The Secret Book Club

by Shauna Robinson

Maggie Banks loves books. And running a bookstore sounds like the best job in the world. Except in Bell River, a place that refuses to let her sell anything written this century. But in Maggie's world, book rules are made to be broken. And what better way to break tradition than by starting an underground book club?
But keeping her new club quiet, selling forbidden books and dodging the strict literary society is proving harder than it seems. Especially when Maggie unearths a secret that could upend everything…

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary, Books About Books, Audiobook, Ebooks, Adult

384 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 18, 2024

About the author

Shauna Robinson writes contemporary fiction with humor and heart. Originally from San Diego, she now lives in Virginia with her husband and their sleepy greyhound. Shauna is an introvert at heart—she spends most of her time reading, baking, and figuring out the politest way to avoid social interaction.

Reviews

[Sheyla ✎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

An enjoyable story that takes place in a bookstore.

Maggie Banks is drifting. She is unsure about her future and the right path to follow so when her good friend offers her a job at her bookstore while she goes on maternity leave, she jumps at the chance.

When Maggie starts working, she realizes she has a few issues. She has never been a reader. Also, the bookstore wasn't allowed to sell books from this century or the last! Third, the local historical society is trying to control everything the bookstore is doing.

Maggie becomes desperate. She needs a plan. She can't afford to lose this job. She can't let her friend down either. What to do?

Maggie realizes the only way she can stay afloat is to develop a secret book club where she can sell the books people want to read without getting discovered by her friend, the historical society, or the guy she had developed feelings for.

I had some anxiety with this one. I wasn't sure how she could save the bookstore or her romance when the truth came out. The ending did feel a little too perfect but I'm not complaining.

Cliffhanger: No

3.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by One More Chapter via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

MrsLeif's Two Fangs About It | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

[Emilie Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about books is bound to make me happy, and this one did exactly that.

"The Secret Book Club" is what I would describe as a wholesome story about community, friendship, and self-discovery.
It follows the protagonist, Maggie, who is on a journey to find her place in the world after what seems to her a lifetime of failure.
Maggie gets a job working at her friend's bookstore while her friend is on maternity leave.
A passion for books is not something Maggie can brag about, but one for people and community, and that is precisely what she brings to the town of Bell River.

The novel explores the feelings of being lost in figuring out what you want from yourself and the life you are trying to establish. It is a general and important experience for many young people.
It navigated through the emotional aspects of figuring it all out and was done so beautifully. It had me hooked from the beginning.

At times, keeping track of the endless number of small lies Maggie was starting to make up felt a little overwhelming. I am too anxious of a person not to be stressing out on her behalf while reading, but I think the confrontations were handled well in a mature manner. Every character in the book was part of why it worked out so well; they were mature and able to communicate, and how refreshing it is to read.

Overall, I think this was a highly enjoyable book, and you really cannot in good conscience turn down a book about books, can you?

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an advanced reading copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[booktokandchill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable comfy cosy read. It was very different in a good refreshing way. I just wanted to jump inside the book. enjoyable plot without relying on easy tropes :)

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of, The Secret Book Club, by Shauna Robinson, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Maggie decides to start an underground book club, when she is not able to sell the books she wants to because of the literary society in town. This is a good read, a lot of good books have been banned. Books should not be banned.

[Alayne Emmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story about books and a bookshop , my kind of heaven. This bookshop only sold dusty old tomes and not any of the other genres and was losing money in the process. A lovely story, full of funny moments and some sad. But a great ending. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

[Barbara Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maggie is having a rough time so when her friend offers her the opportunity to run her bookstore while she goes on maternity leave, she decides to take her up on it. The problem is, the bookstore isn’t too profitable because it only sells books from a certain time period because the town historical society owns and runs most of the town puts restrictions on what can be done and sold in the town. After attending a booksellers event, she gets inspired to make the store more profitable for her friend by forming a back door book club and sells books that would otherwise be banned from the store and starts to host author events that have members of the town excited to come to now that they can buy something other than books from 1838. The connections she makes with the townspeople, and in particular her grumpy upstairs neighbor Vernor, are what really make the story.
This was an heartwarming and enjoyable story sprinkled in with bits of humor.
Thanks to One More Chapter and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

[Literary Redhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling small town story about forbidden books, romance, and how literature feeds our souls. Recommended.

[Tracie Gutknecht · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contemporary Fiction

I'm a sucker for anything with book in the title. I love books about books, librarians, etc. Unfortunately, this was not a book I loved. I didn't really even like it.

