This book is one of a series of Reading Room Book Group Guides.  The Husband’s Secret is a complex story with many layers and trying to find the right recipe for book club questions was a bit tricky.  I started scouring online for helps and tips.  I ran across this book by Kathryn Cope and immediately downloaded it to my Kindle to start planning.

For those of you planning a book club event, The Husband’s Secret: A Guide for Book Club was immensely helpful.

Kathryn Cope covers every topic from why to read the book, explaining the significance of the Berlin Wall and Pandora’s Box and the roles they play throughout the story.

She offers discussion questions that I promise you will lead to a lively discussion.  The discussions were fabulous and involved personal values and morals.  Each member brought up personal opinions of situations in the book and insights that I missed as well as a few others.

Purchasing The Husband’s Secret: A Guide for Book Club was a lifesaver for me.  The author takes the book to the bones, highlighting  the important topics and gave me great guidance in planning.

I decided to keep our event really simple this time around.  Our book club has 11 extremely creative, bright and talented women.  These women always work very hard to plan beautiful themed meals to accompany our books.

I didn’t want to appear lazy and unimaginative, but sometimes dinner can be more work, effort, time, expense than I and others have to give.  Life can get in the way and the pressure to keep up can be overwhelming for some.

Each question was typed onto paper and then cut in strips.  I put them in envelopes and sealed them; writing on the front of each envelope as John Paul did, “to be opened upon…. and the question #.  Everyone seemed to enjoy not having any knowledge of their question prior to opening the envelope, when it was time to read it.

The dessert bar was perfect.  Living in Southern California has its advantages, one being any type of food you want.  We have a restaurant, http://www.pienot.com, located in Costa Mesa, Ca.  They are an authentic Aussie cafe with traditional Aussie meat pies and pastries.  I called a few a days in advance and order Lamington’s and Digger’s for our dessert bar.  They were perfect and absolutely delicious.  My hats off to them, I will go back.

In shopping for other items, I found Arnott Tim Tam cookies at World Market which are also Australian and covered in chocolate, it doesn’t get any better.

Let’s not forget the wine.  Yep, we had both Red and White, both from Australian vineyards.

Honestly, keeping it simple was perfect.  We all more time to visit, chat about the book, get through the questions and spend time with friends.  Isn’t that what book club should be?

Our next book club book is “A Fall of Marigolds” by Susan Meissner.  I am looking forward to digging in and meetin’ you back here to talk about it.  I need to finish Pegasus; A Novel by Danielle Steel first.  I think a few late nights are in my future.  See ya back here soon.

Bee Readin’
Terri