Category: In The Club

This novel opens in in 1929 in New Orleans. Adana Moreau has written a work of science fiction about a young Dominican immigrant in search of a lost city, a young woman not unlike herself. The book is a success, so Adana begins to write a sequel only to destroy it when she suddenly becomes ill. Decades later in Chicago, Saul is cleaning out the home of his recently deceased grandfather when he finds the not-so-destroyed-after-all manuscript of Adana’s sequel. How and why does this manuscript exist? Why does his grandfather have it? Saul finds himself in New Orleans in the thick of Katrina in search of answers.

More than a few of my book friends have named this as one of their favorite books of the year. Book Riot’s own Amanda Nelson described it as a “groundbreaking debut novel that folds the legends of Hawaiian gods into an engrossing family saga; a story of exile and the pursuit of salvation.” This might have to be one of my holiday break reads.

This novel is a searing commentary on climate change with some major Lord of the Flies vibes. A group of kids and teens are spending the summer at a lakeside mansion where their parents largely ignore them in their booze, drugs, and sex-induced stupor. When a massive storm descends on the estate, the kids—led by ringleader and narrator Eve—run away into the apocalyptic chaos outside, one of them with a children’s bible in tow. As they seek refuge in an abandoned farm house, the events in the pages of the bible begin to bleed into real life.

You, like me, might kinda think you already know that the fairy tales of the West have major ableist tones, but reading this book really just circles all that’s wrong with those depictions in bright red ink. Able-bodied privilege has kept many of us from thinking critically about the implications of ableist messaging in these beloved stories, from Brothers Grimm to Hans Christian Andersen to the Disney machine. Think about it. The villains are either disfigured in some way or disability is their punishment for being evil. The princesses and princes who find love aren’t ever disabled, or if they are, it’s only after their hideous disfigurement has been shaken off that they find love. Are you cringing? You should be cringing. This #ownvoices book is one I wish I could hand out on the streets.

Never Look Back is a YA retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth by my beloved Lilliam Rivera, the author who won me all the way over in Dealing in Dreams when she named the girl gang in the book “Las Malcriadas.” This reimagining is set in the Bronx and features a cast of Afro-Latinx characters. If you like Pri-de by Iii Zoboi or mythology remixes in general, this book will be right up your alley.

George M. Johnson is a journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist and this is his young-adult memoir. It chronicles his childhood, adulthood, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia while examining gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and—this is so important—Black joy. It’s meant to be both a primer for teens who want to be allies and a testimony for young queer men of color. As I’ve said before, toxic masculinity exists in all kinds of communities and I wish more people would take a moment to examine that reality.

This thriller follows Virgil Wounded Horse, a vigilante enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When the legal system fails to bring justice to his community, Virgil takes matters into his own hands. His mission gets even more personal when heroin infiltrates the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew.

Confession: I thought that was a giant rat on the cover wearing a fur coat, like maybe the Rat King from the Nutcracker or something? Wow, Diaz: when you’re wrong, you’re the most wrong. I’m so ashamed!

This thriller is a big time Book Riot favorite and has started to make a lot of the “best of” lists, but I’m still including it because it’s a debut and I want to keep that momentum going. Bug is a family man doing his best to provide for his wife and kids, but life hasn’t exactly dealt him a lucky hand: his garage is struggling, he’s not making ends meet, and now his elderly mother is facing eviction from her nursing home. In a bid for some fast cash, he steps back into a familiar role as a getaway driver, a job he left a long time ago. He goes into it with that “just one more job!” mentality we’ve heard before, pero… ya know. I’ve lost count of how many people have told me that a particular car chase scene in this book is one of the most thrilling and intense scenes they’ve read in a long time.

I always preface this recommendation with the disclaimer that this book is not for the faint of heart. Real talk: I had to put it down because it just contains all the triggers. For those who can handle a darker read and are looking for fic in translation, I want to keep spreading the word about this rising star in Mexican literature. After the death of the town witch in a small Mexican village, the investigation that follows reveals some dark truths about the unreliable inhabitants of its community. Fernanda Melchor isn’t here to mince words; she’s here to shine a white hot light on the ways this community, much like very real communities in Mexico, has been ravaged by drug abuse, poverty, alcoholism, homophobia, and misogyny.

