Charlotte book club gets a mention in Wall Street Journal

Last year, Elaine Monaghan and other members of Charlotte's Berkeley Book Club enjoyed reading "The Kitchen House."

Now, members of the south Charlotte club have learned via The Wall Street Journal that they've played a part in propelling the 2010 novel to bestseller status.

Kathleen Grissom's debut novel, set on a Southern plantation, features an Irish indentured servant who bonds with slaves in the kitchen house. When it came out in 2010, the book didn't get much notice.

But as the Journal recounts in a recent story, the novel benefited from readers recommending the book to other readers. Independent bookstores saw the demand and began stocking it. It's now a book club favorite.

"It an era when digital buzz is considered crucial to launching books overnight, it was old-fashioned book-club word-of mouth that prevailed," the Journal wrote.

The novel, which is being compared to "The Help," is now in its 21st printing, with 254,000 copies in print and 154,000 e-books sold. Monaghan and her club are mentioned in the Journal's story, which notes that they dressed up last year as "Kitchen House" characters in honor of Halloween and also enjoyed discussing the book by telephone with Grissom.

It's nice to know that word of mouth can still create bestsellers. I also learned about "The Kitchen House" from a member of my own book club. She told me just last week she'd heard it was wonderful.

Monaghan telephoned to tell me about her book club's moment in the limelight. Then, like a true book lover, she urged me to read "The Kitchen House." "It'll make your heart ache," she told me.