Saturdays at the Café

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

For readers of Colm Tóibín and Claire Keegan, Saoirse is a powerful novel set between the United States and Ireland about a woman who runs from her traumatic past and the secrets she carries to survive.

In Michigan, Sarah’s childhood was defined by fear and silence. As a teenager, she saw a chance to escape and took it. Now, in 1999, she is an artist living on the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she is known as Saoirse (pronounced Sear-sha)—a name that sounds like the sea and means freedom in the language of her adopted country. And free is precisely how she is finally beginning to feel. Her partner and two beloved daughters are regular subjects of her paintings, and together they have made the safe home she always longed for. But Saoirse’s secrets haunt her. No one must learn of the identity she has stolen in order to survive; they cannot know of the dangers that she crossed an ocean to escape.

When her artwork wins unexpected acclaim at a Dublin exhibition, the spotlight of fame threatens to unravel the careful lies that hold her world together. Journalists and admirers begin to ask questions about the mysterious artist from Donegal, and she fears the unwanted publicity will expose all that she has done.

Saoirse is an evocative, suspenseful exploration of the intimate relationship between art and life and the lies we tell ourselves in the name of reinvention.

Thanks to Carla @ Carla Loves to Read for her wonderful review. It’s a library audiobook hopeful.

---

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Atlanta at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and marries into an affluent family. Annie, abandoned by her dissolute mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, and culminate in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

Thanks to Becky @ Bookmarked by Becky for her great review. It’s also Oprah’s Book Club March selection. I’m in the library queue for the audiobook.

---

One writer, one editor, one hot summer… A romance for the books?

Ciara Sheridan‘s father has left her with three things: a sprawling and distinctly ramshackle estate on the Irish coast, the outline for the finale to his bestselling epic fantasy series that he wanted her to finish – and writer’s block.

Enter Sam Avery: Frank-Sheridan-fanboy and hotshot editor, sent from the New York publishing house direct to her doorstep – against Ciara’s wishes and red pen at the ready.

With the deadline looming, Ciara and Sam have just a few weeks to stop bickering, write this novel and secure Frank’s legacy.

But as the summer heats up, so too does the tension between them. Will their own love story be the plot twist neither of them see coming?

Book Lovers meets Leap Year in this dual-POV, forced-proximity, bookish romantic comedy with a VERY HOT twist – the brand-new book from bestselling Kindle chart sensation and Irish author, Catherine Walsh.

I learned about this new release from the author’s newsletter. I’m in a long library queue for the audiobook.

---

An intoxicating drama set in the world of New York City’s elite, A Killer in the Family explores the underside of the American dream and asks, what happens when you marry into a family that keeps secrets?

It’s time for Ali, a good-natured Mumbai party-boy, to grow up. The first step to settling down is an arranged marriage to Maryam, the daughter of Abbas Khan, a New York real estate tycoon. She’s pretty, demure, and respectable—unlike her sister, Farhan, a sexy, rebellious divorcée.

After the wedding, Ali moves to New York and enjoys the privileges of being an honorary Khan: private helicopters, supertall skyscrapers, and a Gatsbyesque house in the Hamptons. But soon rumors begin to surface about Abbas Khan—accusations of corruption and hidden affairs—and Farhan hints that a violent secret underlies Abbas’s success. Though Ali’s wife insists the insinuations are unfounded, he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he doesn’t know.

To uncover the truth, Ali launches his own investigation, which takes him deep into Abbas’s dealings and past. As he closes in on the truth, Ali must decide: Can he remain part of the Khan family, and pay the moral price demanded by unimaginable wealth and power?

I accepted this for audio review.

“Claire Douglas is a class act—she never, ever disappoints.” — Lisa Jewell, New York Timesbestselling author of Breaking the Dark and None of This Is True

Unassuming neighbors may not be what they seem in this twisty, spine-tingling thriller from the internationally bestselling author of The Couple at Number 9 and The Girls Who Disappeared.

They seem like the perfect couple. But what are they hiding?

When Lena overhears a conversation between her next-door-neighbors she thinks she must have misheard.

The Morgans are a kind, retired couple who recently moved to their sleepy suburban street in Bristol where nothing ever happens. But to Lena it sounded very much like they were planning a crime.

Her family and friends tell her she must be mistaken. Yet Lena can’t stop thinking about that strange conversation. What if they really are about to do something terrible?

What if she can prevent it?

Thanks to Nikki @ Nikki Lee Thrill Seeker for her excellent review. It’s a library audiobook hopeful.

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?