Fred. Olsen Book Club

Man standing on deck with book in hand

With ample time and space to relax, many of our guests make the most of the opportunity to get stuck in to a good book during a cruise holiday on board one of Fred. Olsen’s smaller, friendlier ships. This is why to enhance reading enrichment further, we have introduced the Fred. Olsen Book Club on selected sailings, a chance to talk all things ‘bookish’ with like-minded people.

Hosted by the Entertainment Managers and their Team, the Book Club provides a welcoming, social space in which you can openly and informally discuss thoughts and views on bestselling lighter reads, crime-thrillers and traditional or contemporary classics.[ReadMoreMob] Specific categories and titles to discuss at the Book Club on each cruise are chosen in advance and listed below, allowing you time to purchase and read the books before you set sail. These books will also be available from your ship’s Port Shop, should you wish to wait until you’re on board to join in the fun.

So, if you love a good book while discovering the world with Fred. Olsen, what better way to indulge your passion than joining your friends and fellow guests at the Book Club?

We look forward to welcoming you!

Fred. Olsen Book Club
Cruises departing from January 2024

The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Book Title: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo tells the story of Hollywood actor Evelyn Hugo, determined to secure an A-List spot in the industry by doing whatever it takes to get there. While attempting to achieve her rise to stardom, she marries seven husbands and outlives them all. Later in her life, Hugo hires a lesser-known journalist to write her memoir and, for the first time in her decorated life, tells details and secrets about her love life.

Monique Grant – the journalist hired by Hugo – goes on her own journey while learning about the actress and as the book goes on, Grant seeks to discover why she was chosen to document Hugo’s life.

Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Book Title: The Housemaid

Author: Freida McFadden

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Crime Fiction

“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken each day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. 

I only tried on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…

The Housemaid

Book Title: How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House

Author: Cherie Jones

Genre: Literary Fiction

In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers. For Wilma, it’s the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result.

When Lala grows up, she sees it offers hope – of life after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man. And Mira Whalen? It’s about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and she didn’t get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all.

This is is the story of three marriages, and a beautiful island paradise where, beyond the white sand beaches and the wealthy tourists, lies poverty, menacing violence and the story of the sacrifices some women make to survive.

How the one-armed sister sweeps her house
Cruises departing from May 2024

Book Title: The Family Upstairs

Author: Lisa Jewell

Genre: Literary Fiction

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

The Family Upstairs Book Club

Book Title: Lessons in Chemistry

Author: Bonnie Garmus

Genre: Literary Fiction

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Lessons in Chemistry Book Club

Book Title: The Lost Bookshop

Author: Evie Woods

Genre: Literary Fiction

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

The Lost Bookshop Book Club

These books will be one of the three titles discussed at the Book Club on all cruises of seven nights or longer.