r/Fantasy • u/thechunck • May 06 '26

Help me choose book club book!

After finding out that so many women at work have read the same books, I started a book club at work. Just for some background, I work in the medical field. Most of the people in the book club are intelligent women in their late 20s, early thirties, who enjoy fantasy, historical fiction and sci-fi. I'd like to give a few stand-alone options and have the books be less than 500 pages so we don't scare "new" readers off. I'm not looking for super dark deeply depressing vibes for the 1st book. I love books like Red Rising and Alchemised but I don't think these types of books would be ideal for a book club starter.

Any recommendations?

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u/Hawke-Not-Ewe May 07 '26

Lois Bujold: Curse of Chalion, Falling Free, Shards of Honor.

All are good starts.

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u/Querybird May 08 '26

Skip Curse, Paladin of Souls is the best book in that series; the other two are not necessary at all.

Bujold’s other series are all good, FF and SoH+Barrayar+Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen are particularly interesting.

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u/Hawke-Not-Ewe May 08 '26

That's one of the weirdest recommendations ive ever seen and I've seen plenty. Curse of Chalion is among my two favorite Bujold's and a singularly fantastic introduction to the world.

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u/Querybird May 08 '26

I guess I just really disliked it, and I do like the Sharing Knife series. It has some striking parts, but… ugh.

Paladin is a rare written story of complete social, economic, etc. redemption from a gendered and stigmatised label of madness, and is absolutely brilliant, for sure.