Love Key West? Love a good book? Pull up a chair.
The Fun in Key West Book Club is where island stories, Florida authors, mysteries, romance, history, adventure, and the occasional cocktail all meet.
Each month, we choose a book with a Key West or Florida connection and then have a little fun with it.
No homework. No pressure. Just good books and plenty to talk about.
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Want to know what we’re reading next?
Join the free Fun in Key West Book Club and I’ll send you our latest book pick, Happy Hour Book Chat invitations, author interviews, bookish extras, and plenty of Key West fun along the way.
You can also join the conversation in our Facebook group.
Want More? Become a Fun in Key West Insider 🌴📚
If you love the Book Club and want to go a little deeper, this is where the extra fun lives.
For just $5 a month, Fun in Key West Insiders get my monthly digital magazine inspired by our featured book and the places, people, food, drinks, and stories surrounding it.
Inside, you’ll find things like:
- A deeper dive into the month’s book
- Key West and Florida Keys history
- Hidden places and local finds
- Food and cocktail pairings
- Author extras and interviews
- Things happening around the Keys
- Insider tips and other surprises
And when you join, you don’t just get the newest issue.
You get access to all of the past Insider magazines too.
Think of it as a little Key West escape delivered every month.
This Month’s Book
A quick heads-up before you shop: Some of the book links on this page are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate, I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no extra cost to you. It helps support Fun in Key West and keeps the books, cocktails, and Key West stories coming. 📚🌴🍹
Fatal Treasure by Jedwin Smith
Gold. Emeralds. Shipwrecks. Obsession.
And one of the most famous treasure hunts in Florida Keys history.
Fatal Treasure takes us beneath the waters off the Keys and into Mel Fisher’s decades-long search for the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha.
The Atocha sank in 1622 carrying an extraordinary cargo of gold, silver, emeralds, and other treasure. More than three centuries later, Fisher became convinced he could find her.
And he refused to give up.
Jedwin Smith follows Fisher, his family, and the divers who spent years searching the Florida Straits through discoveries, financial struggles, danger, heartbreak, and devastating loss.
That makes Fatal Treasure much more than a story about finding gold. It’s about determination, family, risk, obsession, and just how much one dream can demand from the people chasing it.
🍹 Paired With: The Mother Lode
Dark rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, fresh lime, and a golden rum float.
Bold, tropical, and appropriately treasure-worthy.
No sixteen-year search required.
Past Book Club Picks
Missed a month?
No worries. One of the best things about this book club is that the books don’t expire.
Pick one that sounds good, pour yourself something fun, and jump in.
Run Away to the Keys by Miki Bennett
Run Away to the Keys takes us into the Florida Keys with marine research, scuba charters, family expectations, romantic tension, and one very independent boat captain.
Skylar Cartwright comes from a wealthy Miami family, but she’s determined to build a life on her own terms. She runs scuba and snorkeling trips aboard her own boat, which is exactly how marine biologist Garrett Holmes ends up in her world.
His first impression of Skylar isn’t particularly flattering.
Fortunately, first impressions can be very wrong.
As Garrett begins to see the smart, capable woman behind his assumptions, their working relationship becomes something more. But jealous coworkers, family expectations, and a few emotional storms make paradise a little more complicated.
At its heart, Run Away to the Keys is about independence, trust, choosing your own path, and figuring out whether love can survive when the waters get choppy.
🍹 Paired With: The Run Away Rum Runner
Dark rum, light rum, banana liqueur, blackberry liqueur, orange juice, pineapple juice, and a splash of grenadine.
Tropical, bold, and just dramatic enough for a Florida Keys romance.
Come Monday by Chip Bell
Jake Sullivan once had a successful career as a federal prosecutor. Then one case, one mistake, and a downward spiral changed everything.
He heads to Key West hoping for a fresh start, only to stumble into a secret that connects his past with the very people he thought he’d left behind.
Legal thriller, redemption story, and Key West escape all rolled into one.
🍹 Paired With: The Come Monday Cooler
Iced tea, lemonade, lime, and a splash of rum if you’re feeling it.
