Genre Study – Relationship Fiction: Frame & Setting

Our 2024-2025 genre study provides an overview of relationship fiction by looking at key authors, tropes, and themes. The study will also explore crossover appeal with various genres.

Relationship Fiction Genre Study: Frame & Setting

The meeting will be on Thursday, April 3 from 2-4pm in-person at the Park Ridge Public Library. We will be discussing Relationship Fiction arranged by frame and setting. Read two books, one with a specific frame and one with a specific setting. Below is a list of suggestions of titles and authors; feel free to choose your own as well.

Frames

Books About Books

• No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
• The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
• The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
• With Love From London by Sarah Jio
• The Bookshop Sisterhood by Michelle Lindo-Rice
• The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

Road Trip

• The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn
• What happened to Ruthy Ramierez by Claire Jimenez
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• The Bump by Sidney Karger
• The Summer Seekers by Sarah Morgan
• Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Hobbies

• The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
• The Quilter’s Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini
• The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood
• Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry by Sara Read
• The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
• A Good Indian Girl by Mansi Shah
• The Secret French recipes of Sophie Valroux by Samantha Verant
• The Healing Season of Pottery by So-min Yon

Setting

Small Town/City That Feels Like a Small Town

• Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
• One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell
• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
• Every Tom, Dick & Harry by Elinor Lipman
• 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County by Claire Swinarski
• Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

 Beach/Island

• Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews
• Summer on the Bluffs by Sunny Hostin
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman
• Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around by Camille Pagan
• The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons
• The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
• Surfside Sisters by Nancy Thayer
• Welcome to Beach Town by Susan Wiggs