It has all the ingredients, but the recipe does not come together. Maggie has no prospects and isn't living her best life. Her best friend asks for help. Maggie travels to Bell River to run her friend's bookstore. After one day, Maggie causes trouble with the head of the town and disrupts the finances of her friend's bookstore. While searching for alternative ways to make the store profitable, Maggie meets many of the townspeople. She finds that they all have things in common and don't like the running of the town. Maggie finds a way to bring them all together with a secret book club. An author writes a spin on a classic and reads it to the group. Maggie sells banned books at the club and passes it off as legitimate sales from the bookstore. She is having so much fun and gaining a positive sense of self, for the first time in a long time. She makes a misstep that causes all the town secrets to be revealed. She is desperate to save her friends and ultimately the town, as well.

Is there a positive moral to the story - yes. That's about all I can say I liked about this novel. I didn't connect with the characters or most of the plot. This one was a struggle to get through.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this novel.

[Meghan]

DNF at 20% - this was not my cup of tea at all. Heroine is the most immature 28-year-old I have read about in a long time. The comparison the MMC makes of her to Lydia Bennet is completely accurate and likely why I don’t like the FMC. I didn’t like Lydia either. Good heart, with the brain of a teenager. She hopefully improves as time goes on, but between her comments about “musty old classics” and having zero interest in respecting her job (which was handed to her on a silver platter by her friend), I have no reason to continue reading.

And side note - I don’t like classics much either, but yikes, the tone felt icky.

**I received a free copy via NetGalley and this is my honest review.**

[Nisha-Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

My god, this is tedious.

There was so much I liked about it: the humour, the small town setting, the race representation, the discovery of books even though our protagonist’s ignorance broke my brain a few times but clearly that was the point.

Nevertheless, I wanted to edit this so much. Redline the tell not show, get rid of the repetition, and just generally quicken the pace along.

Dnf at 44%.

[Alison McIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this one at the library and sounded fun.

At first, I was confused about the historical figure mentioned in the book and realised it was fictional. But that historical fictional white man could be substituted for any white man in the history of time.

Plus when you think of the setting, in New England, then you really understand the fictional town of Bell River. I won’t go over the whole premise but basically it’s one of those historical towns that celebrates its one famous person and there are rules on every single business in town that they have to celebrate this dead white man.

Same rules apply to the book store. Maggie isn’t allowed to sell books written after this guy died so it’s mostly classics being sold until she decides to secretly order in other books and host events.

It really is a cute story and I was pleasantly surprised. I also enjoyed the facts on romance books:

“The romance market was larger than science fiction, fantasy and mystery combined

Half of romance readers read a book a week.”

[Leeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An e-book about books, book clubs and secrets. Maggie moves to a small town of Bell River to help her friend Rochelle run a bookstore. Maggie is left in charge when Rochelle who is pregnant needs to stay at home and rest.

Ralph Bell owns the bookstore and many other businesses in the town. Ralph insists that that the bookstore only sells books that he approves.

When book sales drop off, Maggie starts a secret book club secretly sells books that the customers want.

This was a fun book. I liked the way the characters interacted. There were some interesting twists in the story. This was about reading, secrets and friendships.

Thank you NetGalley and One More Chapter for a chance to read this book.

[Margarida Glória · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice, light, entertaining read. The cozy setting of Bell River made me want to move there to be a bookseller as well 🥰 I found incredible refreshing the view of "not having to have stuff figured out".

[Iffrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3. 75

[Ruth Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy, predictable read. Something light was needed after several hard hitting books, and this was ideal.

[Pushkar · Rating 4 out of 5]

So cool to be in a town established around an author and all the people in love with books. To top it all off, the lead has no idea about her career.

[Simm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maggie is literally me. Except for one obvious thing.

[Camilla Nundal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a feel good book!

[Moas bookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! It was fun but also the right amount of thought-provoking. Recommend!

[Lise 💗 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not realistic at all but it was really fun and cute. I loved Maggie and the others characters. It felt like a hot chocolate I drink in winter. I will definitely read others books from this author.

[Dorka Kardos-Latif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robinson's writing made it an easy read, with a good idea for the story, but I expected a little more for the execution.

The book started a little slow for me and in the first 10-15% or so all I felt was frustrated. By Ralph, Malcolm, this whole bizarre town, and with nothing good really happening to our poor FMC. But the writing was good, so I carried on, and managed to get into it soon after.

The romance in the book... I'm not sure I can get behind that. It's supposed to be a sort of enemies to lovers, but our FMC was just unapologetically into the love interest. No difficulty to admit it to herself and no bumps along the road with them. It was almost just too easy and I felt no chemistry between them. Or maybe the romance is supposed to be an afterthought and my expectations were too high.

