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The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle

Contemporary fiction

The Dinner List

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This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.

by Rebecca Serle

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Quick take

If you could invite any five people—dead or alive—to dinner, who would you choose?

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    Happy

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    Light read

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    Supernatural

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    Quirky

Synopsis

At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends with in her utterly captivating novel, The Dinner List, a story imbued with the same delightful magical realism as One Day and the life-changing romance of Me Before You.

When Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner, she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past and, well, Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured, and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Rebecca Serle's The Dinner List.

The Dinner List

7:30 P.M.

"We've been waiting for an hour." That's what Audrey says. She states it with a little bit of an edge, her words just bordering on cursive. That's the thing I think first. Not Audrey Hepburn is at my birthday dinner but Audrey Hepburn is annoyed.

Her hair is longer than the image I've always held of her in my mind. She's wearing what looks to be a pantsuit, but her legs are hidden under the table, so it's hard to tell. Her top is black, with a crème-colored collar, three round buttons down the front. A cardigan is looped over the back of her chair.

I step back. I take them all in. All of them. They're seated at a round table, right in the center of the restaurant. Audrey is facing the door, Professor Conrad to her right and Robert to her left. Tobias sits on the other side of Robert, to his left is Jessica, and in between her and Tobias is my empty chair.

"We started without you, Sabrina," Conrad says, holding up his wineglass. He's drinking a deep red; so is Jessica. Audrey has a scotch, neat; Tobias has a beer; Robert has nothing.

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Why I love it

As someone who has watched Sabrina and Breakfast at Tiffany’s more times than I can count, I was immediately sucked into The Dinner List, which is about a normal woman who shows up to dinner only to find Audrey Hepburn, snifter of scotch in hand, sitting at the table. The premise of the book is brilliant: If you could have dinner with any five people, living or dead, who would you choose? What would you uncover in that one night?

The story takes place all in one night, at a birthday party for Sabrina (note the namesake here) that four notable people from her past—along with Audrey—attend. It also takes place across an entire decade-long relationship between Sabrina and the great love of her life, Tobias. In one chapter, we’re placed in this mystical dinner setting, and in the next, we’re being fed pieces of their relationship that leave you questioning—what happened between them? We learn not just about Sabrina’s relationship with Tobias, but also about her more strained connections with her father, Robert, as well as with her best friend, Jessica. There’s also a wise and eccentric professor from her college days, oh, and did I mention Audrey Hepburn?

The Dinner List made me swoon, dream, and wonder. While wrapped up in the book, I almost felt as if this too could happen to me. That one night I might wind up at dinner with people who I’ve loved and lost, and finally get a chance to say what I always wished I had said before.

Member ratings (6,325)

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Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
What Does It Feel Like?
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
Honey
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Bye, Baby
Definitely Better Now
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Jackpot Summer
Adelaide
I Might Be in Trouble
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Again and Again
Evil Eye
Black Cake
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Someone Else’s Shoes
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
The Bad Muslim Discount
What Comes After
Olga Dies Dreaming
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Monster in the Middle
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
Honey Girl
In Every Mirror She's Black
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Sankofa
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Love of My Life
The Five-Star Weekend
A Home for the Holidays
The Wishing Game
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Little Fires Everywhere
The Music Shop
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
The Reckless Oath We Made
When We Were Vikings
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
All Adults Here
Happy & You Know It
Friends and Strangers
The Comeback
True Story
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Chicken Sisters
The Prophets
In a Book Club Far Away
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Most Likely Club
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket