Send Your Bestie August’s 10 Best Books

Mia, ready to give up on her life, finds a classic book – “The Scarlet Letter.” It eerily mirrors her upbringing in a Western Massachusetts cult where books and contact with the outside world were banned. Mia falls in love with the world of books and a writer before her time. Is it enough to save her?

Jane and Thalia were best friends a decade ago when they studied Creative Writing at Oxford. But after one bloody night, they lose each other, with Thalia disappearing into the ether and Jane leads an empty life because of it. Then, Jane sees Thalia’s name on the New York Times bestseller list. They make plans to meet up at a book convention, but where has Thalia been and can she and Jane make their way back to each other’s lives?

The sun-soaked beaches of Malibu and nightclubs of the Sunset Strip are the setting for this retro novel. In the 1960s, Mindy and Ginger must deal with the frequent absence of their mother, a legendary female surfer. They get swept away in the times, Mindy dabbles in celebrity while Ginger becomes a victim of drugs and cults. Their sisterly bond remains, bound by their unusual upbringing in this story of three women living in uncertain times.

If you like your historical fiction sprinkled with magic, you’ll love this tale of two sisters who changed the world. In 1768, Charlotte is sent to Naples to marry a stranger while Antoine becomes Marie Antoinette of France. Separated, they each rely on a spell book they found as children to take back control of their lives. These spells have consequences, though, and soon the two sisters are rivals and Europe is exploding in revolution.

When Flor plans a living wake for her family, they are all on edge. Flor has a gift where she can predict who will die and when. She won’t tell her three sisters the truth, but they have secrets too. As the group assembles, past and present lives weave together in a tapestry of one family’s history.

When a mother tells her daughters the story of her romance with a famous actor while they all pick cherries at the family orchard, it makes the sisters rethink everything they thought they knew in this masterfully written novel.

One family is pulled to the brink in this funny and thought-provoking novel. When the family car business starts to falter, each of the Barnes clan copes in a unique way. Dad is building an apocalypse bunker in the woods, Mom is selling her jewelry on eBay, and one of their children is binge drinking while the other is planning to run away. How did it all go so wrong?

Two friends have very different views on motherhood in this international novel. Laura has her tubes tied while Alina is pregnant. The pregnancy drives the two women apart then brings them closer together when Alina faces a heartbreaking diagnosis. The book is twisty, complex and hauntingly intense.

A woman wakes up in Paris with amnesia and things only get more complicated from there. Turns out, she’s the identical twin of a rogue spy, people are trying to kill her and there’s a very attractive man trying to help her stay alive. Pretending to be newlyweds may be the perfect way out of this pickle.

Alix, a true crime podcaster, meets her birthday twin Josie, while she’s out celebrating. Josie quickly wiggles her way into Alix’s life, with dark secrets hiding in Josie’s past. Then Josie disappears and Alix realizes she is in danger and living her own true crime podcast.