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The Love Haters by Katherine Center
Katie Vaughn heads to Key West to film a profile of Coast Guard rescue swimmer Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson.
There’s just one little problem.
Katie can’t swim.
What follows is funny, romantic, vulnerable, and full of the kind of personal reinvention that feels right at home in Key West.
🍹 Paired With: The Love Hater’s Lifesaver
Coconut rum, pineapple, lime, and cranberry.
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Green Flash at Sunset by Nic Schuck
Four people arrive at very different crossroads: an artist searching for freedom, a charter captain struggling to stay afloat, a songwriter chasing a dream, and an aging escape artist preparing for one last performance.
Their lives begin to overlap in Key West, creating a story about second chances, reinvention, and escaping the past.
🍹 Paired With: The Sunset Escape
Rum, pineapple, lime, and a splash of grenadine.
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How Key West Killed JFK by David Sloan
This one takes us away from beach reads and straight into Cold War Key West.
David Sloan explores connections between Key West, Cuban exile activity, intelligence operations, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
History, investigation, conspiracy, and plenty of moments that make you stop and say, “Wait…what?”
🍹 Paired With: The Conspiracy Cooler
Vodka, lime, coconut water, and a splash of blue curaçao.
Mile Marker Zero by William McKeen
Welcome to Key West in its wild literary heyday.
Jimmy Buffett, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom McGuane, writers, artists, musicians, big personalities, bigger stories, and an island where reinvention seemed to be part of the dress code.
It’s literary history with enough Key West color to make you wish you could pull up a barstool and listen in.
🍹 Paired With: Last Call at Mile Marker Zero
Rum, fresh lime, pineapple, and bitters.
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Pit Bulls in Paradise: A Dog Fighter’s Funeral by Tony Soika
Army veteran John Tuttle comes to Key West looking for peace, but instead discovers a brutal dog-fighting operation connected to organized crime.
What follows is a fast-moving story about justice, loyalty, trauma, and what happens when doing the right thing becomes impossible to walk away from.
🥃 Paired With: The Watchful Guardian
Bourbon, citrus, smoked syrup, and orange peel.
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How Will I Know by Marc Renson
Romance, intuition, chance encounters, psychics, signs, and that universal question:
How do you know when something is meant to be?
How Will I Know plays with the space between coincidence and destiny while asking whether life might occasionally be giving us a little nudge.
🍹 Paired With: The Cosmic Connection Cooler
Vodka, elderflower, fresh lemon, soda water, and orange.
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Son of a Son of a Pirate by Chris Harvey
Pirates, conquistadors, lost treasure, Jimmy Buffett, and Key West?
We’re in.
John “Teach” Taylor is a Key West tour guide who finds himself chasing the legendary fortune of his ancestor, Blackbeard, in an adventure that bounces between modern Key West and centuries of pirate history.
🍹 Paired With: The Parrot Head Treasure Punch
Dark rum, pineapple, lime, orange liqueur, and grenadine.
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Want Even More Books?
We’ve been reading together for a while, so there are plenty more books waiting for you.
BROWSE ALL 2025 BOOK CLUB PICKS
And don’t miss the conversations with the people who actually wrote them.
Visiting Key West? Stop by Island Books 📚
Want to shop for your next book while you’re actually in Key West?
Stop by Island Books and look for the Fun in Key West Book Club section. You’ll find many of our picks right there on the shelf.
There’s something particularly fun about buying a Key West book while you’re wandering around Key West.
Come Read With Us
You don’t have to finish every book.
You don’t have to make every Happy Hour.
There are no quizzes, no guilt, and absolutely no Book Club Police.
Read when you can. Join the conversation when you want. Discover a new author. Learn something unexpected about Key West.
Maybe make the cocktail.
That’s the Fun in Key West Book Club.
Want the extra Key West goodness?
Get the monthly digital magazine, deeper dives, hidden gems, history, food, drinks, author extras, and access to every past issue.
BECOME A FUN IN KEY WEST INSIDER • $5/MONTH
See you between the pages. 🌴📚