Introducing Cozy Up To A Book Club

Many of you are aware that I’m planning to move into Legacy Oaks Azle in the near future. Legacy Oaks Azle is a Senior Independent Living Community that is still under construction in Azle Texas.

http://legacyoaksazle.com/ https://www.facebook.com/LegacyOaksAzle/?ref=br_rs

I am looking forward to moving into my new home and becoming the moderator of a book club, Cozy Up To A Book Club, the community has organized.

Even though construction is still on-going, Cozy Up To A Book Club is already up and running and will meet at 10:00 am on the last Friday of each month to discuss selected books.

Anyone who is interested in joining the club is welcome to attend the meetings. Please respond to this post with any questions regarding information about and directions to the meetings.

Our first meeting was Friday, July 27th and we decided on Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts as the first book to be read and discussed.

 

 

Nora Roberts latest novel, Shelter in Place, focuses on a 2005 mass shooting in a mall near Portland, Maine.

In the first chapter, Roberts describes the normal activity of several people before the shooting, the eight minutes of chaos and carnage during the shooting, and the immediate effects on those individuals that will shape the rest of their lives.

Kirkus Reviews describes Shelter in Place as “part thriller, part romance, part survivor’s psychological study with a touch of New Age magic:”, and gives the following summary of events before, during and after the shooting.

“It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at the video-game store tended to customers. Then the shooters arrived.

The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, trying to bury the memory of huddling in a ladies’ room, hopelessly clutching her cell phone–until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art.

But one person wasn’t satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, find shelter, and rebuild, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait–and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide.”

Please feel free to comment on Shelter in Place if you have already read it (no spoilers please) or ask questions if you have them.

I’d like to start the discussion with the following question:

Why do you think Roberts preceded Chapter 1 with the Henry Fielding quote?

I’m looking forward to reading your comments and questions.