This story set in contemporary Seoul tells the connected stories of four women: one whose many cosmetic procedures have landed her a job at one of Seoul’s “room salons” where wealthy men seek drink and the entertainment of women; a New York art school graduate who’s returned to Seoul and now has a super rich Korean boyfriend; a hair stylist obsessed with K-pop and her best friend’s plans for some pretty extreme cosmetic surgery; and a newlywed struggling to conceive who’s actually unsure if she can really afford to raise a child. Class issues, patriarchy, inequality, crippling beauty standards: what I’m saying is there’s lots to discuss.

Patrice Caldwell took a whole bunch of Black girl magic and bottled it all up in one convenient and beautiful volume. This stellar list of contributors includes Elizabeth Acevedo, Dhonielle Clayton, L.L. McKinney, Ibi Zoboi, and Justina Ireland. Their gorgeous stories center Black women and gender nonconforming individuals through tales of fantasy, science fiction, and magic.

True crime and I have an uneasy relationship: there is definitely such a thing as thoughtful examination of crime, but a lot of what I encounter when the murder of women is involved feels to me more like gross sensationalizing and trauma porn. That’s why I love the premise of this book, which chooses to focus less on the killer (Jack the Ripper, you may have heard of him) and instead gives the victims a voice. It tells their stories rather than just reducing them to a pile of bodies, an angle I am very here for.

This book came out at the very end of 2020 in a move I still don’t 100% understand, so I’m including it in this year’s lineup because it’s such a good convo starter. Alix, a white woman who’s made a career as an influencer, hires Amira, a twenty-something Black woman, to be her young daughter’s babysitter. A surprising connection from Alix’ past and Amira’s present threatens to undo them both. This is a funny, thoughtful read about race and privilege that I don’t think gets enough shine, one that really dives into that whole “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” thing.

This multi-generational story takes us from the Deep South to California and spans the 50s to the 90s. We meet identical twin sisters who are inseparable at birth but go on to lead entirely different lives. One sister eventually goes on to live with her Black daughter in that same town she tried to escape, and the other is passing as white and married to a white man who has no idea that she is Black.They’re separated by just as many miles as lies, but their fates intertwine again when their daughters’ own storylines intersect against all odds.

Gifty is a Ghanian American PhD candidate in neuroscience at Stanford Med where she’s studying depression and addiction by observing the reward-seeking behavior of mice. This work is very personal: she was just a kid when her athlete brother Nana injured his ankle during a high school basketball game and then got hooked on the Oxycontin he was prescribed. After spiraling in his addiction and relapsing almost immediately after a stint in rehab, Nana overdosed on heroine and died. Gifty turns to science to understand Nana’s addiction and the depth of her family’s loss. She also finds herself pulled in by the allure of salvation offered by the faith she thought she’d long abandoned.

I love this book so much, that is no secret. The reason I love it for book club is the way the book approaches/discusses gendered magic. Yadriel is a trans boy who wants more than anything for his super traditional Latinx family to accept him as a man. To prove that he’s a brujo, he performs the sacred coming-of-age ritual wherein brujx come into their powers; with the help of his BFF cousin, he uses his powers to summon the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. Prero….. the ghost he summons isn’t his cousin. His name is Julian, he refuses to leave, and he’s what I’ve affectingly dubbed a Hottie McGuapo. The book is inspired by lots of different Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals and is full of Spanish much to my heart’s delight. It’s a sweet, funny and romantic read with great conversation potential.

Black women show up for literally everybody; do we show up for them? Feminism must be intersectional. Period. The sort of prettily photographed stuff you so often see in your Instagram feed leaves Black women behind, concerning itself not with basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. If your approach to feminism ain’t inclusive, it’s trash, and this book dives into that idea unflinchingly.

I stand by this advice all these months later: go into this book knowing as little about as possible! Just trust that you’re in good hands, prepare for side-eye, and go forth! It’ll terrify you for reasons that I can’t divulge without entering spoiler territory, but if I can handle it, you can. And like I said before, Alyssa Cole has a whole catalog of wonderful romance novels for you if you do need a palate cleanser when you’re done.

