Marybeth Whalen and Ariel Lawhon

But as our kids have grown (someone told us this parenting thing got easier… someone lied) and our writing commitments have expanded, our She Reads venture has needed to find a new place within our busy lives. Instagram is, for both of us, our social media happy place and, for that reason, we’ve decided that, going forward, we will devote the vast majority of our time and efforts in the book sharing world over there. While things are changing, the one thing that is staying the same– the most important thing– is that we are still sharing the books we love with people who love books. And it will keep us going for a long time to come.

Today’s post by Marybeth Whalen and Ariel Lawhon | @MarybethWhalen and @ArielLawhon Today’s post by Marybeth Whalen and Ariel Lawhon | @MarybethWhalen and @ArielLawhon Tap Tap Back to buying books with our own money that we want to read instead of getting buried under an avalanche of free books that have arrived at our house that we feel obliged to do something with. Back to connection, which is why we started the site in the first place– to connect with other readers out there who, like us, loved to read and wanted a place where they could talk about and share those great stories.

It is an honor to call her friend and it is an honor to have her novel, A Tangled Mercy, as our final book club selection. Told in alternating tales at once haunting and redemptive, A Tangled Mercy is a quintessentially American epic rooted in heartbreaking true events examining the harrowing depths of human brutality and betrayal, and our enduring hope for freedom and forgiveness. Nearly two centuries earlier, Tom Russell, a gifted blacksmith and slave, grappled with a terrible choice: arm the uprising spearheaded by members of the fiercely independent African Methodist Episcopal Church or keep his own neck out of the noose and protect the woman he loves. Kate’s attempts to discover what drove her mother’s dangerous obsession with Charleston’s tumultuous history are derailed by a horrific massacre in the very same landmark church.

—Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Before the War —Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Driftwood Summer and The Bookshop at Water’s —Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean In I Was Anastasia, Ariel Lawhon vividly reimagines the stories of Anastasia Romanov and Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Anastasia years later.