Meet Cute Book Club chats When Forty Blooms
Featured Book
When Forty Blooms
It was just a birthday. Then everything in her asked, what if.
Simone Harris has always known how to hold it down. For her son. For her clients. For the sports agency she built from scratch. She keeps things running, keeps herself moving, and keeps her heart tucked safely out of reach.
But this birthday feels different. It falls on a leap year, a date that only circles back every so often. A rare kind of day that feels like it arrives exactly when it's meant to. The kind that makes you pause and ask what you have been pushing through just to keep going. In that stillness, something begins to surface alongside it. Fatigue. Questions. The quiet ache she has learned to ignore.
She is not falling apart. Still, something is shifting. The pressure she has lived under feels heavier than it once did. And as she begins to listen to what her spirit has been trying to say, the past reappears, bringing with it a familiar comfort, unfinished conversations, and a quiet invitation to feel again.
About This Event
Meet Cute Book Club celebrates sexy, swoon-worthy Romance reads every month. While we'll mostly focus on contemporary love stories, we're excited to read across sub-genres within Romancelandia. Meet Cute Book Club is hosted by Loyalty's resident Romance mavens, Sandie Chen and Chardai Powell, who are committed to an inclusive book club for anyone ready for romances that make you laugh, swoon, blush, and occasionally cry.
Please RSVP to the right to let us know you'll be joining us for this month's meeting so that we can reserve enough seats. Email us at events@loyaltybookstores.com with any questions.Use coupon code BKCB10 at checkout online for 10% off each month's book club selection or mention it is for book club at checkout in store!
About the Venue
Loyalty Bookstore
HI! WE’RE LOYALTY BOOKSTORES. We like books. We like you. And we aim to bring the best diverse books and events to our community. We aim to be the Mid-Atlantic’s neighborhood spot for wonderful books and unique stationery, gifts, and programming. Our staff and our selection highlight the diverse voices and creatives that make our communities great. Our intersectional community is important to our staff, therefore those are the books you'll find centered in our store, in our programming, and in our promotions.
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Author Storytime with Madeleine Odendahl for Augusta's Hands
Join us for a storytime with our friends from Merry Pin to celebrate the first book from their new publishing imprint Merry Pin Press! We'll have a reading of their first book, Augusta's Hands, about the pioneering Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage, light refreshments for young and old, and coloring pages for kiddos. There is no ticket for entry, but is limited so please RSVP to help your bookseller out! Books will be available on site for purchase or you may preorder below.Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for haterade towards staff, authors, or fellow patrons of any kind. ABOUT THE BOOKAugusta's Hands is the inspiring true story of Augusta Savage, an African-American sculptor and arts educator who shaped the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Florida, Augusta had hands that loved to make things, finding her first tools in red clay despite her father's disapproval. Her talent took her from the county fair to New York City, where she excelled at Cooper Union and began sculpting powerful, empathetic portraits of her community. She believed in lifting every voice and dedicated her life not just to her own art, but to teaching and inspiring a generation of young Black artists in her Harlem studio. Though much of her physical work was lost, her true masterpiece lives on in the students she taught, the artists she inspired, and the future she shaped.ABOUT THE AUTHOR Madeleine Odendahl is a writer, maker, business owner, and community builder who believes in the power of handicrafts to bring connection and beauty to our lives. As a stitch witch and ritual artist, she views crafting as a transformative practice of intention.Madeleine is the co-founder of Merry Pin, a one-of-a-kind cafe, craft store, and community hub designed to make creativity accessible to everyone. Since its opening in 2024, she has led the weekly Crafty Tales, a beloved program of storytime and hands-on making. The series served as the spark for Merry Pin Press, an indie publishing house dedicated to nurturing curiosity, empathy, and a sense of belonging—one artistic story at a time. She lives in Washington, DC with her son Rhodes. Augusta’s Hands is her debut children’s book.
The Big Ass Book Club chats The Count of Monte Cristo
We will be discussing the first 400 pages in this meeting! Do you love big books and you cannot lie? We're digging into a large book each season with all the nerdy, zero chill that defines Loyalty. Each month we will meet and discuss the book at large and dive into a specific section of the book as well. Enjoy a Sunday afternoon coffee, wine, tea, beer, or bubbly water with us and chat in depth about books that totally justify their size. Our 2026 reads are The Love Songs of W.E.B Dubois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, The Iliad by Homer (trans. Emily Wilson), The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcom X by the Paynes, The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Future books for consideration are The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders, Baldwin: A Love Story, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and more!
Octavia's Brew'd Book Club Chats Fledgling
Octavia Butler is finally getting the recognition as a genius she deserves, but how much Butler have you actually read? And what about the entire generation of afro-futuristic writers she inspired that now dominate the Speculative Fiction shelves at Loyalty? Inspired by the anthology Octavia's Brood, Hannah Oliver Depp and Chantal Tseng will read through Octavia Butler and her literary descendants! Chantal will pair a special drink to match the book each month and Hannah will bring the cultural context of the book's creation for discussion! Our sixth meeting will cover Fledgling , a standalone novel and Butler's final book published in her lifetime.