With that being said, I loved the topics this book touched on outside of the romance. Especially about people's relationship with reading, how everyone can have such a unique experience. I loved seeing people discover reading as something fun -although again, our FMC got into reading and became.a bookworm almost a little too fast for me.

It was interesting reading the story where the solution for Maggie's "what do I do with my life" issue was so obvious (kick Ralph out somehow, join Rochelle in the bookstore, organise events, and build a community) -but made impossible due to financial constraints, which made it feel so real. Unlike the way Rochelle coddled her even after their standoff at night with Ralph and how easily Malcolm got over everything that happened.

And Ralph's reaction when Maggie found him on her way to the meeting with the journalist? Now that was the most unrealistic part. I get that characters often get redemption arcs, but not like that.

The book felt like a bit of a rollercoaster that way: I was frustrated with it, then got into it and liked it, then I was skimming and rolling my eyes again. Maggie's internal monologues got quite repetitive and annoying, and with the lack of good romance and the unrealistic-feeling scenes and reactions, I found myself just wanting to get through it.

I love books about books and people's love for them, but this wasn't it for me.

[Jodes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated - 3 / 5 ✨

When a book has Book Club in the title, I couldn’t not request it.

This was a really easy, light hearted read about a woman called Maggie, she’s unhappy with the path her life is on and is struggling to find her purpose. Her best friend Rochelle asks her if she can cover the book shop she works in whilst she’s on maternity leave, here is where the story really begins. There is mystery, fun, romance and adventure.

I liked Maggie, she was fun, but I found her frustrating at times, it was so obvious what she would be doing by the end of the story. Malcom the love interest was great, a quiet, serious, sweet book lover. I really enjoyed how they pulled each other out of their comfort zones.

However, I found their feelings for each other a little dull. There was no actual chemistry or spark shared in the story, there was the opportunity so many times, but it felt overlooked We didn’t actually get any really passion from either of them, I found it so frustrating.

The relationships with the towns people were really lovely, I loved getting to know them and seeing the whole town grow as the story progressed.

Overall, this was a lovely read, with some laughter and happiness.

Thanks NetGalley, One More Chapter and Shauna Robinson for the eARC.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a hunch I would dig this book. What I didn't know that I would absolutely love it! After struggling find her place, Maggie is running her friend's bookstore. The store is unique in that it only sells books that were published when the town's favorite author was alive. So, nothing new. When the store needs revenue. Maggie decides to start an underground book club where authors offer their spin on classics. She also starts selling new books on the side. And she unexpectedly finds this incredible community. But how can she keep this all going? She's determined to find a way, and that is so much of the story. Y'all, this was just a delight. I wanted more - I was so drawn into Maggie's world - her events, her relationships, everything - I want/need to know what's next because it was just that wonderful. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this January 2024 release - one y'all definitely need to check out!

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sweet story about Maggie, who moves to the small town of Bell River to cover for her friend Rochelle’s maternity leave in Rochelle’s bookstore. The whole town revolves around a famous writer - Edward Bell and many of the businesses are owned by Ralph Bell. Things have been done a certain way to put Edward Bell on a pedestal and Ralph doesn’t seem willing to change. I loved how Maggie quickly made herself at home in Bell River and got herself an army of friends, including the grumpy man who lives upstairs from the bookstore, Vernon. Maggie wants to make some changes, but has to do them secretly so Ralph doesn’t find out. Maggie was a loveable character and there was a sweet romance. When Maggie finds out some surprising information she does all she can to make things better for the residents. A fun read involving a small town, books, book events and friends helping friends.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Secret Bookshop (aka The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks) is the latest, sparkly heartwarming novel from Shauna Robinson. Our protoganist is Maggie Banks, a young woman who is taking on the running of Cobblestone Books, the bookshop of her good friend, Rochelle, while Rochelle is on maternity leave. There is just one problem: Maggie is not a fan of books, and the bookshop's biggest investor takes a serious dislike to her. Maggie soon realises that the best way to protect the bookshop, could be via her dislike of rules ... leading to creation of The Secret Bookclub.
Maggie is a delight with her resolve, humour and allergy to rules. You cannot help but cheer her on, even while laughing at her honesty. I also loved the ".. read what you enjoy.." theme of the novel and the freshing attitudes of the characters.

