Romance readers can now get in the mood for love with Barnes and Noble’s new romance book club at the Greenwood Park Mall, according to their Instagram. The book club was started by Senior Bookseller Meghan Decatur after she had noticed an advertisement for one on a poster at another Barnes and Noble.
“The next time I went into work, I asked my boss if we could have one as well because pre-COVID we had an adult book club, but we had to stop it, obviously, and hadn’t done anything since,” Decatur said.
According to Decatur, they plan to continue to meet monthly, with a break in December due to the holidays. The club has only had two meetings thus far, one on Sept. 13 and on Oct. 25. Decatur also said the club is open for anyone to join and there is no set schedule to the meetings—it is meant to be a free space.
“It’s honestly just a lively discussion,” Decatur said. “It’s not too terribly structured, minus a couple of questions. But other than that, …we’ll get coffees and we’ll sit around and just talk about how we liked it.”
According to Decatur, the size of the group is small, as of now, but that makes it easy to have more in-depth conversations. She said there is no need to sign up—people can just show up if they please.
Junior communication major and Bookseller at Barnes and Noble Emma Foutz said that although the club is strictly romance, they are going to try to cover a wide variety of romance novels including Victorian, contemporary, historical and more. Foutz said, in order to choose the book for the month, the group votes on which one they want to read. The goal of the book club is to bring together and build a community of people who love romance novels, according to Foutz. Readers are people who love a community, Foutz said, and this gives them an opportunity to have a place to share thoughts and ideas. She also said the club plans on doing them for the foreseeable future.
“We just love community, there’s groups like BookTok where people share suggestions and recommendations and have whole communities online,” Foutz said.
The book they most recently read, which was the topic of discussion at their Oct. 25 meeting, was “You Again” by Kate Goldbeck, Foutz said. This is a modern romance novel and is Goldbeck’s debut book, according to the Kate Goldbeck website. This was one of five options offered to the previous group that met in September. The group is given a chance to vote on the book they want to read, and then everyone is expected to have read it by meeting time the next month, said Foutz.
According to Foutz, this particular club will exclusively read romance books, but if customers express interest for a different variety of book clubs, they would consider adding more genres. Decatur said that students can look on the Barnes and Noble website or on their Instagram account for updates as to when the meetings will be.
The next meeting will be discussing the book “The Nanny” by Lana Ferguson, said Decatur. This is a contemporary novel that focuses on the life of a woman who nannies for a man who recognizes her from the content subscription service OnlyFans, according to Goodreads.
The next meeting will be on Nov. 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble located in Greenwood Park Mall, according to Decatur. All are welcome and encouraged to attend and should stay tuned for more updates on what is to come at this Barnes and Noble, according to Foutz. “We’re gonna have our holiday stuff coming in soon.” Foutz said.
