her to deep dive into her own time in Paris — the characters, the shops, the restaurants. Sadly, her friend passed away before the book was published. “I can put everything I really love into this book,” says Ruth. “I can put art and literature and fashion and food. It can all be there. And it was like this great gift that she gave me.” A gift she passed on to her many readers. Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!

The author and literature professor talks about how her father, who is Mi’kmaq, shared stories of his own days picking berries in Maine. Although she’s never been berry picking herself, Amanda Peters shares her Mi’kmaq heritage in her bestselling story about a four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl who goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

Ariel Lawhon learned about Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife and healer who delivered over a thousand babies years before she wrote ‘The Frozen River.’ Lawhon remembers ‘thinking that would make an incredible novel.’ She wrote several books before penning this latest hit, which served her well. ‘I am now in the stage of life where Martha Ballard is in this story. My children are growing up. I've got two in college, two in high school. The primary work I've done all these years is kind of winding down. I relate to her in ways I could have never related to her as a younger woman.’ Learn about the in-depth research she did to recreate the era (from candle-making to cooking) and how Martha’s own diary served as a reference guide and inspiration.

Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan explain how they co-authored The Girlfriend Book Club’s January 2023 selection, ‘Mad Honey’ (Picoult wrote Liv’s chapters, Boylan wrote Olivia’s), how their bestselling collaboration came to be (Boylan Tweeted a dream she had about writing with Picoult, who replied ‘Let’s do it!’) and how Picoult became a honey expert. With stunning twists and turns and a masterclass in beekeeping, this important story is about being loved for who we truly are. ‘Stories,’ says Boylan, ‘can open hearts.’

Inspired by three real-life murders in St. Cloud, Minn., Jess Lourey explores small-town secrets in her bestselling thriller, ‘The Quarry Girls,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s February 2023 book. After suffering multiple rejections from publishers before this 2022 hit, Lourey almost abandoned writing before tragedy struck her own life — her husband committed suicide after 9/11. She was hospitalized while pregnant with her son. A doctor recommended she resume writing. With several books in several genres to her name, Lourey explains the common thread: secrets. ‘I love the idea of secrets and telling them.’

Learn how a pandemic pivot and a 15th-century book on Ming dynasty midwifery sent Lisa See, bestselling author of the 2005 hit ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,’ on a deep dive into ancient Chinese women’s medicine. Drawing on her Chinese family history and extensive research, See shares fascinating details about life for different women in long-ago China, their afflictions and treatment — from herbal remedies to foot binding — and about her own life while penning The Girlfriend Book Club’s December 2023 book, ‘Lady Tan’s Circle of Women’ (she writes 1,000 words a day!).

Not long after our discussion, Barbara Kingsolver won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for ‘Demon Copperhead,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s March 2023 read. Based on Charles Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield,’ and set in a town similar to the one she lives in in Southern Appalachia. Kingsolver wanted to represent her corner of the world and the opioid crisis it faces, ‘with respect and honesty.’ From researching the gritty details of drug addiction to meeting President Obama with dirt in her nails after digging potatoes to writing at Charles Dickens’ desk, Kingsolver, the genius behind ‘The Poisonwood Bible,’ keeps it real — and really fascinating — with The Girlfriend.

Author TJ Klune wrote ‘The House in the Cerulean Sea’ because he wanted ‘to do something different.’ In his modern fairytale, The Girlfriend Book Club’s May 2023 pick, the right to exist and be loved and accepted triumphs as six magical children find a home and family where none lived. A Lambda Award-winning writer, Klune knew he wanted to focus on bigotry and feeling ‘other,’ much like he did growing up ‘a queer kid with undiagnosed ADHD, coming of age in 1990s rural Oregon.’ The result is a whimsical love story that has impacted fans in beautiful ways, which he shares here.

We’re going on a road trip! It’s inspired by author Colleen Oakley’s relationship with her grandmother, who had a ‘wicked sense of humor’ and mandatory 5 o’clock cocktail hours. It winds its way through two women’s friendships at very different times in their lives. The movie ‘Thelma & Louise,’ and a hectic cross-country drive with her husband and four children helped Oakley add to the adventure she hopes will help readers ‘escape and have a good time’ and ‘think twice about an elderly neighbor or an aunt or anybody they could start a friendship with.’

