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Theme Book Of the Month



The theme for March 2025 is SMALL ISLANDS & SEA

March's BOM Theme is Small Islands and Sea. Will you be finding swash-buckling pirate tales or a "fish out of water" transplant from the Big Smoke to a small island?
In keeping with this years general theme of Around the World, we'd prefer lesser known small islands over a Greek island romance, but the book world is your oyster!

Nominations will be open until 27 January, UK evening

***Please pay special attention to the Rules and Guidelines listed below.***

Rules and Guidelines
1. Books nominated after the deadline will not be included in the polls. Sorry.
2. Each person is limited to nominating ONE book per category.
3. Please use the add book/author tool located at the top of the comment box when nominating a book. (Please make your nomination clear because side conversations do happen and we don't want to accidentally miss a nomination)
4. Please add the Goodreads synopsis for the book you nominate; you should also include an explanation of how it fits the theme for the month.
5. Books that were read as a past BOM will not be considered for the poll. (link to the sheet under the spoiler (view spoiler)[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... (hide spoiler)])
6. Books that are #2 or higher in a series will only be considered if all earlier books in the series have been a past BOM.
7. Books must be published at the time of nomination.
8. If your book is successful in being picked as the BOM you are expected to actively participate in the discussion. This will include writing a set of DQs as well as engaging in conversations.

The BOM nominations are for our members to nominate a book they are truly interested in and have no affiliation with. Promotional activity is NOT permitted and nominations that the Moderators perceive to be promotional will be deleted without warning

Nomination

Island in the Sun by Katie Fforde
I don’t often read straight romance, so I will recommend this one outside of my comfort zone. Plus, it is set in Dominica, which seems like a lesser written about island.

Synopsis-
When Cass is asked by her father to take on an unusual photography project in the Caribbean Island of Dominica, she really can't see a reason to say no.

But the remote island has just been hit be a severe hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake. Cass is travelling with Ranulph who is searching for the rare stone carvings her father wants her to photograph.

Their hunt leads Cass down a path of bravery and self-discovery, and she soon falls for Ranulph, who has been by her side every step of the way.

But does he feel the same way about her?

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See


Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.

I nominate Holy Island

Detective Chief Inspector Ryan retreats to Holy Island seeking sanctuary when he is forced to take sabbatical leave from his duties as a homicide detective. A few days before Christmas, his peace is shattered and he is thrust back into the murky world of murder when a young woman is found dead amongst the ancient ruins of the nearby Priory.

When former local girl Dr Anna Taylor arrives back on the island as a police consultant, old memories swim to the surface making her confront her difficult past. She and Ryan struggle to work together to hunt a killer who hides in plain sight, while pagan ritual and small-town politics muddy the waters of their investigation.

I haven't read this in a long time, and I want to again.


Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright

Austin Tappan Wright left the world a wholly unsuspected legacy. After he died in a tragic accident, among this distinguished legal scholar's papers were found thousands of pages devoted to a staggering feat of literary creation—a detailed history of an imagined country complete with geography, genealogy, literature, language and culture. As detailed as J.R.R. Tolkien's middle-earth novels, Islandia has similarly become a classic touchstone for those concerned with the creation of imaginary world.

I would like to nominate


The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…”

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited -- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

I nominate The Island of Lost Secrets by Rebecca Alexander

As Ellie stood on the boat, watching the small island come into view, she wondered what awaited her on shore. What secrets would she uncover in this place?

When Ellie Roberts inherits a cottage on a remote Scilly Isle, she’s shocked. She’s never heard of the previous owner, Patience Ellis, so why did she leave Ellie her legacy?

Overwhelmed with unanswered questions, Ellie travels to the isolated island. Windswept from the boat, salt spray still on her skin, she searches for Patience’s whitewashed cottage, hidden behind overgrown ivy. But when she steps inside, the house feels strangely familiar, and she has a memory of laughing as a child with her beloved mother in the window seat overlooking the sea… The mother she lost when she was only a child.

Determined to find out more, Ellie meets enigmatic local Branok Shore. While at first he seems uninterested, he believes he can help. Charmed by his green eyes, and curious about his past on the island, he and Ellie grow closer, but Ellie knows she needs to understand her own story before she can embrace the future. And when Branok prises open Patience’s dresser, filled with letters from the Second World War, Ellie discovers the shocking secret Patience was forced to hide – and the truth that will change her own life forever.

The letters tell the story of a brutal storm on a dark night in the depths of war, and of an injured soldier who begged Patience for help, and asked her to make an impossible choice…

But the letters don’t hold the answers Ellie so desperately needs. Why did Patience leave her home to her? And how can Ellie have memories of the cottage, when she’s never been there before? When Ellie finally uncovers the truth, will she be strong enough to put the fragments of her life back together?

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts comes a seductive and suspenseful novel of dangerous liaisons and family betrayals…

Photographer Jo Ellen Hathaway thought she'd escaped the house called Sanctuary long ago. She'd spent her loneliest years there, after the sudden, unexplained disappearance of her mother. Yet the sprawling inn on an island off the Georgia coast continues to haunt her dreams. And now, even more haunting are the pictures someone is sending her: strange close-ups and candids, culminating in the most shocking portrait of all—a photo of her mother—naked, beautiful, and dead.

Now Jo must return to the island, and to her bitterly estranged family. With the help of Nathan Delaney—who was on the island the summer her mother disappeared—Jo hopes to learn the truth about the tragic past. But Sanctuary may be the most dangerous place of all.

Leaves of the Banyan Tree by Albert Wendt

An epic spanning three generations, Leaves of the Banyan Tree tells the story of a family and community in Western Samoa, exploring on a grand scale such universal themes as greed, corruption, colonialism, exploitation, and revenge. Winner of the 1980 New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year Award, it is considered a classic work of Pacific literature.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

Reason: went for the High Seas with this nomination

Judith wrote: "

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storie..."

this looks REALLY good.

I nominate Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

A forbidden affair erupts dramatically amid a decadent Hawaiian wedding in this hilarious, sophisticated, and thrillingly plotted story of love, money, murder, sex—and the lies we tell about them all.

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel, has a problem: his family fortune, the legendary Gresham Trust, has been depleted by decades of profligate spending. While magazine covers and Instagram stories display impeccably designed manors and shiny new yachts, the secret reality holds nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to seduce a woman with money, thereby securing the family's precarious financial future.

Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey-blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong?

When the Gresham family descends on the Big Island of Hawaii to host a veritable who's who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs for the wedding of the decade, Rufus must merely flex his famous abs to bewitch the heiress of his choice. But instead a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials, and the Gresham family's plans—and their reputation—go up in flames.

Can the once-great earldom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist? Spanning the black sand beaches of Hawaii, the red city of Marrakech, the Los Angeles bachelor pad of a billionaire playboy, and the inner sanctum of England’s oldest family estate, Lies and Weddings reveals an enthralling family saga that is as scandalous and satirical as it is full of heart.

Reason: Hawaii ;)