The Briar Club
Kate Quinn, 2024
Historical fiction Mystery, thriller & crimeContemporary fiction
Washington, 1950: a boarding house of women who keep to themselves, and a murder that makes their private lives everyone else's business.
Feels like curiosity, unease and tenderness. About friendship, society and morality.
A page from the book
The phrase adults use to end arguments, taken apart by someone who won't.
Life really hasn’t been very fair to you, Pete. I’m sorry about that.“”Mom says life isn’t fair, and that’s all there is to it.“”Your mom says that to justify the fact that *she* isn’t being fair to *you*,“ Mrs. Grace said calmly. ”which is mostly what people mean when they say life isn’t fair. It isn’t, which is why people should endeavour to be *more* fair to one another, not less. Kate Quinn.Quinn wrote several novels set in ancient Rome before turning to the twentieth century; The Alice Network, about female spies in the First World War, made her a bestseller.
Books that feel like this
More by Kate Quinn
The Rose Code
Kate Quinn, 2021
Three women join Britain's secret codebreaking effort in WWII, where friendship, love, and loyalty are tested under secrecy.
The Alice Network
Kate Quinn, 2017
Two women, two wars, and a network of female spies: a hunt for a missing person braids past and present into a story about courage and atonement.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Briar Club like?
- Feels like curiosity, unease and tenderness. About friendship, society and morality.
- What should I read after The Briar Club?
- If you liked The Briar Club, try Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt), One of Us Is Lying (Karen M. McManus) and The Husband's Secret (Liane Moriarty).
A taste of the feed
What a city gains by refusing to let the world in.
For me, Savannah’s resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil · John Berendt
What a parent’s ambition feels like from inside the child.
My hand hurts within minutes. It’s pathetic, I guess, but I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything longhand. Plus I’m using my right hand, which never feels natural no matter how many years I’ve done it. My father insisted I learn to write right-handed in second grade after he first saw me pitch. Your left arm’s gold, he told me. Don’t waste it on crap that don’t matter. Which is anything but pitching as far as he’s concerned.
One of Us Is Lying · Karen M. McManus
The generosity of people who have just done something unforgivable.
So Tess was going to be allowed to kick and scratch as much as she wanted. They were just going to sit there and take it for as long as it took. They weren’t going to fight back. Will and Felicity were fundamentally good. She knew this. They were good people, and that’s why they were going to be so nice about this, so understanding and accepting of Tess’s rage, so that in the end Tess would be the bad person, not them. They hadn’t actually slept together, they hadn’t betrayed her. They’d fallen in love! It wasn’t an ordinary grubby little affair. It was fate. Predestined. Nobody could think that badly of them.
The Husband's Secret · Liane Moriarty
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