How many times have I raved about t his twisty, unsettling creeper of a book!? Fashionable Mexico City socialite Noemi receives a cryptic letter from her newly-wed cousin Catalina begging to be rescued. Noemi heads to High Place, the creepy ol’ house set in the mountains of Hidalgo where Catalina lives to see what, if anything, she can do. Virgil, Catalina’s English husband, says it’s tuberculosis that lead his wife to write that nonsensical letter, but Noemi isn’t buying that mess. What begins as a slow, simmering uneasiness boils into full blown disturbia as Noemi discovers the secrets hidden in High Place. If you liked the movie Get Out, this has that same something-is-so-wrong-but-gawd-what-is-it vibe that builds up to some serious WTFery. (CW: references to sexual assault and I cannot stress this enough: body horror. Sorry ’bout the mushrooms.)

I have been wanting to own a witchy tea shop since reading The Witches of New York last year and waited a full year to read its sequel during the holidays! As Beatrice, Eleanor, and Adelaide roast chestnuts and melt lead to see their fates, a series of odd messengers come a-callin’ with invitations for each of them. The invites are to an NYE masquerade hosted by a mysterious woman they’ve never met. Who is this woman? Is this a grand and generous gesture or a trap? The witches don their most decadent finery and head for the ball to find out. I do think you should read these in order, so go back and read the first book if you haven’t, then travel to Gilded-Age New York with this treat of a story in the tradition of Victorian winter tales.

Book club bonus: Yes, this book revolves around an enchanted and magical evening, but the women are still witches and thus are walking targets. Talk about the importance of their friendship as a tool for deflecting the accusations and cruelty that are an ever-present part of their world.

I told you this list wan’t going to be all feel-good books and this literary mystery is precisely why. Janina is a reclusive woman in a remote Polish village who minds the homes of well-to-do Polish residents who’ve left town for the brutally cold winter. When a neighbor’s suspicious death is followed by several other equally suspicious deaths, Janina insists that the killings have been at the hands (hooves? paws?) of animals enacting vigilante justice on the vile men who hunted them. The book doesn’t ask who dunnit, but instead asks why. Again, not a “cozy” read in the traditional sense, but the cold just leaps off the page and feels apropos for winter reading.

Book club bonus: There’s no shortage of topics to unpack here, but I like to focus on the roles of empathy, ageism, and man’s impact on the natural world are portrayed.

Winter makes me crave all things magical and this is one of my favorite magical reads of 2020. In a world reminiscent of Regency England, Beatrice Claybourn wants nothing more than to practice magic as a profession. But women don’t get to do that sort of thing; in fact, they’re fitted with a collar that cuts off their powers as soon as soon they’re wed. Beatrice locates a rare grimoire that will help grant her wish to do magic, but another sorceress takes the book right out from under her. Beatrice sets out get the grimoire back and catches major feelings for the stealing sorceress’ hottie brother in the process. Soon she’s faced with an impossible choice: does she give into love, wed this lovely man, and in doing so save her family from destitution at the cost of her hopes and dreams? Or does she follow her heart and turn her back on everyone she loves?

Book club bonus: Did you catch the part about the collar? Could that, I dunno, be a symbol? C.L. Polk is saying big things about the repression and subjugation of women and I am here for all of it. Discuss.

I came across this collection of Christmas tales while looking up Farrah Rochon’s catalog after falling in love with The Boyfriend Project. The stories in this collection whisk us off to a rustic Italian village and a luxury ski resort in Colorado for some holiday romance. I would love to read this with a buddy this winter, if for no other reason that to gush about brown and Black love.

Book club bonus: This year has been a rollercoaster in my reading life, but one thing I learned for sure is how healing it is to take a break from reading about trauma. Those kinds of reads are important too, no doubt. But for real though: people deserve to read about joy. Crack that nut open in book club!

