Here are 48 books that The Notebook fans have personally recommended once you finish the The Notebook series.
Shepherd is a community of authors and super-readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I grew up in a large family and was often forgotten since I wasn’t the loud and rebellious child, but I was often pushed over because I wouldn’t stand up for myself in fear of anger. My only escape was walking the seven blocks to my local library and reading about heroic deeds, beautiful ladies falling in love with the dashing prince, and wishing I could be brave like the characters in my books. In my late teens, I realized there’s more to a person than physical strength.
Nicholas Sparks is one of those romance writers whose work I mostly like, but I’m not a die-hard fan. However, I love this book. Not every sweet, sappy romance makes me cry, but this one did. I really cared for the main character, Katie. She’s quiet and keeps to herself, but beneath the reserved smile, she’s hiding from an abusive marriage.
It takes courage to run from a bad situation and strength to face your demons finally. I also liked that the romance was believable and took its time. Romances that make me fall in love with the characters are among my favorite kinds of love stories.
In a small North Carolina town, a mysterious and beautiful woman running from her past slowly falls for a kind-hearted store owner . . . until dark secrets begin to threaten her new life.
When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken…
I am a lover of romance. I feel love is one feeling that no one can get rid of; it is one of the elements that can patch up hurt, and it is also an element that can be expressed in many different forms. Having a wide imagination also adds to this passion. I grew up watching Disney movies such as Ariel and FairyTopia. Not only do I draw my inspiration from movies but also from books. I love reading romance books, the image we create in our mind can take us beyond some images created in movies. It takes us to a world we normally don't see in real life.
Jane Austin is a classical writer of romance and a perfect combination of well-written English. The love Mr Darcy had for Elizabeth was explained with passion through the English language.
It addressed issues within that time, and the beauty of a girl, as well as the strength of a man, was portrayed well. Jane Austin has other books, but my favorite was this one.
Jane Austen's best-loved novel is an unforgettable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, the power of reason, and above all the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Hugh Thomson and features an afterword by author and critic, Henry Hitchings.
A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and…
Ever since my younger years, I’ve spent many hours dwelling within the realms of my imagination, daydreaming myself into whirlwind romances from slow-burn to forbidden and everything in between. Why? The best answer I can give right now is my love of love, my innate understanding that the invisible string that pulls two people so fiercely together at the right time and place ultimately are the connections and relationships that propel us into up-leveling ourselves, evolving into our next best versions. So when I read, watch, or write romance, it’s beyond the physical–it’s emotional, mental, and truly spiritual.
Whoever thought Captain Hook would be at the helm of a heartfelt, electric romance? In this Peter Pan retelling, Hook’s identity and personality are depicted through fresh eyes, and it truly gave me a completely different perspective on the dynamic between the Lost Boys and Hook.
The blossoming love story here echoes the truth that no matter time, spells, or circumstances, true love will find a way.
"Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It's my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with that infernal, eternal boy."
Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to…
Ever since my younger years, I’ve spent many hours dwelling within the realms of my imagination, daydreaming myself into whirlwind romances from slow-burn to forbidden and everything in between. Why? The best answer I can give right now is my love of love, my innate understanding that the invisible string that pulls two people so fiercely together at the right time and place ultimately are the connections and relationships that propel us into up-leveling ourselves, evolving into our next best versions. So when I read, watch, or write romance, it’s beyond the physical–it’s emotional, mental, and truly spiritual.
This book whisked me away to Cornwall, England by the end of the first page. I absolutely love being immersed in local culture, from cuisine to colloquialisms, and this book achieves that.
The love stories take twists and turns yet always feel grounded, real, and natural. Plus, I’m all for a female entrepreneur who reclaims her personal power, flourishes in her business, and welcomes love into her world.
Escape with Jenny Colgan in 2021. The paperback of Jenny's latest bestseller, FIVE HUNDRED MILES FROM YOU, and her new feel-good novel, SUNRISE BY THE SEA, are both available for pre-order now.
'A sheer delight from start to finish' Sophie Kinsella
In a quaint seaside resort, a charming bakery holds the key to another world . . . With recipes for you to try yourself at home
'An evocative, sweet treat' Jojo Moyes 'Gorgeous, glorious, uplifting' Marian Keyes 'Irresistible' Jill Mansell 'Just lovely' Katie Fforde 'Naturally funny, warm-hearted' Lisa Jewell 'A gobble-it-all-up-in-one-sitting kind of book' Mike Gayle ___________________________________
When the war ended, we all felt the horrors of war were finally over. My cousins were back from Europe, and all seemed at peace once again. We were wrong. A few years later I was a young journalist editing stories about Soviet-held Berlin and how Russia stopped the West from sending food and even coal to residents in West Berlin. That was just the beginning.
ODESSA was a port-war organization established to re-establish the power of SS mass murderers throughout the world and carry out Hitler’s Final Solution 20 years after his death.
In researching for ODESSA Files, Forsyth talked to several former SS members and used their memories to enhance the atmosphere and feeling of reality throughout the book.
It’s a look at what Hitler and the SS had in mind for the world. Almost every chapter bristles with suspense and excitement when a journalist starts to expose them. It’s cleverly plotted and has you on edge from start to finish.
The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: of a Mafia-like organization called Odessa ...of a real-life fugitive known as the "Butcher of Riga"..of a young German journalist tumed obsessed avenger.......and, ultimately, of brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murderers and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution."
I felt compelled to write this story, not just because the eventful lives of myself and members of my family, but mostly because of its historical content. Until this day the West knows very little of what actually happened in the early 1940s and after 1945 to countries and people who, after the war, finished up behind the Iron Curtain. From Fascism to Communism, they had fallen “Out of the frying pan into the fire.” People in those European countries, who had lived through and experienced those events, are now very thin on the ground.
The book describes various injustices in a coal mining community and gives an excellent description of working-class life of the time in the North of England.
The story portrays the different careers or paths of individuals against the odds: a miner's son who tries to defend his people from political pressure, a miner who turns into a businessman, and the mine owner's son in a clash with his overbearing father. Having had similar experiences in my own life, the story had jogged my memory.
The Stars Look Down was A.J. Cronin's fourth novel, published in 1935, and this tale of a North country mining family was a great favourite with his readers.
Robert Fenwick is a miner, and so are his three sons. His wife is proud that all her four men go down the mines. But David, the youngest, is determined that somehow he will educate himself and work to ameliorate the lives of his comrades who ruin their health to dig the nation's coal. It is, perhaps, a typical tale of the era in which it was written - there were many…
I felt compelled to write this story, not just because the eventful lives of myself and members of my family, but mostly because of its historical content. Until this day the West knows very little of what actually happened in the early 1940s and after 1945 to countries and people who, after the war, finished up behind the Iron Curtain. From Fascism to Communism, they had fallen “Out of the frying pan into the fire.” People in those European countries, who had lived through and experienced those events, are now very thin on the ground.
A superior teller of yarns, his stories are beautifully written and the plots, details, along with conclusions, are fascinating. Reading his stories, e.g. The Hounds of Baskerville, The Firm of Girdlestone, or any of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, I find myself in another time, in another world. At times I needed that badly.
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes contains Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's final twelve stories about his great fictional detective. Featuring crypts at midnight, strange bones in a furnace and a blood-sucking vampire, these tales explore the darker side of human nature and involve betrayal, violence and the terrible consequences of infidelity.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by David Stuart Davies - a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund…
I am a teacher, a college professor, and a lifetime reader. I came from a small town, went to college to study writing, ended up getting graduate degrees in theatre, became a theatre director, and then went back to my first love, writing. Throughout my childhood, I bonded with my siblings, and we often feared our mother, who was a fascinating creature but often rough on us. She expected perfection and wasn’t in tune with her childhood. So even then, stories of children in danger—abandoned or scolded or shamed—have resonated with me.
I’ve read it multiple times and also listened to an audiobook. Of course, there are movies, too. I read it on my own out of pure interest as a young woman and then again repeatedly as an adult.
I get wildly involved in Dickens’ plots. (Most of his novels would fulfill my category of children overcoming odds.) David is bereft, having lost his father. He has a loving but weak mother. He experiences beatings, hunger (Oh, I hate hunger), and loneliness as he is tossed about the world. And yet he never loses his humanity, that is, his native kindness.
Somehow, Dickens finds ways to leverage all the pain with comedy. Amazing. I love his strange characters (Peggoty, Mr. Dick) and thrill to his evil characters (Uriah Heep) because Dickens has the gift to often make them comic.
Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw
'The greatest achievement of the greatest of all novelists' Leo Tolstoy
In David Copperfield - the novel he described as his 'favourite child' - Dickens drew on his own experiences to create one of his most moving and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. It is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of…
Ever since my younger years, I’ve spent many hours dwelling within the realms of my imagination, daydreaming myself into whirlwind romances from slow-burn to forbidden and everything in between. Why? The best answer I can give right now is my love of love, my innate understanding that the invisible string that pulls two people so fiercely together at the right time and place ultimately are the connections and relationships that propel us into up-leveling ourselves, evolving into our next best versions. So when I read, watch, or write romance, it’s beyond the physical–it’s emotional, mental, and truly spiritual.
This book gave me a reminder of faith that neither time nor distance can ever impede upon two individuals destined for each other. Sometimes, what is said–or rather not said at all–doesn’t exactly portray the truth of someone's intentions or feelings.
Even though I know the ending, I’ll pick this book up every year or so and still find myself wondering how Anne and Wentworth will ever reconcile. But alas, Austen knocks it out of the park once more.
'In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she had supposed' Virginia Woolf
Jane Austen's moving late novel of missed opportunities and second chances centres on Anne Elliot, no longer young and with few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she was persuaded by others to break off her engagement to poor, handsome naval captain Frederick Wentworth. What happens when they meet again is movingly told in Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension,…
My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.
Kaya Clark is the wild child I longed to be growing up. Although her family story is tragic and well-explored, how she inhabits her world of nature and allows it to inhabit her is stunning. Once again, she is a young woman who is an outcast who manages to rise above her limitations and those placed on her by society.
Beyond the incredible storytelling and intriguing plot lines, I was mesmerized by the natural world of the North Carolina marshes, being as much a main character as Kaya herself. The intricate details of the lushness and cruelty of the natural world were incredible. In looking back at my favorite novels, one of the commonalities is the writing’s ability to come alive in my head and to take up a permanent space as much as my own lived memories. This novel is one of those.
OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
