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We really enjoyed seeing everyone’s faces through the power of the internet for our first ever Virtual Book Club event on May Day! We had friends of many years and some of not as many years for both of us, and even Ashley’s mom! ::waves hi mom:: We came together from four states and three time zones to discuss Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. It was a solid mix of half re-readers and half first-timers of this beloved classic novel of growing up on Prince Edward Island in the 1870’s. What really hit home for the participants was with which characters we each felt the most kinship. Especially the re-readers, it was about how when they read the book as a youth they felt kinship with Anne, but now feel a new and deep empathy with Marilla, who raises the gregarious redhead. There was also much appreciation for Matthew’s ability to notice what made Anne stand out from the other little girls in Avonlea and his process for making her feel less like an outsider. Nikki wrote an entire post on Sarah McCoy’s Marilla of Green Gables last week because we had such a great discussion during book club about Marilla and how she had been raised, grew up, and how that would determine the ways in which she brings up Anne Shirley. Everyone wants to continue with Anne’s story in Anne of Avonlea and will probably also pick up Marilla’s story in the future as well. However, we will not be continuing to read them together…

It was a pretty unanimous request as we were closing up our Anne of Green Gables virtual book club that we have another meeting. We anticipated this request but we did not have any real idea of what our second book club pick should be. We also needed a little more time to put together a plan, look at our schedules for dates that would work, and really dig deep into what we would like to read and then discuss with fellow readers that was a little more narrowed down than ALL THE THINGS. We gave ourselves a week to percolate. Ok, I’ll admit that Nikki gave me a week to percolate because I needed some time to make sure things were going to work out for Kindle Unlimited plans and balancing out our other reading, our lives, the time we work on the blog, and scheduling the best Friday night for Virtual Book Club #2. [Nikki here, we both needed to percolate, and y’all are awesome for wanting more bookish conversation!] I had a gut feeling that I truly wanted to bring something more diverse to talk about than what Nikki and I normally read, or what we post about on the blog. We admittedly read a lot of books written for, by, and about white women. [We read a lot of romance novels and we are not ashamed because we love them.] But, we do like to be conscientious about broadening our horizons in genre, location, theme, and author. In addition to trying to expand our own reading lives, we feel a heavy burden that the book we suggest for book club be something our broad range of readers will feel comfortable reading and then talking about in a semi-public way with people they may or may not know before the discussion starts. Lastly, we want our book club picks at this time to be easy to access for those who read either digitally or on a dead tree, and we don’t want anyone to feel a pinch in the pocketbook in order to do so. (This is the main reason we do not particularly like the idea of choosing a brand new release, no matter the hype.)

Now that you know our process in choosing our second Book Club pick, without further ado, we invite you to join us at 7:30pm Central Time on Friday 26 June as we discuss Deanna Raybourn’s A Curious Beginning (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery Book 1). I was first introduced to this title from, surprise of surprises, Anne Bogel’s Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club last summer. I did not, however, read it, so this will be a brand new book for both of us here at Heart.Wants.Books. Neither Nikki nor I choose mysteries as a go-to genre, it actually takes a lot for me to commit to one (like how I purchased the kindle book to read for the book club last year but never did). Below is the marketing copy from the 2015 release:

London, 1887. After burying her spinster aunt, orphaned Veronica Speedwell is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as with fending off admirers, Veronica intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime. But fate has other plans when Veronica thwarts her own attempted abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron, who offers her sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker, a reclusive and bad-tempered natural historian. But before the baron can reveal what he knows of the plot against her, he is found murdered—leaving Veronica and Stoker on the run from an elusive assailant as wary partners in search of the villainous truth.

You can purchase the Amazon Kindle version right now for $2.99, the paperback from Amazon for $12.89, from IndieBound to support your local independent bookstores, or hopefully get it from your local library either digitally or in physical book form. You have a little more than 6 weeks to find a copy and read the 350+ page mystery.  For more information on the author and her other works, you can visit her website at www.deannaraybourn.com.

If you’re ready to sign up, you can do so here.  You’ll receive a link to join the conversation a week before, with automatic reminder emails, but can register as late as 6pm Central Time on the day of (hint – don’t do this, register now and go ahead and put it on your calendar even!).  We had a great time with the group discussing Anne and the residents of Avonlea and hope you’ll join us for a conversation about Veronica Speedwell and her travels and drama.  

~Ashley

P.S. We do make the request that if you are going to purchase from Amazon that you use our links above so that we get credit for the purchase through Amazon’s affiliate program. Nikki goes into detail about why in this post from last week.