Historical Fiction · Free kit
The Briar Club
Washington, D.C., 1950. At Briarwood House, a tired all-female boardinghouse in Foggy Bottom, the boarders pass in the hall and keep their secrets. Then widow Grace March takes the attic room nobody wants, parks sun tea on the windowsill, and starts a Thursday supper club whose only cover charge is a can of food. An English war bride, a National Archives secretary, a sidelined baseball star, a Capitol Hill clerk, a Hungarian artist in exile, and a HUAC secretary fluent in Red Scare certainty become an unlikely family — while Grace hides the most dangerous secret in the house. When violence arrives at Thanksgiving, the Briar Club has to decide who the true enemy is, and what friendship is willing to cover.
“Just like people, houses go to sleep if bored.”
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Plan your meeting
The Briar Club Icebreakers
Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.
Personality Reveal
1. Are you the person who turns a quiet house into a gathering — or the person who is grateful someone else did?
Personality Reveal
2. When a rule is petty and the person enforcing it is proud of it, do you obey, argue, or quietly go around it?
Personality Reveal
3. In a group of strangers, are you more likely to volunteer a secret first or wait until everyone else has gone?
Funny & Light
4. What is the worst dish you have ever proudly contributed to a potluck, and did anyone actually eat it?
Funny & Light
5. What household rule from your childhood was so specific that you still hear it in a parent's voice?
Funny & Light
6. If your friends had to unite against one of your annoying habits for team-building, which habit would they pick?
Would You Rather
7. Would you rather live in a house with strict posted rules and total privacy, or almost no rules and absolutely no secrets?
Would You Rather
8. Would you rather be the neighbor everyone confides in, or the neighbor nobody notices enough to gossip about?
Would You Rather
9. Would you rather host every gathering for the rest of your life, or never have to host and always bring the one item people remember?
Hot Take
10. Hot take: a found family you chose will always know you better than the family you were born into. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
11. Hot take: keeping one serious secret from your closest friends is sometimes an act of love. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
12. Finish this sentence: "The most dangerous person in a tight-knit group is usually the one who _______."
Personal Connection
13. Who is the person who first made a place feel like yours — not because they owned it, but because they fed you or noticed you?
Personal Connection
14. What's one part of your life you keep off the group chat even though the people in it love you?
Personal Connection
15. When have you chosen loyalty to a person over a rule you were supposed to respect?