We're reading. We're talking. We're going on tangents. You're invited.

By Cheryl Garcia · Co-Founder, Midlife Secret Society

Can we tell you something a little embarrassing?

We used to be readers.

Not "I try to read before bed but fall asleep after two pages" readers. Real readers. The kind who got genuinely lost in a book, who thought about characters while doing the dishes, who finished something and immediately needed to talk to someone about it.

And then life — busy, loud, full, relentless life — quietly pushed reading to the bottom of the list. The books piled up on the nightstand. The library holds expired. The reading self went a little dormant.

This is the story of how we got her back.

What Between the Chapters Actually Is

Between the Chapters is MSS's book club — but calling it just a book club feels like calling a really great dinner party "a meal."

Yes, we read a book together. But what we're really doing is using the book as a door. We walk through it, and on the other side is a conversation we actually needed to have — about our lives, our choices, our fears, our next chapters. The ones we're still writing.

Books have a way of giving us permission to talk about things we've been carrying quietly. A character's grief becomes a conversation about our own. A plot turn about starting over at 50 becomes a question for the whole group: what would you do? A fictional friendship makes us think about the real ones we've been meaning to tend to.

That's the tangent. That's the whole point.

Here's how it works:

• We announce a book — you grab a copy (or pull it up on Audible, we don't discriminate — right, Jill?)

• You read at your own pace — no guilt, no pop quizzes

• We gather — both virtually and in person — to talk about the book and everything it stirred up

• We go wherever the conversation goes — which, in our experience, is usually somewhere really good

This one was personal to get off the ground. Cheryl has always been a reader at heart — someone who doesn't just consume a book but lives inside it for a while, and then desperately wants someone to debrief with after. The tangents, the "okay but what did you think about that ending?!" moments — that's her love language.

Jill, for the record, is an audiobook person. She came into this as a loyal supporter rather than a lifelong bookworm — and she is completely here for it, which tells you everything about how good this community already feels.

Our First Book

We didn't pick our debut title lightly- we Googled “what are midlife women reading?”

Well sort of. We did a little research to find a book that wasn’t too…much ( you readers will understand lol), and having not kept up with the latest books we weren’t sure what was out there. Then we heard about the octopus narrator. Sold.

We wanted a book that made you want to talk.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

If you haven't heard of it: a grieving woman named Tova takes a nighttime cleaning job at a small aquarium, and forms an unlikely friendship with Marcellus — a giant Pacific octopus with a great deal of opinions and, it turns out, a pivotal role in unraveling a decades-old mystery.

It sounds whimsical. It is whimsical. It's also quietly devastating and surprisingly profound about the things we hold onto, the things we let go of, and the connections that find us when we're not looking for them.

It is, in other words, exactly the kind of book that generates exactly the kind of conversation we're here for.

Themes we know we'll end up talking about — and not just about the book:

• Grief that doesn't announce itself, just quietly lives alongside you

• Starting a new chapter when you didn't choose for the old one to end

• The unexpected friendships that change everything

• What it means to keep showing up when you're not sure why

We cannot wait to discuss this one with you.

How to Join Us

Here's what you need to do right now:

1. Register to be a Between the Chapters book club guest this month. This is free to join and you will get book club access to the Midlife Secret Society Community.

2. Get the book* — Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Your local bookstore, Amazon, your library app, Audible — however you read, this book is waiting for you. *This is an Amazon affiliate link. If you purchase through this link, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Midlife Secret Society! 💛

3. Tell a friend — honestly, bring someone. The best book club conversations happen when someone unexpected shows up and says the thing everyone was thinking.

A Note From Cheryl

I started Between the Chapters because I missed this. Not just the reading — I missed having people to disappear into a book with, and then resurface with, and then spend two hours on a tangent about life with over a glass of wine. That specific kind of connection is hard to find once you're past the age where it happens accidentally.

This is us making it happen on purpose.

I hope you'll read with us.

Between the Chapters is one of several channels inside the Midlife Secret Society. Not a member yet? Start here: Someone had to Build. So we did.