Delicious Reads: Book Club Ideas for "Shadow on the Crown" {by Patricia Bracewell}

For our Christmas Book Club we read the most unexpected gem of a book. This book is a historical fiction and sometimes you never know if it is going to be captivating or more on the dull side. We were all really impressed with this fabulous book and were left wanting more! Most of us flew through this book being captured by its plot, characters, writing, relationships and historical story. Patricia Bracewell did such an amazing job bringing this book to life.

Brooke was the moderator tonight and she did such a great job bringing the night together. She even got a hold of the author, Patricia, and asked her to Skype with us and she said yes!

Here is the lovely Brooke dressed up like the main character from the book, Emma.

Decorations
were a little more simple this time because of Christmas but Brooke brought in some royal items and spruced up the place. We used candle light to set the ambiance.

Because it's December we had a Christmas tree and festive decorations all around. Kellie H made some cute ornaments to give to each moderator of each book we did this year and made a cute garland with the books we discussed this year.

The ornaments and garland turned out so cute and sparkly. Kellie is doing a DIY on this soon.

{Food}

There was so much good food tonight. Because it was the end of the year we wanted to put our favorite dishes of all the book clubs we did this year.

We used the veggie platter from "Bossypants" book club.

The Roasted Brussels Sprouts were from "The Monuments Men" book club.

The Festive Fruit Salad was from "Carter Beats the Devil" book club.

The Roasted Chicken was from "Ruin and Rising" book club

The Cream of Pumpkin Soup was from "The Haunting of Hill House" book club.The Tomato and Cucumber Salad was from the "Walt Disney: An American Original" book club.

The yummy rolls and breadsticks we had at our retreat for "Black Moon" book club.

And the oh so delicious Spaghetti Carbonara is from our "Goldfinch" book club.

Desserts

Who can't resist Baklava which was our favorite from "The Golem and the Jinni" book club.

The Snowflake sugar cookies or cupcakes are from "The Snow Child" book club.

The yummiest Pavlova was from "The Husband's Secret" book club.

The scones were from this book club because the author Patricia Bracewell loves them.

After we ate and stuffed ourselves with all the delicious food and visited for a while, we got a Skype call from

Patricia Bracewell

We were so lucky to have all our questions answered by Patricia and talk to her about any tidbits she could give us on book two "The Price of Blood" coming out Feb 5, 2015. Yes, people this is going to be a trilogy and thank goodness for that.

Brooke took Patricia (on the iPad) around the room to meet everyone and see all the decorations.

Group Pic

Thanks Patricia for joining our book club tonight. We can't wait to read what happens next.

Now it's time for our Favorite Thing Gift Exchange game. Our theme this year was your favorite Beauty item of the year. We play it like a white elephant game were there are only two steals then it is yours. And we write notes in the gifts talking about why it's our favorite then that person has to guess who brought it before they can open it. You think you know someone then you play this game and find you don't. Elizabeth wrote a fabulous post on all our Favorite Beauty items, check it out.