Women in Sync Book Club

Sat, Oct 25 · 9:30 AM EDT

📚Book Chat October: The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Panera Bread - Whitehall Commons, 8152 South Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC, US

Hey Wis Book Women! let's get together for the Book Chat October: The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali.

Please come prepared to discuss the book. You are welcome to come if you haven’t read or finished the book but beware of SPOILERS because we won’t hold back 😊.

Please update your RSVP as your plans change. I’m looking forward to seeing you and syncing up a good time!

Meet the Author:
https://marjankamali.com/

Goodreads Synopsis:
An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale” (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.

Enjoy the experience!

Sat, Nov 22 · 9:30 AM EST

📚Book Chat November: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Panera Bread Whitehall Commons, 8152 S Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC, US

Hey Wis Book Women! let's get together for Book Chat November: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.

Please come prepared to discuss the book. You are welcome to come if you haven’t read or finished the book but beware of SPOILERS because we won’t hold back 😊.

Please update your RSVP as your plans change. I’m looking forward to seeing you and syncing up a good time!
Meet the Author:
https://www.katequinnauthor.com/

Goodreads Synopsis:
A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?

Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.

Enjoy the experience!