9 books like Bella Vista Chronicles

This book is powerful to me because of the intense mother/daughter conflict she relates. My mother was lovely, well-read, and held an important position at our state university. However, she was also extremely critical of her children. Because I never rebelled against my mother, I was entranced with Joanne Harris’ young character, Framboise, who plans and carries out a rebellion against her mother that is worthy of the French resistance. Many years later, when Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation.

The past and present are inextricably entwined in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise inherited from her now-deceased mother. The journal contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year. The mother… show more.

This is a 750+ page book and a tour de force. I have profound sympathy for the Jewish people, and the horrors they endured under Nazi rule. None of the things I have suffered in my life, including living with a violent alcoholic father, came even close to the fears and degradation experienced by the people in this book. My own survival techniques included hiding and avoidance of anything that would trigger my father’s anger. As the eldest, I also tried to shield my younger siblings. Thus, I was as unobtrusive as possible, a survival technique minorities have used for centuries.

This story begins in 1937 with a young Hungarian Jewish man who goes to Paris to study architecture. Asked to deliver a letter to a woman’s nephew, he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient and eventually, despite her own dark secrets, they fall in love. As… show more.

William Brodrick is a British solicitor who became a lawyer after leaving a monastery where he was a monk. Like Brodrick, I have re-invented myself as an author after 40 years of working as a medical educator. Knowing what it took for me to succeed in a new career, I admire what it cost the author to achieve such a radical shift. Monk-turned-lawyer-turned-Novelist Brodrick has written a stunning story about a guard at a WWII death camp who is being brought to trial fifty years after the war. The story is told by Anselm, a lawyer who left the Old Baily in London where he worked as a solicitor, to become a monk at Larkwood Priory (the reverse of the author’s life).

Another reason this story speaks to me so profoundly has to do with my background. I am the eldest child in an abusive family that enforced silence about… show more.

This is one of my favorite books ever. I’ve read it many times, and it’s 500 pages long. The voice of the first-person narrator is so delightful I get hooked on the first page. Set in South Africa, Peekay is the ultimate underdog.

Emotionally deserted by his mom at boarding school, he doesn’t even know his own name and calls himself P.K. He’s a white English kid bullied by the dominant Dutch-descendant Boers as Apartheid (Governmental violent, oppressive racism) becomes law.

Peekay grows to become a champion boxer and champions the oppressed. I became obsessed with South Africa and could not look away from this story. It’s a wonderful example of a novel about an athlete, and even when I don’t like the sport, I adore the character and story.

While this nonfiction book is strictly speaking not a romance, there is so much love flowing in this story that it shines a light like any romance novel I’ve read.

The author shares her struggles with starting a family. She lays out onto the page the pain and suffering of trying to have a baby, as well as the hope and joy along the way. It’s a very touching, personal account. Things work out differently than expected when she delivers her son, Rory, and learns he has a disability.

Her life turns out differently than expected and she must adjust, but through it all she discovers the joy that is always available to those who choose to embrace it.

Sophie Bellamy has lived an exciting life as an international lawyer working to protect human rights. But it came at the cost of having little time to be with her children as they grew up.

Her childhood memories of times spent at Willow Lake in Avalon bring her back to the small town where she hopes to make up for the time she spent abroad. Sophie was determined to repair her relationships with her children, but a twist in the story brings a happy surprise when she meets veterinarian Noah Shephard.

Their immediate attraction is at first unwanted, but prompts her life to take another turn. I like to piece together stories so I loved the unexpected twists.

The romance in this is story is lovely, and is mixed with intrigue and hope in the darkest hours. I like stories I can snuggle up with, and this story gave that… show more.

If you like small town settings with big old houses and hints of a ghost, intrigue, and simmering romance, you’ll love Storms of the Heart.

The story’s female main character, Emerson Lane, finds herself right in the middle of a raging thunderstorm at night on her way to her Uncle Wayne’s house in Twin Creeks, where she lived when her parents died in a car crash. She’s on a mission to reconnect with her uncle after leaving abruptly years ago to live in New York City. Trouble is waiting for her in the name of Sheriff Max Lomax, who she left behind.

Max has his own problems, but he is secretly but begrudgingly thrilled to see her, but questions whether this time she’ll stay. I liked the interesting characters in this story and the pleasant descriptions of Emerson’s hometown. The writing was so nice it felt like I could just… show more.

Ordinarily, a werewolf novel with a strong emphasis on the romance angle wouldn’t rate so highly with me, but Kelley Armstrong’s book was the right one at the right time. Elana, our heroine, is the world’s only female werewolf; her job has been killing rogue shapeshifters. She gets tired of that and tries to retire and live as a normal human, but that doesn’t work out.

What I liked about this was that it was my first exposure to a werewolf novel that really dealt with the political and social dynamics of a worldwide werewolf pack. Fortunately, Armstrong is a great storyteller, so there is more here than politics or romance. Her worldbuilding is fantastic, as evidenced by the fact this became the first in a long series of Otherworld novels.

I know it’s a bit cliché, but I can never stop myself from talking about my favorite novel of all time—Jane Eyre.

Not only does Jane’s voice sweep me off my feet every time I reopen the novel, but the novel itself always gets me thinking. It’s one of those rare books that somehow contains every genre, and does it well.

I get sucked into the mystery of the noises in Rochester’s house. My heart breaks when Jane’s only friend, Helen, dies. But most of all, I feel the romance, the chemistry between Mr. Rochester and Jane. All of it keeps me coming back for more.