Kathy is 31 and looking back on her time spent at Hailsham, an idyllic and secluded boarding school in the English countryside. It’s here that she developed a close friendship with two other students, Ruth and Tommy. As she uncovers some startling realities about their shared pasts, she also realizes the full truth of what Hailsham was. (This one is from my TBR and seriously- why haven’t I read this?! Suspense! Boarding school! English countryside! Complicated friendships! Let me pull up this Libby app…)

I love me a good heist, and this book is sort of like if the crew from The Italian Job were a little younger and lived in a dark, magical world called Ketterdam. Our six uniquely skilled and dangerous outcasts include a thief, a spy, a runaway, a sharpshooter, a Heartrender, and convict with a thirst for revenge. Together they’ll work to pull off the mother of all heists—if they don’t kill each other first.

I briefly mentioned this book last week as an and told you all to keep the tissues at the ready. I meant it!! This absolutely heartbreaking story of love, tragedy, and the redemptive power of friendship is set both in Chicago amidst the AIDS crisis and in contemporary Paris. I wanted so badly to hop into those pages and hug the main character until he told me to stop!

Sneaking this one in one more time! There’s a whole lot to love about this book: an exploration of the role of race and gender in workplace dynamics, a look at the Black woman’s experience in STEM; a depiction of self-assured and empowered women who know their worth (and when to say no to catfishing f*ck boys). The romance is fun, sexy, and satisfying on several levels, but my favorite part is that it contains one of the best, healthiest, most fun depictions of female friendship I’ve read in awhile. These women are funny, supportive, kind, and honest with one another. More of this in 2021, por favor.

This is a re-release of Kiese Laymon’s first nonfiction release from 2013, now revised with six new essays. The essays examine race, identity, and injustice through a very personal lens and cover topics that range from college football and Outkast to the labor (good grief, the labor!) of Black women. Laymon recalls being told as a young writer that “Real Black writers” write about topics like race, class, and gender implicitly and that the “‘race narrative’ is over, bro.” Laymon’s writing is anything but implicit; it asks you to stare down the issues he explores head-on with no regard for your discomfort; reading Laymon’s work isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth your while.

Give Stacey Abrams her flowers. That’s it. That’s the blurb.

On the last episode of Get Booked, a reader wrote in for book club selections about American politics and history to help club members be better informed. Jenn recommended this title, and while it’s a touch longer than what I’d normally suggest for book club at over 500 pages, I knew immediately that I wanted to recommend it in this week’s newsletter. As Jenn pointed out on the show, so much of the history we’ve been taught on Native Americans stops in 1890, the year of the Wounded Knee massacre. Pero like… that’s some BS! This thorough and very readable history starts at Wounded Knee and carries forward, a topic that feels especially important as many of begin to reckon with—and it’s taken us long enough—the erasure of Indigenous peoples.

This gorgeous homage to the Iliad wrecked me, and I mean wrecked me. It’s told from the perspective of Patroclus, whom Achilles befriends and names his companion when the young price is exiled to the city of Phthia. Fun fact: it has long been speculated that Patroclus and Achilles were lovers. Madeline Miller imagines their intimate relationship from boyhood through the Trojan war in heart-breaking detail. It takes a certain type of writing to reduce you to a puddle of tears in a story you already know the ending to–this is that kind of book.

Honorable Mention: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. This one takes place in Chicago during the AIDS crisis and whew, have the tissues on hand!

I’m a big fan of the folks that make up the Crooked Media empire; Pod Save America was my gateway into a more informed kind of activism, and it’s just one of the now several Crooked podcasts I rely on for updates and accessible discussions about news, pop culture, and of course: our political landscape. Dan Pfeiffer is one of the PSA co-hosts and a former Obama staffer, and his 2018 release gave me hope when I was running low on the stuff. He wrote it as a kind of roadmap for navigating the world of Trump and figuring out how to forge a path forward when everything feels like a garbage fire.

Honorable Mention: Obviously: Stories from My Timeline by Akilah Hughes, co-host of Crooked’s What a Day podcast. It’s not as political in nature, but the laughter and stories of perseverance certainly gave me hope!