Postcards from her uncle inspired the title of Ann Napolitano’s bestseller, ‘Hello Beautiful,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s August 2023 read. The rest was driven mainly by her ‘obsession’ with basketball history. Written during the pandemic and after the loss of her father, Napolitano crafted ‘the book that I emotionally needed.’ Centering on four sisters and one of their suitors, she hopes readers see ‘it’s never too late to reach out to the person you lost or … to the person you want to be.’ She also tells us about the new obsession starring in her next book — trees.

We’re joined by Marie Benedict, who, along with Victoria Christopher Murray, wrote The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2023 book, ‘The First Ladies,’ for a deeper look at First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Theirs was a powerful friendship that went unreported in mainstream media. Benedict explains how she and Murray, whose first book together was ‘The Personal Librarian,’ were able to research and write a story that was hidden in its time, then ‘lost’ over the years, capturing the conversations and causes of the real women behind this historical retelling.

Ann Patchett, bestselling author, book lover and bookstore owner (!), talks about how the play ‘Our Town,’ shaped ‘Tom Lake,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s November 2023 read, and ‘really informed my whole life.’ Patchett, who also wrote ‘The Dutch House,’ discusses love in all life stages and why she’s happiest now. Hear about her writing process (on a treadmill desk), the moving reason why her 60th birthday is so special and how she got Meryl Streep to record the ‘Tom Lake’ audiobook.

Fans of Robert Dugoni’s ‘The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell,’ already know how well the author captures heartfelt transformations in a coming-of-age novel. Our January 2022 Girlfriend Book Club read, ‘The World Played Chess,’ is another raw and honest look at growing up, this time told over different timelines through the eyes of other young men in very different and dangerous circumstances.

Amor Towles, the bestselling author of ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ and “A Lesson in Civility,’ takes The Girlfriend Book Clubbers on a ride through his writing past, his current process and how he was able to weave ‘eight perspectives told over ten days’ into one of the greatest novels of the year, our February 2022 selection, ‘The Lincoln Highway.’

Fans of Diane Chamberlain’s ‘The Last House on the Street’ will hear how the bestselling author almost wrote the bestseller as two separate books. Instead, she deftly weaved two tales into one in The Girlfriend Book Club’s March 2022 read. Chamberlain explains how she learned about the SCOPE program and how the racial tensions in her small town shaped her perspective.

While in London, Nita Prose had an awkward run-in with housekeeping, which days later evolved into the plot of The Girlfriend Book Club’s April 2022 pick, ‘The Maid.’ On her flight home, ‘Molly’s voice came to me, clear and precise,’ so Prose scribbled the prologue of her debut novel on a cocktail napkin. A former special education teacher, she’s witnessed the difficulty of being invisible in plain sight, which explains the authenticity of this Clue-like murder mystery about personal growth (set to be a film with Florence Pugh!).

A walk with family and friends along Virginia’s Richmond Slave Trail sent bestselling author Sadeqa Johnson down a path that led to her bestselling ‘Yellow Wife,’ and manifesting Oprah Winfrey, an early fan of this gut-wrenching story. Our May 2022 read is a harrowing tale based on the life of real-life enslaved person Mary Lumpkin, whose energy Johnson said she channeled to bring this multiple award-winning book to life.

A massive fan of ‘Auntie Mame,’ Steven Rowley was inspired to create a modern-day version with his larger-than-life main character in ‘The Guncle,’ The Girlfriend Book Club pick for June 2022. The result is a hilarious present-day comedy dedicated to his nieces and nephews. The author shares how his personality overlaps with Patrick’s, how he wrote the different age ranges and why sometimes our greatest weaknesses can be our greatest strength.

Marianne Cronin, bestselling author of our July 2022 book, ‘The Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot,’ explains that a diagnosis at 22 and a small news segment on art therapy helped her pen her beautiful debut novel about a friendship between two very different women who, together, are 100 years old. She shares how the voices for each character came to be and who she would cast as the perfect Margot (Dame Judi Dench – we agree!).

‘I’m not a chemist, and I do not like to cook,’ which is why Bonnie Garmus was floored when, at age 65, her first novel, The Girlfriend Book Club's August 2022 selection, ‘Lessons in Chemistry,’ became a runaway bestseller. The former copywriter wrote the first chapter after a terrible day at work and shares how her hit, which made it to the small screen in an Apple+ adaptation starring Brie Larson, is about unexpected turns. Garmus and Elizabeth Zott are women who started down one path, pivoted and captivated a nation.

