When Angie Gleason’s book club at work fizzled out, she posted in her neighborhood Facebook group in search of a new one. Little did she know that she had just become the Woodland Ridge Book Club’s founder.

For the group’s second book, the crew of five ladies dove into the pages of M.O. Walsh’s 2015 The New York Times Best Seller, My Sunshine Away, which is inspired by the author’s childhood in the idyllic Baton Rouge neighborhood the book club members all now call home. And as fate would have it, hostess Christine Hosea lives in the home next door to where the author grew up. “We’ll go outside, and I’ll show you artsy Julie’s studio,” she said, thumbing through Kodak prints she gathered from around the summer of 1989. It was the same period in which the book’s main plot point—a violent sexual assault that rocks the neighborhood and surrounding area—takes place.

The novel teeters between truth and fiction, offering longtime residents and Baton Rouge natives enough imagery to know he grew up in Woodland Ridge and attended Episcopal despite being renamed as Woodland Hills and The Perkins School. Still, many details diverge from actual events—but it seems only in the way childhood memories often become scrambled and convoluted over time. This heady mix mystifies and enthralls, as great storytelling does.

“He uses many of the same or similar names, but he changed big details,” Hosea explained during the book club meeting. “There are little details that are true. Like when Episcopal burned down, we remember seeing the flames.”

Hosea revealed the name of the man arrested and residing in Angola State Penitentiary for the crime, to gasps and slackened expressions. The Woodland Ridge Book Club—an unofficial name given for clarity—will host its third meeting next month.

Hostesses take turns, either hosting in their homes or at one of the many restaurants just beyond the neighborhood entrances. With the excitement of hosting comes the power of choosing that month’s read—a tradition that keeps the stories as varied as the women who gather to discuss them. Whatever the next book may be, it will have a hard time matching the somewhat true neighborhood mystery that left them awestruck.

Baton Rouge is a city of social clubs—and that has long been the case. We want to highlight your group in our newest series, “In the Club.” Whether you’re looking for new members to join or are an exclusive group of friends who have met regularly for decades, we want to hear from you. Email editor@ inregister.com and tell us about your club.