Join us for a romance book club, aptly titled "The Happily Ever After Book Club." The only rule is that the book has to have a happy ending! The book club meets on the first Wednesday of each month. Tea and light refreshments will be provided. No registration is required. Our book for May 1, 2024, at 6:30 p.m. is Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widos by Balli Kaur Jaswal.

"Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.

Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.

As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s "moral police." But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all."

Copies of the book can be picked up at the Main Library at the checkout desk during the month of April. Copies are also available on Libby and Hoopla (free access with your library card).