Club Book

Mai Corland is a Korean American author, born in Seoul and adopted in New York. She is a Rollins College and University of Miami School of Law alumna. Her debut adult romantasy novel Five Broken Blades, the first of a trilogy from Red Tower Books, was a USA Today, Indie Booksellers List, Sunday Times, and instant New York Times bestseller. It was also the May pick for Book of the Month; an Amazon, Indigo, and Apple Books Best Book of 2024; a Book Page honoree; and a Goodreads Choice finalist for favorite 2024 fantasy. Her follow up, Four Ruined Realms, hit shelves in January 2025, with the series finale Three Shattered Souls expected later this year. Mai also writes award-winning children’s and young adult books under the name Meredith Ireland. She resides in New York with her children, partner, and a county fair goldfish who will probably outlive them all.

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Samantha Irby is a comedian and a New York Times bestselling essayist and memoirist. Her fresh, honest brand of humor first came to the attention of readers through her immensely popular blog Bitches Gotta Eat. Irby’s first essay collection, Meaty, adapted and expanded her most popular blog entries – and added some new ones, to boot. Topics truly run the gamut: from personal reflections on the author’s failed relationships and on being black in America, to a ribald take on her struggles with Crohn’s disease, to an ode to tacos. Irby’s follow-ups, We Are Never Meeting In Real Life (2017) and Lambda Literary Award winner Wow, No Thank You (2020), cemented her reputation as a comedic voice like no other. Irby’s latest collection is Quietly Hostile (2023). In the words of Chicago Reader, “the Midwest’s most loveable misanthrope triumphantly returns” with essays that are equal parts raw and sidesplitting. Subjects range from her childhood traumas and adulthood anxieties to pop culture obsessions and her own failed TV pilot.

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Fans and critics alike credit Alafair Burke with some of the most believable psychological thrillers and police procedurals in modern fiction. Her hallmark authenticity draws heavily from Burke’s professional background as a professor of law and former deputy district attorney in Portland. Her literary debut, Judgment Calls (2003), introduced mystery aficionados to Samantha Kincaid – a lawyer in Multnomah County, Oregon’s drug and vice division with bona fides markedly similar to Burke’s own. Burke’s impressive backlist also includes the five-entry NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher series, which the New York Post calls “perfect for Law & Order fanatics who want some ripped-from-the-headlines intrigue.” Burke is also co-author – alongside mystery titan Mary Higgins Clark – of the Under Suspicion series. Over the past decade Alafair Burke has also devoted considerable time to standalone thrillers. Her latest, The Note, follows three friends on a Hamptons beach vacation that goes terribly wrong. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews raves: “Engrossing… Burke builds an intricate structure of secrets layered within secrets, revealed for maximum suspense.”

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Sujata Massey is an undisputed master of both mystery and historical fiction. In the words of fellow mystery heavyweight Janet Evanovich, Massey “blasted her way into fiction with The Salaryman’s Wife, a cross-cultural mystery of manners with a decidedly sexy edge.” Her literary debut won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 1997 and introduced a legion of readers to the first of her two indomitable heroines. Japanese American twenty-something Rei Shimura is an English teacher and antiques dealer by day – and an amateur sleuth by night. Her unique background provides valuable linguistic and cultural insights which allow her to find clues and crack cases that stump Japanese authorities. Shimura has appeared across eleven novels to date. Sujata Massey is also the pen behind the popular Perveen Mistry series. Modeled on a historic Parsi attorney who practiced law in the 1920s, Mistry is the first female lawyer in cosmopolitan Mumbai – and one of the first ever in India. The Mistress of Bhatia House (2023), the fourth and latest installment, garnered Massey her third Agatha Award.

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National Book Award finalist Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the author behind the acclaimed 2020 exposé The Undocumented Americans. Born in Ecuador and raised in New York, Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing career began while a senior at Harvard, where she was soon to be among the first undocumented students to graduate from the elite university. During the national debate around the DREAM Act, she penned an anonymous essay in The Daily Beast titled “DREAM Act: I’m an Illegal Immigrant at Harvard.” This vulnerable, vital, and ultimately viral piece directly inspired The Undocumented Americans. In this eye-opening book, described as a blend of memoir and reporting, Cornejo Villavicencio travels the nation to profile a diverse cross-section of her fellow undocumented Americans. The author’s anticipated follow-up, Catalina, is a work of fiction – at least in part. Catalina is an undocumented student from Queens who gains admittance to Harvard. With it comes entry into a new, complex world of prestigious internships, posh parties, and secret societies.