I always go back to Amanda Nelson’s Instagram post about this book when I want to sell someone on it: “A sci-fi romp with lots of cursing in Spanish and inter-species love and psychic cats and sometimes, there is coffee in that nebula. Found family AND heists AND murderous space baddies AND political intrigue AND a grumpy heroine who kicks ass first, asks questions later (again, in Spanish, she doesn’t care if you understand because she doesn’t care about the answer really).” I mean, what else is there to say!?! The sequel Prime Deceptions is also out now and it’s so good.

Honorable Mention: A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell – just a whole bunch of beautiful Black girl (and gender non-conforming) magic in one convenient volume with contributors like Elizabeth Acevedo, Dhonielle Clayton, L.L. McKinney, Ibi Zoboi, and Justina Ireland.

I had to go with this pick from deep in the backlist. The book is split up into two parts: Sedaris’ time in America—growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, moving to New York– and then his time in Normandy, France where he moves with his partner Hugh. I think I actually slapped my knee reading about his experience as an anxious child, his relationship with his dad and brother, and the comedic disaster that ensues when he tries to learn French. Then he also shares what it was like to get teased for a speech impediment, to battle drug addiction, and come out. Sedaris is just so good at self-deprecating humor that puts a stitch in your side, but also hits you in the feels.

Honorable Mention: I highly recommend reading Calypso as a companion read to Me Talk Pretty One Day; it came out just a couple of years ago now that Sedaris is in middle age, living in England with Hugh, and pondering his and his loved ones’ mortality. Also: both are phenomenal on audio.

I knew I was going to be a devotee to this series about 20 pages into A Study in Scarlet Women. A gender-flipped Sherlock remix where Holmes is a whip-smart, sex-positive heroine who loves cake? Why yes, don’t mind if I do. There are five books in the Lady Sherlock series now and I keep saying I’m going to go slow with them, pero… I never do.

Honorable Mention: One by One by Ruth Ware, a locked room (or in this case: snowed-in chalet) mystery in the vein of my queen Agatha Christie, and the Veronica Speedwell mysteries by Deanna Raybourn, which feature another whip-smart and super capable lady sleuth in a historical series set mostly in England (start with A Curious Beginning).

Dani Brown is a queer Black woman and PhD student who openly likes to get hers, and she has her eye on a hottie security guard that works at her school. Unbeknownst to her, he’s a former pro rugby player coping with mental health struggles, and he also has his eye on her. After a fire drill and a miscommunication result in a rescue gone viral, the two embark on a fakelationship with some very steamy sexy time scenes. In case you’ve forgotten, I learned this while audiobooking in my car as Dani went on about her throbbing clitoris right as I pulled up next to a family in a Subaru at a stoplight.

Honorable Mention: I have so many! Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon, The Switch by Beth O’Leary. Gay enemies-to-lovers romance and fierce female friendships/relationships were big themes in my reading this year.

Yes, this book again. It’s that good, and by that I mean sweet and funny and romantic and compelling and just so beautifully Latinx. Yadriel is a trans boy who wants more than anything for his super traditional Latinx family to accept him as a man. To prove that he’s a brujo, he performs the sacred coming-of-age ritual wherein brujx come into their powers; with the help of his BFF cousin, he plans to use his powers to summon the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. Problem: the ghost he summons isn’t his cousin. His name is Julian, he refuses to leave, and he’s what I’ve affectingly dubbed a Hottie McGuapo. The book is inspired by lots of different Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals (a day I just celebrated with all of the Mexican marigolds, candles, and pan de muerto I could find). It shakes up the gendered magical power thing and may also bring you to tears, so put this one in the cathartic cry category, too.

Honorable Mention: Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic, and Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman. Witches! Magic! Feminism! Sisterhood! You already know.

In this alternate history of the Civil War, the Underground Railroad is an actual network of underground steam locomotives. The Pulitzer Prize winning story follows Cora, a third-generation slave, as she turns to that network to escape slavery in Georgia. This book is the one I always reference when I talk about the formidable talent it takes to write about trauma and terrible things with sparse language that packs an emotional punch. It has stayed with me for years.

Backlist Bonus: The Nickel Boys, Zone One

Remember that book with the blue and green cover you saw everywhere for months on end? This is that book! Two high school seniors forge a connection despite running in super different social circles. They go on to attend Trinity College Dublin and are continually—and inexplicably—drawn to each other over and over again. This super buzzy book was an even buzzier Hulu series that you may want to watch with your club posse, too.

