Whether you’re an avid reader, or are looking for a way to get into reading, our book group welcomes everyone.
Book group meets every 3rd Monday of the month, usually at the Lord Darcy on Harrogate Road, Alwoodley, 7.30 – 9.30pm.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve read all of the book, most of the book or just some of it. Come along and join in the conversation.
Here’s a list of the current books or you can download the full list.
◊ 16th November: Violeta, Isabel Allende
The 2022 instant Sunday Times bestselling epic by internationally acclaimed Chilean-American author Isabel Allende. Nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award, it showcases her signature sweeping historical fiction style, blending intimate personal drama with the turbulent political upheavals and social transformations of 20th-century South America.
Spoiler-free synopsis:
Born on a stormy night in 1920 during the devastation of the Spanish flu, Violeta del Valle is the only daughter in a household of five boisterous brothers. Her privileged childhood is upended when the Great Depression destroys her family’s fortune, forcing them into rural exile. As she grows into an independent, unconventional woman, Violeta navigates decades of passionate affairs, heart-breaking loss, and dangerous political tyranny.
◊ 21st December: The Mistletoe Murder, P.D. James
The 1995 festive anthology by the undisputed queen of British mystery, P.D. James. This atmospheric collection brings together four elegant, classic locked-room mysteries, written with her trademark psychological depth, sharp social commentary, and a deliciously chilly winter ambiance that reinvents traditional country-house detective fiction.
Spoiler-free synopsis:
Set against the backdrop of snowy, isolated estates and quiet family Christmases, this collection of four short stories follows various investigators, including a young Adam Dalgliesh, as they untangle webbed motives hidden behind festive cheer.
In the title story, a young widow travels to her grandmother’s grand, snowbound estate for the holidays, only to find the celebrations shattered when an uninvited guest is discovered brutally murdered in the library.
◊ 18th January: The Bolter, Frances Osbourne
The 2008 bestselling historical biography by acclaimed British author and biographer Frances Osborne. Nominated for the British Book Awards, it showcases her signature vivid storytelling and meticulous research, blending an intimate family portrait with the scandalous, glittering excess of the high-society “Happy Valley” set in early 20th-century Kenya and Edwardian London.
Spoiler-free synopsis:
Born into immense privilege, Lady Idina Sackville shocked society by repeatedly abandoning her marriages, earning her the notorious nickname “The Bolter.” In this gripping biography, her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne uncovers the real woman behind the sensational tabloid headlines. The book explores her relentless pursuit of passion and independence at a time when women were expected to conform, revealing how a lifetime of radical choices left a trail of broken hearts and enduring mysteries.
◊ 15th February: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The 1962 groundbreaking political masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. A monumental work of 20th-century literature, it uses a sparse, raw, and deeply human narrative style to expose the brutal realities of the Soviet labour camp system, forever shifting the global landscape of political fiction.
Spoiler-free synopsis:
From the gruelling 5 a.m. wake-up mallet to the final evening roll call, the novel chronicles a single, ordinary day in the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a prisoner unjustly sentenced to a harsh Siberian gulag. In a frozen landscape where the temperature routinely drops below minus thirty degrees, Shukhov must navigate corrupt guards, gruelling manual labour, and the constant threat of starvation.
◊ 15th March: The Names, Florence Knapp
The 2025 phenomenal Sunday Times bestselling debut novel by acclaimed British author Florence Knapp. Winner of the British Book Awards Debut Novel of the Year, this brilliantly original and emotionally profound book utilises a unique, multi-narrative structure to explore how the messy ties of family and a lifetime of inherited trauma can be entirely reshaped by a single, pivotal choice.
Spoiler-free synopsis:
In the immediate aftermath of a historic 1987 storm, a young mother named Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her newborn son.
At home, her husband Gordon, a respected local doctor who conceals a deeply controlling and abusive nature, expects her to carry on a strict family tradition by giving the boy his name. However, when faced with the registrar, Cora hesitates.
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