‘What if you had one of those terrifying serial killers, but everyone thought it was a woman?’ That was the jumping-off point Simone St. James, the bestselling author of ‘The Book of Cold Cases,’ The Girlfriend Book Club pick for September 2022. Jumping between the current day and a 1970s fictional murder, St. James, who shares a love of crime podcasts with her main character, explains how she brings ghost stories into the light of day.

‘It’s either bananas or brilliant,’ is how her publisher’s assistant described The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2022 pick, ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ by Shelby Van Pelt. The bestseller was brilliant, and Van Pelt explains how her childhood obsession with ‘critters’ and a character study for a creative writing class resulted in this fan favorite.

A supernatural page-turner is hard to resist — now add increasingly twisted doodles from a seemingly deranged young boy. We’re in! Equally hard to resist? The author of The Girlfriend Book Club’s November 2022 book, Jason Rekulak, who gave us the inside scoop on how he brought his characters to life (and death?) and why he chose to include those spooky pics.

‘I’m someone drawn to big questions that don’t really have answers,’ explains author Nikki Erlick, ‘Why is life so random? How much power do I have over my fate?’ In her bestselling debut novel, ‘The Measure,’ Erlick gives her characters some control — at age 22, everyone gets a string that measures how many years they have left to live, but they don’t have to look. The plot unwinds based on those decisions and the ones Erlick made in her own life, which she candidly shares in her December 2022 chat with The Girlfriend Book Club.

Liane Moriarty’s fans know her books-turned-TV hits ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ and ‘Big Little Lies’ are addicting dramas. The same goes for The Girlfriend Book Club's December 2021 pick, ‘Apples Never Fall,’ about a family of competitive tennis players and the envy of their friends, the Delaneys, each with their secrets. In addition to insights on this bestseller (airing in March 2024 with Annette Bening and an all-star cast), the ‘What Alice Forgot’ writer shares that even she doesn’t always know how her books will end. Plus, learn how she came up with the title ‘Apples Never Fall’ and what ‘Big Little Lies’ was almost called!

The Girlfriend Book Club was thrilled to chat with Janet Skeslien Charles about our August 2021 pick, ‘The Paris Library,’ and learn more about the heroic librarians who protected the American Library in Nazi-occupied Paris. We look deeper at neighbors Odile and Lily, two women who turn to each other to share their past and present in this detail-rich, emotional bestseller.

While she was working a red-eye flight from L.A. to New York, T.J. Newman looked out at the sleeping passengers, and ‘it struck me at that moment, not just how vulnerable that made all of us, but more so how vulnerable that made the pilots.’ Learn how the pilot she shared the plot with reacted (terror!) and how the rest of her debut thriller ‘Falling,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2021 pick, played out on and off the page.

We had a delightful live discussion with Heather Webber, the prolific author of our bestselling pick for November 2021, ‘Midnight at the Blackbird Café,’ her first standalone novel. Webber explains how the Beatles’ ‘Blackbird’ lyrics got her thinking about what they might say ‘in the dead of night’ and the power of learning to fly on broken wings. This charming, small-town story about our real pain is as sweet as the pies at the Blackbird Café.

We’re joined by Marie Benedict, who, along with Victoria Christopher Murray, wrote The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2023 book, ‘The First Ladies,’ for a deeper look at First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Theirs was a powerful friendship that went unreported in mainstream media. Benedict explains how she and Murray, whose first book together was ‘The Personal Librarian,’ were able to research and write a story that was hidden in its time, then ‘lost’ over the years, capturing the conversations and causes of the real women behind this historical retelling.

When Sally Hepworth decided to write her first book, she Googled, ‘How to write a book.’ Six novels later, the bestselling author picked up a thing or two! The Girlfriend Book Club’s July 2021 read, ‘The Good Sister,’ is a twisty thriller about fraternal twins, one with a sensory processing disorder and the other, diabetes, who are very different women with very different, unreliable versions of their lives. Hepworth shares the neurodiversity in her own family and grappled with writing a character who was. While she doesn’t have sisters, Hepworth has many in her family, including her two daughters, to whom she dedicated the book to show her the joys and horrors of sisterhood!