Are you looking for a serial killer thriller with profound social commentary? Michael Bennett’s Better the Blood (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) is propulsive and leaves the reader with many things to consider.
For our June Unabridged book club, we're discussing Better the Blood, which is perfect for the 2023 Unabridged Reading Challenge, where it can cover categories including mystery novel, a book by an indigenous author, and a book set in a country you'd like to visit (if New Zealand is on your list!).
We share our pairings as well, including Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) and Jane Harper’s The Dry (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm).
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Bookish Check-in
Ashley - Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Jen - Kirstin Valdez Quade’s The Five Wounds (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Our Book Club Pick
Michael Bennett’s Better the Blood (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Our Pairings
Ashley - Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Jen - Jane Harper’s The Dry (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
Check out Jen's post here for 7+ more pairings!
Give Me One - Plan for Summer
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Bookish Check-in
Ashley was reading...
Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
From the Publisher:
"Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.
"As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.
"Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
"With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn."
Jen was reading...
Kirstin Valdez Quade’s The Five Wounds (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
From the Publisher:
"It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.
"Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.
"The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as 'legitimate masterpieces' (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save."
Our Book Club Pick
Michael Bennett’s Better the Blood (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
From the Publisher:
"A tenacious Māori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to an historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Māori Chief.
"Hana realizes that the murders are utu—the Māori tradition of rebalancing for the crime committed eight generations ago. There were six soldiers in the British troop, and since descendants of two of the soldiers have been killed, four more potential murders remain. Hana is thus hunting New Zealand’s first serial killer.
"The pursuit soon becomes frighteningly personal, recalling the painful event, two decades before, when Hana, then a new cop, was part of a police team sent to end by force a land rights occupation by indigenous peoples on the same ancestral mountain where the Chief was killed, calling once more into question her loyalty to her roots. Worse still, a genealogical link to the British soldiers brings the case terrifyingly close to Hana’s own family. Twisty and thought-provoking, Better the Blood is the debut of a remarkable new talent in crime fiction."
Our Pairings
Ashley recommended...
Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
From the Publisher: "From New York Times best-selling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American-Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American-Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way."
Jen recommended...
Jane Harper’s The Dry (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)
From the Publisher: "A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.
"After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn't tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.
"Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there's more to Luke's death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets."
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