Welcome to the Debut Author Book Club, a collaboration between Palmyra Public Library and Book Bar. For July, the selected book is Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou (book description is located at the bottom of this listing).
So come out, grab a drink at Book Bar's beverage bar, and join us for a lively book discussion! When you purchase this book club pick from Book Bar or borrow it from the Palmyra Public Library, your support will help us be here for a long time and put on more events!
Purchasing options from Book Bar are below:
In Store: Stop by our location at 50 N. Railroad St. in Palmyra, PA!
Shipped: To purchase from Bookshop and get it delivered straight to your door, order from the following link: https://bookshop.org/a/98905/9781963108194 (If you purchase here, we will receive a percentage of this sale).
Ebook: Bookshop now offers Ebooks for indie booksellers. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/a/98905/9781963108217 (we will receive a percentage of this sale).
Audiobook: You can purchase audiobooks from us on Libro.fm. This audiobook can be easily found on our June 2025 Book Club Picks playlist here: https://libro.fm/playlists/9441?bookstore=bookbarus
(we will receive a percentage of this sale).
We look forward to seeing you!
Book Description:
A stunning reimagining of Bluebeard—one of the most mythologized serial killers—twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.
The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord’s baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy—until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.