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Hawthorn Book Club: April 2026

Join us for the first meeting of a new Book Tree book club!
We’ll meet on the second Thursday of each month for a relaxed and friendly conversation about the current book.
Bring along your favourite drink — we’ll provide the glasses and washing up.
The bookshop door will be open from 6.50pm for a 7pm start in our atmospheric upstairs space.
Our book club meetings are free to attend, and we offer a 10% discount on each month’s paperback choice.
This Month’s Book
Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths
Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month for February 2026
Radio Times Best Books of 2025
A gritty tale of secrets, guilt and desire — The Observer
Completely enthralling — Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb
A simmering tale of outcasts and buried secrets, love and redemption — Danielle Giles, author of Mere
1915, the Cabrach.
In the fierce, wild beauty of this remote corner of Scotland, an isolated community makes a discovery: an ancient body in a peat bog, perfectly preserved. Two people haul the body from the ground: Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy local landowner, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farm hand.
Soon afterwards, strange events begin to occur. At hearthside and inn, people whisper: what have we unearthed?
As tensions run high and men leave for war, old fears and secrets emerge. But in a place where judgement is swift, who is truly without sin?
A striking and atmospheric debut — The Times
Sets a beautifully atmospheric scene from its opening lines to its final moments — PA Media
Scapegoats, suspicion and secrets…a haunting picture of a small, intense environment where isolation can breed solidarity and warmth as easily as superstition and exclusion — Financial Times
What readers are saying:
“An earthy, folkloric tale, where superstition is rife…a captivating read. Highly recommended”
“A gothic literary experience, rural and immersive, that thrums with tension, mystery and forbidden love”
“A deeply immersive reading experience, and one of the best elements of this book is how the atmosphere and environment of rural scotland, the small farms, the fields, the bog, the changing of seasons – nature itself becomes a character”
“Beautifully written, chilling and disturbing, the book is an engrossing read from start to finish”
“Sometimes you come across a book that is note perfect; very readable and entirely relatable but still beautifully, poetically written. This is such a complete novel, it is hard to believe it is the author’s debut”
“This was a stunningly beautiful novel. Dark and creepy and wonderfully realised, and the character voices were next-level good”