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Lisa See is best known for her poignant historical fiction, much of which spotlights the experiences of Chinese immigrants who are so often relegated to the margins. Book club favorites include Shanghai Girls and its sequel Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. USA Today praised the duology for “exploring the bonds of sisterhood while powerfully evoking the often nightmarish American immigrant experience.” See’s fictive scenarios in these and other novels are more than matched by the harrowing saga she recounts in her deeply personal memoir On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family. Lisa See’s latest novel, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, recreates the trailblazing career of Tan Yunxian, a 15th-century female physician who defied the odds – and societal norms – to become one of the Ming Dynasty’s foremost medical practitioners. Simon & Schuster re-released See’s latest chart-topper in paperback in June 2024.

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Stephen Graham Jones is one of speculative fiction’s bestselling authors and is beloved for his unique, potent blend of horror and cutting social commentary. His chart-topping novels to date include the modern classic The Only Good Indians, which tracks four childhood friends stalked by a sinister secret – and something else – on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana. (Jones is himself an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe.) Both The Only Good Indians and Jones’ novella Night of the Mannequins, released the same year, received the Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award in their respective categories. His latest novels include I Was A Teenage Slasher, an homage to horror tropes where the killer takes center stage, as well as the thrilling finale to his The Indian Lake Trilogy. The Angel of Indian Lake concludes the saga started with My Heart is a Chainsaw and continued in Don’t Fear the Reaper. Paste Magazine praises it as “a determinedly feminist reexamination of horror’s Final Girl.”

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Yangsze Choo is the author behind some of this decade’s most original historical fantasy. Her work is often inspired by folklore and infused with the paranormal. Such is the case with her 2013 debut, The Ghost Bride. Publishers Weekly praised: “Choo’s clear and charming style creates an alternate reality where the stakes are just as high as in the real world, combining grounded period storytelling with the supernatural.” The Ghost Bride is the basis for Netflix’s acclaimed Taiwanese-Malaysian drama of the same name. Choo’s follow-up, The Night Tiger, is set in 1930s colonial Malaysia. In it, apprentice dressmaker Ji Lin and orphan boy Ren become tangled in a mystery involving weretigers, terrifying beasts who wear the skin of humans. Reese Witherspoon selected The Night Tiger as the April 2019 pick for her popular Reese’s Book Club. Shapeshifters of a different kind loom large in Choo’s latest release, The Fox Wife. In a glowing review, Time recommended the book as “an enchanting tale of murder, revenge, and the power of a mother’s love.”

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Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jayne Anne Phillips has been a defining voice in American literature for nearly half a century. A recent review lauded her 1979 debut, Black Tickets, as “a short story collection that remains so compellingly singular that it ought to function as a handbook for short story writers.” It won the inaugural and prestigious Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Phillips’ later work cemented her legacy as a writer who uses fiction as a tool to give voice to the downtrodden, marginalized, and forgotten. Works of special note include first novel Machine Dreams (1984), Shelter (1994), National Book Award finalist Lark and Termite (2009), and Quiet Dell (2013). All are period pieces set in the author’s native West Virginia. Her latest novel, Night Watch, exhibits these and other trademarks of Phillips’ craft. Set in a backwoods asylum in the bleak, near-apocalyptic aftermath of the Civil War, Night Watch garnered a host of literary honors, including the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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Mystery novelist Matt Goldman started his writing career as an Emmy Award winning screenwriter and producer. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld handpicked Goldman as a founding member of the creative team behind sitcom juggernaut Seinfeld. Goldman’s later television credits include work on Ellen and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Goldman published his first novel, Gone to Dust, in 2017. It launched the Minnesota-set and New York Times bestselling Nils Shapiro series. The fourth and latest installment, Dead West, shifts locales to Hollywood and makes gainful use of the author’s first-hand knowledge of the larger-than-life characters drawn to the limelight of show business. Goldman’s newest mystery, Still Waters, is a standalone story. In it, estranged siblings Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom return to their family-run resort on Leech Lake to investigate a relative’s suspicious death. Publishers Weekly notes: “Goldman’s fans will eat this up. Three-dimensional characters and authentic dialogue elevate the mystery premise.”

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