[Claudia Feneley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore novels about books and bookstores as a rule, and The Secret Book Club was no exception. This book was a delight to read. It is set in a whimsical New England town that is obsessed with the classic novelist who penned his most famous book in the town... or did he? The main character Maggie is fun, whimsical, and most of all incredibly relatable. It was great to watch her grow and discover herself while making an impact on the lives of those around her. I definitely recommend this for anyone who is looking for a cosy, happy read that emphasises the power of books.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely heart warming and easy read with some funny moments.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this read but I really did enjoy it.
I loved all the characters especially Vernon and I also loved the relationship between Maggie and Malcom. I loved how their relationship grew through their own little book club.

Thank you NetGalley and One More Chapter for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest reveiw

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get invited to join a read along with One More Chapter for this fun bookish read. I really enjoyed the whole experience especially the WhatsApp group chat that went along with the read along, hearing everyone's opinions about the book and Maggie's situation.

I was kind of on the fence at times about Maggie as a main character. I really enjoyed her enthusiasm for creative thinking and finding ways to make a sometimes dull job more fun. She was excellent at bringing people together and creating a sense of community as well. I really felt for her though as she struggled against other people's expectations of her and feeling like a failure because she didn't follow a certain path. I didn't love how secretive she was especially when it came to her best friend, Rochelle and her possible new romantic interest, Malcolm. While the clever ways she thought of to create more business for her friend's bookstore were wonderful, it was hard to imagine that someone would cross all those lines or boundaries and just make the changes or put those plans into actions without discussing it first with the owner who was also her best friend. It felt like a real betrayal especially after her friend had been so supportive and kind by offering her the opportunity and had also made it so abundantly clear how tenuous the relationship with the co-owner of the bookstore was. I couldn't imagine keeping all of what she was hiding from a friend like that and Rochelle was so forgiving when she did find out about everything she had been hiding that I was shocked. I know I would have needed much more time to process all of that. When it came to Malcolm, I really loved how they were playful and flirty with each other while slowly opening up to each other. I could understand more why she would keep what she was up to from him considering his job and all but it felt like a bad way to start a relationship and especially icky when she used his key card.

I did love the small town of Bell River and all of the interesting characters that lived there. It felt like an idyllic setting filled with everything you could want like a farmer's market and local bakery with all the best treats. I loved Vernon, the grouchy upstairs neighbour. Maggie was able to melt his heart even just a little and his whole backstory was very cool. I always fall for the local curmudgeon it seems and Vernon is no exception.

As a booklover, I definitely appreciated all the references and really enjoyed the discussions had within the book about the value of all books and genres. I appreciated the take that classics could use a shake up and questioning what makes a classic a classic as well as conversations about diversifying your bookshelf. I love that in the end, Maggie found books that spoke to her and made her a reader and how she found ways to bring new life to the classics with her book club twists. Sounds like a really fun idea for sure!

I received an advanced ebook copy of this book through the read along with the publisher, One More Chapter and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

[Hannah Ferguson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the cutest small town, book store, secret society story. I loved how we experienced Maggie's character growth along with her, but there wasn't a lot of us knowing before she knew on her path. We weren't rolling our eyes that she was missing out on information or missing opportunities. We were with her figuring out her career and relationship path, as well as her book club path and excitement. Malcom is such a diverse character who we also get a glimpse into his progress of development, I wish he had invited Maggie on his adventures more, but I appreciate how he was able to break from his every day shell and become a person on his own. Vernon was the best grumpy old man with a heart of gold and I love how he was tied into the ending and the big reveal. His love of the book club and his encouragement and participation was so sweet and inspiring.
There were a few things that bugged me, like Maggie feeling like she had to keep the secrets from Rochelle and her keeping T.J. Hull from Malcom, I would have a hard time forgiving that. But overall, it was a very sweet read and I loved that I was able to read it. Thank you Netgalley and One More Chapter!

[carissa morais · Rating 3 out of 5]

*finished this on 29 Dec but forgot to update goodreads since i'm on fable now* heh :D

the book started out strong, but fizzled in the middle right till the end. i took a long pause (almost a month) halfway through the book. not because i didn't like it, but because i wasn't invested? FMC didn't have a strong character growth, and i guess i became bored with her one-dimensional personality.

the setting and community was lovely. it had the small town vibes one would like in a book. the premise of the story was promising, but poorly executed. i really wanted to root for the FMC, but i couldn't find reasons to support her coz i felt she carried this "the world is against me" type of perspective. she think she knows everything, but could learn to be humble for her own good.

zero romantic vibes, btw (though i think romance wasn't supposed to be forefront of this book, so i guess that's fine?). FMC and her love interest felt more like friends.

i liked the author's writing style. it was the sole reason why i stuck with the book, instead of abandoning it halfway. writing was clear, not "over-the-top" and had a good flow.