LYNCHBURG — The Moore County Brown Bag Book Club is back at it and they’ll be reading The Book of Speculation by Erika Swylar for their July pick.

The novel follows the life of a young, research librarian with an interesting family tree. His mother – long dead – worked as a circus mermaid and died mysteriously on July 24. One day a book arrives on his doorstep … fragile and water-damaged. It chronicles the life of a traveling carnival owner in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of “mermaids” in Simon’s family have drowned – always on July 24, which is only weeks away. Is his sister next?

According to Publisher’s Weekly, it’s a book, “in the tradition of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian. The Book of Speculation – with two-color illustrations by the author – is Erika Swyler’s moving debut novel about the power of books, family, and magic.”

The Brown Bag Book Club meets every Friday at the Moore County Public Library. The group ends and begins a new book on the last Friday of each month. They will begin The Book of Speculation on Friday, June 26. •

{The Lynchburg Times is the only independently owned and operated newspaper in Moore County … covering Metro Moore County government, Jack Daniel’s Distillery, Nearest Green Distillery, the Lynchburg Music Fest, Tims Ford State Park, Motlow State Community College, Moore County High School, Moore County Middle School, Lynchburg Elementary, Raider Sports, plus regional and state news.}