May's choice this year is The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden. This month, we decided to go a diverse route and give our members a refreshing twist to the kinds of fiction that they might be used to. Nicky Drayden is a Systems Analyst who dabbles in prose when she’s not buried in code. She resides in Austin, Texas where being weird is highly encouraged, if not required. This is her debut novel. We expect a very engaging meeting at the end of the month! But what is this book even about?

In South Africa, the future looks promising. Personal robots are making life easier for the working class. The government is harnessing renewable energy to provide infrastructure for the poor. And in the bustling coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the economy is booming thanks to the genetic engineering industry which has found a welcome home there. Yes—the days to come are looking very good for South Africans. That is, if they can survive the present challenges:

A new hallucinogenic drug sweeping the country . . .

An emerging AI uprising . . .

And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status by preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters.

It’s up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there’s a future left to worry about.

We love a good diva taking charge. If this sounds like something you'd enjoy reading, we really hope that you'll come grab a copy from the bookstore or from one of the local libraries, then join us at the book club meeting. 

You can buy your copy from Foggy Pine Books and get 15% off until the end of the month. The book club display is on the same shelf as the bestsellers! You can also buy it from us online, if you prefer to read a digital copy or listen to the audiobook: ​​

We'll meet at Hatchet Coffee on May 30th at 7:30pm. Hatchet Coffee has drinks & snacks available for purchase but we typically also have snacks to share with one another.  Bring a friend and come discuss the book with us, even if you weren't able to completely finish it or if you didn't like it. You can see the Facebook event & RSVP here .

A Madcap Debut: The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden - Tor.com
Q & A: Nicky Drayden Talks ‘The Prey of Gods’ - Fantasy Review Barn

This month's Hatchet Coffee book club pick is A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. We haven't read many classics or memoirs together so we wanted to diversify the types of books we've been reading. 

Here's the summary: 
Begun in the autumn of 1957 and published posthumously in 1964, Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist form; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertrude Stein held court at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of une generation perdue; and T.S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed.

Among these small, reflective sketches are unforgettable encounters with the members of Hemingway's slightly rag-tag circle of artists and writers, some also fated to achieve fame and glory, others to fall into obscurity. Here, too, is an evocation of the Paris that Hemingway knew as a young man - a map drawn in his distinct prose of the streets and cafes and bookshops that comprised the city in which he, as a young writer, sometimes struggling against the cold and hunger of near poverty, honed the skills of his craft.


A Moveable Feast is at once an elegy to the remarkable group for expatriates that gathered in Paris during the twenties and a testament to the risks and rewards of the writerly life.

We are so excited to talk about this book together and share our own stories about our experiences with Hemingway's works and knowledge about his life. 

You can get your copy of the book at the bookstore for $16 but you'll always get 15% off book club titles. You can also purchase the book from us in other formats online:

We will meet at the Hatchet Coffee lounge on Thursday, May 31 at 7:30pm. There will be free wine & snacks for book club members. Please attend even if you weren't able to finish the book or if you didn't like it--some of our best conversations have been when the group is divided. As always, we welcome new members with open arms. See y'all at the end of the month!