Book of the month

What if going back means you could begin again? Rocked by a terrible accident, homeless Kelly needs to escape the streets of Glasgow. Maybe she doesn't believe in serendipity, but a rare moment of kindness and a lost ring conspire to call her home, returning to the small town she fled so many years ago.

A student and aspiring researcher on Gothic nudes rents an apartment from a painter, Agnes. When Agnes unexpectedly arrives in the city, she settles into the upstairs studio, sharing stories of her tumultuous past and scattered art. As time passes, it becomes clear that Agnes may not have a home to return to. Her stories are frenetic; her art scattered and unfinished, white paint on a white canvas. Will their unlikely friendship be enough to help Agnes find her way?

A bighearted debut with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology. Takes the reader to both the world of the ancient greeks and modern America at the same time – all the drama of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology packed into one week of modern family living. ”For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe: The Iliad meets Friday Night Lights in this muscular, captivating debut”

Eager to clean up his act after his troubled early twenties, Owen has returned to Kentucky to take a job as a groundskeeper at a small college in the Appalachian foothills, one which allows him to enrol on their writing course. It's there that he meets Alma, a Writer-in-Residence, who seems to have everything Owen doesn't - a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, and published success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma, from a supportive, liberal family of Bosnian immigrants, struggles to understand Owen's fraught relationship with his own family and home. / *Join the reading group /