Backlist Bonus: Conversations with Friends

Echo Brown is a young wizard who lives on the East Side of Ohio, “where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks.” Yet she finds that there is magic everywhere, and new portals open up to her when she transfers to a fancy school on the wealthy West Side. This is an autobiographical story with magical elements that explores poverty, sexual violence, racism, depression, and the myriad of other challenges (and that word feels woefully insufficient) that Black women face. This review from Fiyah sums up the impact of this kind of book so wonderfully, I want to throw it at anyone who fixes their face to say that YA and “simple” prose have ruined literature. Like I said above, I’ve always found that it takes such extreme skill to write about terrible things with restraint, and this is an example of that skill. WHEW! I’m going to stop before I work myself up again.

In a terrifying near-future United States, Muslim Americans are rounded up and placed in internment camps. When Layla and her family are placed in one of these camps, she’ll have to decide who she can trust on the inside and the outside in order to survive. So much of what you’ll read in this book will feel a little too real and not at all far fetched—there’s a lot to discuss about how we got here.

Darius speaks better Klingon than Farsi and knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian customs. The son of a Persian mother and a white American father, he’s never felt like he fit in anywhere or was “good enough,” a worry not at all helped by his clinical depression. When his family travels to Iran to visit his mother’s extended family, Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. This book examines friendship, family, identity, and mental illness in such a heartfelt and thoughtful way.

Book Club Bonus: This is the first in a duology: Darius the Great Deserves Better is out now!

Camino and Yahaira are both 16 years old; Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and Yahaira lives in New York City. Their paths collide when their father—surprise! they’re sisters!—is killed in a plane crash that killed almost 300 people only a couple of months after 9/11 while en route from JFK to the DR. Just when they each feel like they’ve lost everything, Camino and Yahaira learn about each other for the first time.

I love books that examine complex family dynamics, especially ones that talk about that I-just-discovered-my-parent-is-a-flawed-human moment. This book is so short, but there was rain on my face all the same.

George M. Johnson is a journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist and this is his young-adult memoir (more of this please!). It chronicles his childhood, adulthood, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia while examining gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. It’s meant to be both a primer for teens who want to be allies and a testimony for young queer men of color.

I don’t have the words to express how timely this message is. Toxic masculinity exists in all kinds of communities and I wish more people would unpack why we insist on clinging to it so fiercely (I know why, but whyyyyy??).

I recommended this book back in the spring, but I’ve got to bring it back now because it’s such a perfect eerie-but-not-outright-terrifying read. It’s a post-apocalyptic novel where a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Winter is coming, panic is setting in, and everyone is buying up all the food and supplies on the reservation as sickness and death run rampant. Is it any wonder this hit a little close to home when I read it back in March?! This slow burn of a book is so atmospheric, so eerie, and has such a strong sense of place. It’s chilling an unsettling on multiple levels, but still absolutely doable even for weenies like me.

I know I’ve said this before and it’s probably annoying, but it really is best if you go in knowing as little about this book as possible. Just trust that you’re in good hands, prepare for side-eye, and go forth! It’ll terrify you for reasons that I can’t tell you without entering spoiler territory, but if I can handle it, you can. And if you do need a palate cleanser when you’re done, good news: Alyssa Cole has a whole catalog of happily ever afters if you find that you need your faith in the universe restored.

It’s just a fact of life that any list of eerie reads from me is going to include something gothic. Since I’ve recommended Mexican Gothic quite a bit lately (read it, read it now!), I’m hitting you with this Victorian thriller instead. Wealthy and beautiful Dorothea Truelove is obsessed with phrenology and goes to Oakgate Prison to research her theories on skull shape and crime. She meets Ruth at the prison, a teenage seamstress who claims to possess a supernatural ability to kill from afar using only a needle and thread. Doth Ruth speak truth? Is she unwell? Is she a stone cold killer trying to make a patsy of her sewing kit? This book gave me Sarah Waters Affinity vibes, but with the haunted feeling turned up just a smidge.