Oprah’s bookclub: All the way to the river by Elizabeth Gilbert

Expected publication: September 9, 2025

Genre: Memoir

pages: 400

Oprah announced her new pick on the release date, so we got to read this in september and coming into October.

It’s another memoir from the queen of memoirs Elizabeth Gilbert who you probably know from “Eat, pray, love”. I can’t wait to read her continued story about love, loss and liberation.

Read with Jenna: The Irish goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill

Expected publication: Sept 30, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 288

Two decades ago, thee sisters lives were upended by an accident when their brother Topher’s friend was killed, the lawsuit nearly bankrupted their parents, and Topher spiraled into a depression, eventually taking his life.

Now the Ryan women are back for Thanksgiving, eager to reconnect, but each carrying a heavy secret.

Service95 bookclub Dua Lipa: Flesh by David Szalay

Published: March 6, 2025

Genre: Literary fiction

pages: 368

Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. His mother tells him to help the neighbor with her groceries and these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident that leaves a man dead.

What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees István emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London’s billionaire class. At each juncture, his life is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers. Through it all, István is a calm, detached observer of his own life, and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant “success story,” brightened by moments of sensitivity, softness, and Szalay’s keen observation.

I rated this book 5 stars I was so enamored with it – so you’re in for a treat here! It was also on the booker 2025 longlist.

Reese’s bookclub: Gone before goodbye tour

Expected publication: October 14

Genre: Thriller

pages: 352

Instead of picking a bookclub pick this month Reese is going on tour promoting her new book co-written with Harlan Coben (some might say the king of fast paced thrillers).

GMA: Twice by Mitch Albom

Expected publication: October 7

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Fantasy

pages: 320

Alfie discovers at an early age that he can undo any money and live it again. But correcting mistakes can have both benefiting and detrimental results.

The Devil is a south paw

Expected publication: October 28, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 352

Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented young Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.

A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, sometimes surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of racial and institutional violence and the systemic injustices in our systems of incarceration and so-called reform.

Remain by Nickholas Sparks with M. Night Shyamalan

Expected publication: October 14, 2025

Genre: Fiction – romance/mystery

pages: 352

BE SO FFR! A collab between “The notebook” author Nicholas Sparks and “Signs” and “sixth sense” director M.Night Shyamalan??? This is something I never even thought about ever seeing. But I’m into it!

When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation—that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family—sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.

Gone before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben

Expected publication: October 14, 2025

Genre: Thriller

pages: 352

Is October collab month? First Spark and Shyamaland and now this. Witherspoon wants to dip her toes into thrillers, she can have no better teacher than Coben, I’m sat.

Maggie McCabe is teetering on the brink. A highly skilled and renowned Army combat surgeon, she has always lived life at the edge, where she could make the most impact. And it was all going to plan…until it wasn’t.

Upside down after a devastating series of tragedies leads to her medical license being revoked, Maggie has lost her purpose, but not her nerve or her passion. At her lowest point, she is thrown a lifeline by a former colleague, an elite plastic surgeon whose anonymous clientele demand the best care money can buy, as well as absolute discretion.

Halfway across the globe, sequestered in the lap of luxury and cutting-edge technology, one of the world’s most mysterious men requires unconventional medical assistance. Desperate, and one of the few surgeons in the world skilled enough to take this job, Maggie enters his realm of unspeakable opulence and fulfills her end of the agreement. But when the patient suddenly disappears while still under her care, Maggie must become a fugitive herself—or she will be the next one who is…

Twice by Mitch Albom

Expected publication: October 7, 2025

Genre: Magical realism, romance

pages: 320

When he is eight years old, Alfie Logan discovers the magical ability to get a second chance at everything. He can undo any moment and live it again. Then he must accept the consequences of his second try—for better or worse.

He grows up correcting his mistakes and saving himself from adolescent embarrassments. He even takes foolishly dangerous risks, just to see what it’s like to come close to death, before tapping back to safety.

Eventually, Alfie turns his gift to his love life, studying his crushes and going back to make himself more appealing. In time, he falls deeply in love with Gianna, the woman he believes is the one.

OH THIS SOUNDS SO FUN!!!!

Thisis the only kingdom by Jaquira Díaz

Expected publication: October 21, 2025

Genre: Fiction, mystery

pages: 336

When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico – beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for herself, for Rey, his young brother Tito, and eventually, their daughter Nena. Until one fateful day changes everything.

Boom Town by Nic Stone

Expected publication: October 14, 2025

Genre: Thriller

pages: 288

You may know Nic Stone from her YA novel Dear Martin, but she’s doing something different here in an adult thriller.

When Damaris “Charm” Wilburn, a new daytime dancer, is missing for her shift at Boom Town, former headliner Michah “Lyriq” Johanssen suspects something more than a “no call, no show.” As Lyriq’s former headline partner and lover—Felice “Lucky” Carothers—also vanished under similar circumstances, Lyriq decides she’s going to find them.

Wreck by Catherine Newman

Expected publication: October 28, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 224

If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry—and relate.)   

Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband Nick and their daughter Willa, who’s back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky’s widowed father, has moved in.

It all couldn’t be more ridiculously normal . . . until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them—and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won’t affect them at all.

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison

Expected publication: October 21, 2025

Genre: Holiday fiction

pages: 384

Are we ready for the holiday season books guys?

He’s the Ghost of Christmas Past. She’s not exactly Scrooge.

Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan Callahan intends to spend this holiday haunting like every other—get in, get out, return to his otherwise aimless existence as a ghost awaiting the afterlife. But when he’s faced with Harriet York, the sweetest assignment he’s ever had, he suddenly finds himself wishing for a future.

Harriet York has no idea why she’s being haunted. She’s a good person—or, at least, she tries to be. A people pleaser to her core, she always does what’s expected of her. But as she and Nolan begin to examine her past, they discover there are threads that bind them together— and realize there might be more to moving on than expected.

With the deadline of Christmas Eve fast approaching, will they find the key to their futures in each other’s pasts? Or will they stay firmly in the present, indulging in their unexpected, spirited connection?

The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson

Expected publication: October14, 2025

Genre: Historical Fiction

pages: 736 (thick!)

The Wayfinder is an epic, sweeping novel set in the Polynesian islands of the South Pacific during the height of the Tu’i Tonga Empire. At its heart is Kōrero, a young girl chosen to save her people from the brink of starvation. Her quest takes her from her remote island home on a daring seafaring journey across a vast ocean empire built on power, consumption, and bloodshed.

With the grandeur of Wolf Hall, Shogun, and War and Peace, The Wayfinder immerses readers in a world untouched by Western influence, evoking the lost art of oral storytelling. Far from a conventional swashbuckling adventure, it conjures a world of outrigger canoes and celestial navigation, weaving a narrative that is as much about survival and self-discovery as it is about the sweeping history of the Tongan people.

The Widow by John Grisham

Expected publication: October 21, 2025

Genre: Mystery

pages: 416

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it.

Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t murder.

Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer….