Lori & Julia's Book Club

A feel-good romantic comedy that has a great premise (enemies to lovers!) and delivers some flirty fun. Twin sisters, two brothers, a wedding, a secret, a fake marriage and a very spicy romance - set in Minneapolis and Maui. If you are in need of a light breezy escape, this is your book. If you read Christina Lauren’s book, ROOMIES – that has been optioned by Jenna Dewan.

Jane Green along with Elin Hildebrand and Liane Moriarty is one of our fav authors! Her latest book will keep you reading all day at the pool, beach or porch. The story opens with a trio of 3 unlikely friends who meet at university and know they will be friends forever. But life as it does, gets in the way after graduation and they start to lose touch and forget what they envisioned when they were younger. And one of the characters, Evvie, a former child actress is also keeping a huge secret from her friends. 4 stars

A trio of adult sisters are coming to terms with their very complicated family history. We all experience and remember our family life differently and this book explores some deep and complicated issues that drive us all. Told with sweetness and with searing honesty about some difficult subjects (incarceration, eating disroders and domestic abuse) while at the same time being a gripping read.

This book has so much Hollywood wrapped around its pages that The Chateau is almost the narrator storyteller. Perfect summer read. Shawn weaves together historical research and firsthand accounts in an eye popping delicious way. And with 90 years of being in business, the walls are now talking! Jean Harlow, Marvin Gaye, John Belushi, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Tate, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, the Sunset Strip, Bugsy Siegal…..4 stars

A very compelling and twisty new novel about a woman's complicated relationship with her mother-in-law that ends in death...but what happens in between as the story is alternately narrated by both daughter-in-law and mother-in-law in past and present terms is what keeps the pages turning. Let’s just say that from the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, she knew she wasn’t the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son but everyone in this family is hiding something…Highly recommended (unless you are trying to get pregnant!).

A heartfelt and moving coming of age story. Movies have always helped Ethan, our protagonist. Maybe it's because movies help him make sense of real life, or maybe it's because movies are the one place he can go to still feel close to his dad, a film professor who died three years ago. Either way, it's a place worth fighting for, especially when developers threaten to tear the classic Green Street Cinema down to build a luxury condos. So now it's up to the employees of the Green Street Cinema to save the place they love. And it's going to take a movie miracle if the Green Street is going to have a happy ending. And when Raina, Ethan's oldest friend (and possible soul mate?), comes home from Hollywood where she's been starring in B-movies, Ethan thinks that miracle just may have been delivered. This is a book that movies buffs, young adults and anyone who loves a great book will love. 4 stars

A charming, funny and sweet book about the effect a loved newspaper columnist has on the people of the small town of Granite Creek. Haze has chronicled her life and the real world life events in her column for 50 years. Haze is now in her 80’s and while in a coma, the town’s newspaper starts re-printing some of her columns with unexpected results and surprises. We fell in love with this book! And there really are a few recipes (which make sense in context). An excellent book club read too….. 4 stars

Inspired by the true story of Nazis living in plain sight in post WWII America. This incredible saga follows three storylines involving a Russian female bomber pilot, a battle haunted English journalist and a budding teenage photojournalist. Vividly written with rich detail and suspense, this book will have you turning the pages non-stop. If you loved The Lilac Girls, The Nightingale (or The Alice Network which Kate wrote) – this book is for you.

Told entirely from the perspective of the unnamed husband, this wildly compulsive debut thriller about a couple whose fifteen-year marriage is at a crossroads - until they find something exciting to do together (which is murder). We could not put this book down and read in 2 days. If you love a well written compulsively thrilling twisty book, this is it! Reese Witherspoon needs to option this ASAP! 4 stars

After 20 years of marriage Matt and Marie have been through everything together and when they go on a romantic hiking trip to rekindle the relationship, only one of them comes back alive. Told in past and present tense from both characters, this is a twisty Hitchcockian novel of suspense that is insightful, sharp and will keep you turning the page! The movie rights were sold in November!. 4 stars

This story is set mostly in London 1947 and revolves around the friendship between 2 women (Nan and Vivian) who become friends while embroidering Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown. This is a moving and vivid story of the real-life design studio that made her dress and the incredible story of friendship, love and loss between the two women post WWII. Flash forward to Toronto 2016 when Nan’s granddaughter makes a startling discovery which leads her back to London to try and discover what really happened in Nan’s life...we loved every page. No doubt this is coming to TV. 4 stars

This is a dark drama with an unstable narrator telling her story which is that she is a poetry teacher who is unhappily childless and teetering on the brink of a very unhinged state. She hates her soon to be ex-husband with a passion and has an alarming preoccupation with the movie star actress who lives down the street. You will either love or hate this book. It has been optioned by Emily Mortimer for a limited tv series. 2 stars

From the authors of the best-selling A WIFE BETWEEN US comes another twisty suspense novel. When Jessica Farris sneaks into a psychology study conducted by Dr. Lindsay Shields she thinks it’s going to be just easy money by answering a few questions. But as the questions become more intense in each session and the money goes up, she finds herself in a web of mystery, obsession and deceit. What is real and what it not becomes the question. This book has been optioned for a TV series and their 1st novel has been optioned by Steven Spielberg. These women are on fire! 5 stars

Your worst family gathering could not be as bad as this gathering is. Alternately hilarious and poignant, this debut novel keeps you turning the page. Meet The Adults: Matt and Alex are no longer married but decide for the sake of their 8 year old daughter (who has an imaginary rabbit as a best friend), that they want to spend Christmas together with each other and their new partners. This book starts with the OMG ending and then told from each person’s viewpoint! 4 stars

Meet avant garde literary star, Eve Babitz. No one wrote about Hollywood like Eve and that’s because no one lived like her. This is a dishy splashy biography that started out as a story in Vanity Fair. Lili Anolik becomes obsessed with finding Eve and getting to know everything she could about her. The result is discovering an amazing woman who is the ultimate insider in LA, a true bohemian who enjoyed the power of her beauty, slept with a lot of men before they were famous (Harrison Ford, Jim Morrison, Steve Martin to name a few), and oh yeah wrote some incredible books that are resonating with young women right now. If you want to know who Eve is, here’s your book. 4 out of 5 stars