Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
“The Husband’s Secret,” by Liane Moriarty (Berkley, 2013)
This book was published in 2013 (before her hit “Big Little Lies”) but you would never guess it. This story is intelligent and timeless. Three intertwined storylines, led by three unique women, had me rapt from beginning to end. These are the most authentic lead female characters that I’ve read in a very long while; I truly saw myself in Cecelia’s realness. When faced with grief, moving across the country, infidelity, tragedy or secrets unearthed, which of Moriarty’s characters will you relate to? (Note: This book is in talks to be a TV movie, potentially starring Blake Lively.) — 4 stars (out of 4); Joanna Johnson, Denver
“The Names,” by Florence Knapp (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2025)
An exploration of the road taken, rather than the road not taken. Knapp offers three different scenarios, tracing three possible paths for a child and his immediate family, based on what name is given to the child and who bestows the name. Knapp imagines how a name choice can reflect family tradition, society’s expectations, a couple’s power dynamics or even an individual’s essence in parallel storylines, each with a radically different outcome for the individuals in this family unit. What’s in a name? Knapp believes it makes all the difference. (A Read with Jenna selection.) — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Dry,” by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman (Simon & Schuster, 2018)
While this story could fall into the category of speculative fiction, it’s so close to today’s reality¸ it feels like reportage. Set primarily in southern California, a small group of teens is trapped by contemporary climate change in a potentially fatal situation. An ongoing drought escalates into the big tap-out when all sources for water in the region evaporate. Riots occur, violence escalates. But there are few real alternatives, and even those alternatives hold no solutions. A teen girl, Alyssa, shows her mettle with her brother and friends after her parents disappear, while nerdy neighbor Kelton, a survivalist, learns to be a leader and hero. They roam throughout the region become desperate as civilization evaporates around them, along with all the water. — 3 stars (out of 4); Bonnie McCune, Denver (bonniemccune.com)
“Creation Lake,” by Rachel Kushner (Scribner, 2024)
In France, where caves hold evidence of early humans, industrialists want to capture water from subterranean caverns and lakes and move it into massive plastic mega basins. A group of eco-activists plot to prevent this idiotic plan, but they do not know that a mole is in their midst: our narrator, Sadie, whose real name and backstory we never learn. We know she is a 34-year-old American who harbors no guilt or regrets or allegiances, is motivated solely by money, has surgically enhanced breasts, and drinks heavily. So why did I end up rooting for her? Her crisp, no-nonsense language full of whiplike retorts, her ability to read others (especially the activists), to detect their hypocrisy, false motives, and veiled cruelty, plus her growing appreciation of the 80-year-old Bruno, who posits fascinating ideas about what is real, all of this won me over in a big way. — 4 stars (out of 4), Michelle Nelson, Littleton
“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” by Anne Brontë (Wordsworth Classics version, 1999)
You’ve likely read Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” or Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” but far fewer have read the important novel of the youngest Brontë. Charlotte squelched Anne’s novel after her death at age 29, stating that “The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer.” Wrong! Anne’s book is seminal, considered the first feminist novel, as in it a woman leaves her emotionally abusive husband. “Tenant” conveys both female and male points of view, as both main characters exhibit personal growth. Despite being written in 1828, this is in many ways a contemporary story. — 4 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker