December 2026 - The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali

 

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Monday, December 14, 2026 at the Brehon Pub.  We will be discussing The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali.

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

October 2026 - The Witch by Marie Ndiaye

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Monday, October 5, 2026 at the Brehon Pub.

We will be discussing The Witch by Marie Ndiaye.

In a small French town, a mediocre witch trapped in a cruel marriage cries watery tears of blood as she passes on her gifts to her twin daughters, who soon must make a choice: stay close to the nest and the mother who nourished them, or soar away from the dead-end claustrophobia their selfish father has imposed?

Lucie comes from a long line of witches, with powers passed down from mother to daughter. Many of them have hidden or repressed their gifts to appease disgusted or fearful men. But against the wishes of her controlling husband, Lucie initiates her twins into their family’s peculiar womanhood when they reach the age of twelve. In a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying rich crimson tears, their powers quickly becoming more potent than their mother’s, opening them to liberation and euphoria beyond what Lucie and her foremothers ever considered.

Equal parts dreamlike and disquieting, The Witch tells a tale as old as time, with a dark twist: Without looking back, children fly the nest, laying bare the tenuous threads of family that have long threatened to snap. With simmering tension and increasing panic, NDiaye’s latest novel in English captures the terror and precarity of motherhood and marriage, and the uncertainty of slowly realizing that your progeny are more dangerous—to the world and to your heart—and freer than you

August 2026 - Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith

 

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, August 11 in Marie's Yard.

We will be discussing Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith.

Everywhere about her, from the traffic on Highway 460 to the river that's gone black with coal dust, Crystal Spangler sees a current flowing from the mountain town of Black Rock into the wider world. As a teenager, she is elected beauty queen, gets good grades, and-despite her many enviable qualities-manages also to be well-loved. Everyone knows that she is destined to leave town and do great things.

And she does.

But no one expects her return; drawn back home by some sort of memory, as if the current that had taken her away had changed its mind...

June 2026 - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, June 9 in Marie's Yard.  We will be discussing, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

The Age of Innocence, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton, is a classic love story set in late 19th century New York City. It tells the story of Newland Archer, a young lawyer, and his struggle between his arranged marriage to a beautiful but conventional woman and his passionate love for her cousin, the scandalous Countess Ellen Olenska. This novel explores the complexities of life in a society bound by rigid rules and expectations. Through the eyes of Newland Archer, readers gain insight into the hypocrisy, snobbery, and pretense of the Gilded Age. The Age of Innocence is a timeless classic that provides an honest, humorous, and often painful look at the human condition.

February 2026 - The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, February 10 at the Brehon Pub.  We will be discussing, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

Ea   

E   Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

December 2025 - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

 

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, December 9 at the Brehon Pub.  We will be discussing, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.

In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men.

As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

October 2025 - Not Even the Dead by Juan Gomez Bárcena

 *DATE CHANGE*

The Paralegal Book Club will meet at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, October 21 at the Brehon Pub.  We will be discussing, Not Even the Dead by Juan Gomez Bárcena.

The conquest of Mexico is over, and Juan de Toñanes is one of so many soldiers without glory who roam like beggars for the land they helped subdue. When he receives one last mission, to hunt down a renegade Indian who’s called the Father and who preaches a dangerous heresy, he understands that this may be his last chance to carve himself the future he’s always dreamed of. But as he goes deep into the unexplored lands of the north following the Father's trace, he will discover the footprints of a man who seems not only a man, but a prophet destined to transform his time and even the times to come.

Not Even the Dead is the story of a persecution that transcends territories and centuries; a path pointing northward, always northward, that is to say, always toward the future, on a hallucinated journey from the sixteenth century New Spain to today's Trump wall. Old conquerors on horseback and migrants riding the roofs of the Beast, rebellious Indians and peasants waiting patiently for a better world, Mexican revolutionaries who take their rifles and women murdered in the desert of Ciudad Juárez, all pass by it. All of them share the same landscape and the same hope, the arrival of the Father who will bring justice to the oppressed.