Which New York Times Best Books 2021 Are Ideal For Book Clubs?

Callahan Hastings is relentless when it comes to getting what he wants, and what he wants is me–to be his private chef in the Hamptons for the summer. My dream job served to me on a silver platter by one of the wealthiest members of Pembroke Hills Country Club. The only catch? He’s my ex-boyfriend’s older brother with a reputation for being as charming as he is cunning. But Cal doesn’t take no for an answer. He draws you in with flirty smiles and extravagant promises. I should have seen him coming, but I didn’t. I should have stayed away, but I couldn’t. His playful touches and burning gaze have ignited a fire in me. The more I resist him, the more irresistible he becomes. I've always known there's an expiration date on the job–an expiration date on us. But leaving isn't going to be easy with Cal on his knees, begging me to stay...

Vera Lee, an introverted yet lonesome bibliophile who writes for a living, meets Jackson Young, her charming yet secretive next door neighbor on an online book auction of Stephen King's The Shining. The two enter into a last minute bidding war making Vera take matters into her own hands by convincing Jackson to give up. Vera's life changes when Jackson starts to make her heart flutter and race as their lives continue to intertwine. But the secrets he keep are holding her back. With the pandemic going on, is it even wise to enter into a relationship? For someone who's been alone her whole life, can she risk her heart in the middle of the pandemic?

She thought she had it all—a peaceful life, a loving relationship, and a future she could finally count on. But everything shattered the moment she discovered the truth. He never planned to stay. He never planned to love her. He only wanted the child. Forced to make an impossible choice, she vanished, determined to protect the life growing inside her. For years, she lived in silence, hiding the truth, raising a secret no one could ever know. But fate has a cruel way of circling back. When the past resurfaces in the most unexpected way, everything she fought to protect hangs in the balance. The lies. The love. The billion-dollar secret. Some stories aren’t meant to stay buried. And some truths refuse to stay hidden.

Skye Parker thought leaving Leo Westcott behind in college would spare her heart, but life has a cruel sense of timing. She’s just been fired from her struggling startup—only to realize the man who broke her is now the one controlling her career. Worse, he lives next door. Every hallway encounter, every shared glance, every accidental touch ignites the past she tried to forget. Can she trust him when betrayal seems to lurk in every corner, from former friends to rival companies—and even Leo himself? She’s forced to confront not just her feelings, but her self-worth, her career, and her ability to choose herself over the man who still has her heart. Leo, the polished billionaire with secrets of his own, must learn that power can’t replace vulnerability, and that protecting someone sometimes means letting them go. Secrets, seduction, and sabotage threaten to destroy them both—but will love survive the mess they’ve made of each other’s lives? Get ready for a story of passion, ambition, and heartbreak that won’t let go until the very last page.

Serena Hale was never meant to belong in a world of diamonds, monogrammed robes, and dinner parties soaked in judgment. Once a humble bakery girl, she eloped into a whirlwind marriage with billionaire James Hale, trading flour-dusted dreams for gilded heartbreak. Now, Savannah’s back. James’s sophisticated, pregnant ex-fiancée has returned like a ghost wearing pearls, slipping seamlessly into his life, his home, and maybe… his heart. As Savannah moves into their world like she never left, Serena is forced to smile through whispers and cold stares. James’s mother, ice-blooded and brutal, now she’s made her message clear: Serena was the wrong choice. The second choice. And she better not get pregnant again. But it’s already too late. Serena is carrying James’s child again, a fragile, impossible hope tucked beneath her still flat stomach. He says he loves her. He swears he chose her. But he didn’t come home last night. And Serena is no longer sure if James is lying to her… or to himself. As secrets build and the tide turns against her, Serena must decide if love is enough to hold onto a marriage that may have never truly been hers before the truth rips everything apart again. Because this time, it’s not just her heart at stake. She has a baby to think of.

They tried to erase her. She survived. Raised in a place designed to break children, she grows up learning one rule above all else: endure quietly. Hunger is discipline. Pain is routine. Obedience is survival. She doesn’t know her real name, her family, or why certain men with clean shoes and cold eyes always seem to be watching. Until the night she runs. Bleeding, hunted, and half-dead, she escapes an institution that was never meant to let her live past usefulness. What she doesn’t know is that the symbol burned into her skin isn’t a punishment it’s a claim. A mark left by a powerful underground network that doesn’t lose what it owns. Her collapse brings her into the path of three brothers who rule the city’s shadows men whose wealth buys silence, whose violence is surgical, and whose loyalty to blood is absolute. At first, she’s just another wounded stranger pulled from the streets. Then one brother recognizes the mark. And everything changes. Because years ago, the brothers tried to dismantle a trafficking empire known only as The Circle. They thought it was gone. They were wrong. The girl they saved isn’t a random survivor she’s a missing investment. A living mistake The Circle intends to reclaim. As fragments of her past surface, a terrifying truth emerges: she wasn’t abandoned as a child. She was stolen. Trained. Conditioned. And when she escaped, she didn’t just save herself she reignited a war. Hunted by a network that erases people without a trace, and protected by men who don’t lose once they claim something as theirs, she must decide whether she’ll keep running… or turn and burn everything that tried to own her.