In Focus

The Independent Women Book Club held their Christmas party this month. As December was a bit busy for most of us, we chose not to read a book. We played games and fought over the many wine-themed gifts (told ya they were wine-o’s) during Dirty Dice. I may have wrapped a gift for the game in plastic bags, duct tape, more plastic bags, more duct tape, a box with more duct tape and finally in a bag. It was fun watching them open it. As to what I brought to the party, I can’t repeat—let’s just say it was a wine-themed item and a hilarious bookmark. By the time the game ended I got the calender I wanted—which I’ll let you guess what it says—but I love it.

We also played a few other games that allowed us to get to know each other on a whole different level.

We had potluck and it was an awesome time. Ironically, the party was held at the haunted house I previously talked about. The club agrees it’s our favorite place for book club. One member gave all of us a wooden bookmark etched with Independent Women Book Club Est. 2023 with a picture of a wine glass on a stack of books. It was absolutely perfect!

This coming February will be one year since the book club was organized, and we will be meeting at the same place we met for the first time, coming full circle.

During the first year of the club, we read all Minnesota based books by Minnesota authors. These books spanned from fiction to history, a murder mystery, relationships and more. The first few books weren’t so exciting, but I felt as the year progressed we were finding more joy in the books we were reading.

Some of my favorites were Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Thief River Falls, Something Wicked, I-94 Murders and The Lager Queen of Minnesota. And I think we unanimously agreed Long-Shining Waters was the worst book we read during the year.

I’m having a difficult time picking my favorite “one” for the year. Angry Housewives, Thief River Falls and 1-94 Murders are probably my top three. Angry Housewives is a great touching story about friendship among a book club. Thief River Falls is a great psychological thriller, and 1-94 Murders was a great mystery.

I am so happy to be a part of this book club. I look forward to it more and more every month. The ladies are amazing and it’s a great time to talk, gossip and just de-stress over a few drinks and a good book. What’s not to like?

The first book of 2024 is A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray.