Here are 53 books that A Spark of Justice fans have personally recommended if you like
A Spark of Justice.
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I've been an avid reader across many genres since I learned to read as a child and have wandered into all sorts of categories to find literature I love. Fantasy became my first love, but that didn't mean I had to abandon everything else. I like finding great books that don't make the big publisher lists with their generic output. Since the rise of indie publishing, I've developed a habit of sampling anything that sounds like it might be interesting and have found some amazing and very original stories!
As much as Fantasy readers bemoan getting lumped in with Science Fiction in general, sometimes there is a crossover that justifies the relatively recent category of Science Fantasy.
Time Shifters, and its wonderful sequels, fall into Science Fiction by virtue of the element of time travel. However, this is an exciting series with Mystery, Thriller, and certainly Fantasy elements. It's fast moving, exciting, has a touch of Romance. It appeals to YA readers as much as those who prefer mature books. The sub-plots are numerous and the society of the Time Shifter people is unique and pretty amazing. It's well worth a read!
A Spellbinding Epic Time Travel Series An ancient people who can move through time or space... but not both at the same time. Akalya of the Harekaiian, a nomadic spirit who lives invisibly among the ordinary people of Los Angeles, must discover who is behind the hunt for her people, when no one should have known they existed. Through an apparent accident of fate, she becomes the only one of her people who can save them from the enemy who hunts them and she must risk everything, even her life, to protect the others of her kind. A time travel…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I read broadly across many genres and know what it's like to get stuck in a rut and need to find something different to keep my interest. The books I've suggested all have a broad appeal and any one of them could break the dreaded slump. Even those that fall into a genre you don't normally read are likely to draw you into their own special magic.
We've all heard of the Arabian Nights, whether we've read the book or not. This one takes you into the exotic and magical world of a mock-Arabic land where Djinnis and other magical beings are accepted as real. Amani is a character you just have to love! She is thrown into an adventure that takes her far from her remote desert home and relies on her wits and special skills with forbidden weapons to stay one step ahead of capture by the sultan's men or worse, the magical forces that seem to surround her!
The first in the highly acclaimed trilogy packed with shooting contests, train robberies, festivals under the stars, powerful Djinni magic and an electrifying love story. WINNER of the 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Debut Author.
"Tell me that and we'll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that's how you want your story to go and we'll write it straight across the sand."
Dustwalk is Amani's home. The desert sand is in her bones. But she wants to escape. More than a want. A need.
I've been an avid reader across many genres since I learned to read as a child and have wandered into all sorts of categories to find literature I love. Fantasy became my first love, but that didn't mean I had to abandon everything else. I like finding great books that don't make the big publisher lists with their generic output. Since the rise of indie publishing, I've developed a habit of sampling anything that sounds like it might be interesting and have found some amazing and very original stories!
Most Fantasy readers enjoy an occasional change and Historical Fiction is a popular companion genre, especially when it's set in England. Whether you love Classics or your experience of Dickens is limited to seeing the musical, Oliver!, the Artful Dodger is a fascinating character and this book follows him into adult life when he returns to Turn of the Century Victorian England. It's an easy read which is historically accurate but doesn't get bogged down in teaching history. A fast-moving adventure with humour and dastardly villains with a flavour that only this era can produce.
Overall it's a fun story with much of that 'different world' quality that Fantasy readers so love.
Jack Dawkins, once known as the Artful Dodger in the streets of London, was sent to Australia on a prison ship when he was little more than a boy. Now he has returned to find that London has changed while the boy has turned into a man.
With few prospects provided by his criminal past and having developed mannerisms that allow him to move amongst a higher strata of society, Jack turns his back on the streets that would have primed him as a successor to the murderer, Bill Sikes, and quickly remodels…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I've been an avid reader across many genres since I learned to read as a child and have wandered into all sorts of categories to find literature I love. Fantasy became my first love, but that didn't mean I had to abandon everything else. I like finding great books that don't make the big publisher lists with their generic output. Since the rise of indie publishing, I've developed a habit of sampling anything that sounds like it might be interesting and have found some amazing and very original stories!
Fantasy readers often enjoy a good quest. While this would be classed as a feel-good book that takes place in the real world, there are fantastical elements in the adventures of the protagonist, an elderly lady who decides care home life is too dull for her.
A rocky start followed by an interesting series of decisions and taking chances makes for an uplifting adventure story as fulfilling as a typical Fantasy quest.
'Brilliantly funny, emotional and uplifting' Miranda Dickinson
Heartwarming, hilarious and fun - the perfect read for anyone who loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, A Man Called Ove, Ruth Jones and JoJo Moyes.
Evie Gallagher is regretting her hasty move into a care home. She may be seventy-five and recently widowed, but she's absolutely not dead yet. And so, one morning, Evie walks out of Sheldon Lodge and sets off on a Great Adventure across Europe.
But not everyone thinks Great Adventures are appropriate for women of Evie's age, least of all her son Brendan and his wife Maura, who…
I, Dan Meyer, have been swallowing swords for 25 years and researching the art even longer. I’m the president of the Sword Swallowers Association International and winner of the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine for medical research on sword swallowing. As a performer, I’m known for holding 40 world records and performing on over 100 TV shows, including 15 Got Talents, and live in 60 countries around the world. And I, Marc Hartzman, am the author of American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History’s Strangest and Most Wondrous Performers (Tarcher/Penguin). I’ve also written nearly a hundred sideshow-related articles for AOL Weird News, HuffPost, Mental Floss, and Bizarre magazine.
Published in 2002, I love this book for its personal interviews with performers and showmen from the latter half of the 20th century. It’s a chance to not just read about sideshow history, but to hear it straight from the mouths of such people like Jeanie Tomaini the Half Girl, Melvin Burkhart the Anatomical Wonder, and impresarios Ward Hall and Bobby Reynolds.
Plus, it’s filled with plenty of extraordinary photos.
Looks at carnivals and circus midways, focusing on a variety of sideshow performers, including Melvin Burkhart, the Human Blockhead; Percilla the Monkey Girl and her husband Emmitt the Alligator Man; and Mortado, the Human Fountain.
I was always in love with love. I had my life all planned out, I was going to marry my high school sweetheart and have a family and live happily ever after. Newsflash, that didn’t happen and I’m glad it didn’t! As I’ve gotten older I still find myself in love with love, but now there are other things included with it such as quiet rebellion and a determination to simply be me. I find that I enjoy the suspense aspect because I know life isn’t perfect. We don’t all have stalkers or physically abusive exes, but books are a safe place to experience the emotions of these situations.
Water for Elephants was a book I went into not knowing what to expect! It was another recommendation from my mom and she was so right!
I love watching people fall in love, especially when I’ve had my own trials and tribulations in relationships! Jacob and Marlena are such a testament to true love triumphing over everything, and that is my number one reason for suggesting this book!
It also gives an incredible depiction of the Great Depression. Because of this book, I came away with a better understanding of my grandparents’ childhood struggles.
THE INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A FILM STARRING REESE WITHERSPOON AND ROBERT PATTINSON
'Great story, loads of fun; hard to put down.' STEPHEN KING
The Great Depression, 1929. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and utterly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits in the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth: a second-rate travelling circus struggling to survive by making one-night stands in town after endless town. Jacob, a veterinary student now unable to finish his degree, is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. He…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.
This story is full of quirky illustrations, colourful characters, and funny footnotes. Often conversational, Sutcliffe frequently addresses the reader as he relays the shenanigans leading up to circus legend and aerialist supreme, Quennie Bombazine’s cunning plan to catch her nemesis, Armitage Shanks, while at the same time reuniting Hannah and Billy with their circus father.
I would say that for reluctant readers who enjoy visual prompts and more of a comic-style format, this would be perfect.
'Utterly madcap adventure of sabotage and adventure... wonderfully supported by equally crazy illustrations... nothing short of hilarious' The Guardian
'Funny, Bizarre and brilliantly illustrated by David Tazzyman, this is perfect for anyone who loves Mr Gum' Sunday Express on Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom
Get ready for rampages, chunky tandem rides, marching dogs, escaped convicts, synchronised otters and so much more! Shank's Impossible Circus is back...
There are 7,362 things that Armitage Shank hates and at the top of the list (which includes puppies, rainbows, lifts and flashing trainers...) is being made a fool of. So, when…
I grew up in featureless suburbia, where the streets of identical bungalows seemed scrubbed of anything miraculous. Maybe that’s why I came to be fascinated, as a kid, with the idea of tiny things. Here was magic that might exist in my backyard: miniature people trooping through lawns as if they were forests, riding ladybugs, and carrying bramblethorn spears! These daydreams formed some of the first stories I wrote, as a child. And they’ve continued to fascinate me as a reader, and a writer, ever since. I’ve tried to pick stories that might have slipped out of sight amongst ‘bigger’ brethren like The Burrowersand Gulliver’s Travels. I hope you enjoy them!
I just don’t know why this book isn’t talked about more. It’s so brooding and brilliant and horrifying. Heavily influenced by Philip Pullman’s masterful Clockwork (there’s sinister automata, and creepy clockmakers, and a snow-bound Germanic feel), it contains one of the most awful and terrifying antagonists in all of children’s literature. Nasty and enchanting — the very darkest and grimmest of tales.
What good is a toy that will wind down? What if you could give a toy a heart? A real heart. One that beat and beat and didn't stop. What couldn't you do if you could make a toy like that?
From the moment that the circus boy, Mathias, takes a small roll of paper from the dying conjuror, his fate is sealed. For on it is the key to a terrifying secret, and there are those who would kill him rather than have it told.
Pursued by the sinister Dr. Leiter with his exquisite doll and malevolent dwarf, preyed…
I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Mr. Galliano’s Circus as a child and was fascinated more by the idea of circus life than the actual performance aspect. I still adore watching high-quality circus feats performed by acrobats and love that frisson of excitement as everyone shuffles into their seats just before showtime. When I began writing children’s books, my aim was to give the child characters room to develop resilience and courage while encountering danger and adventure without the presence of adults. In order to do this, I had to somehow remove parental figures. Running away is the perfect literary device to achieve this which is how Glass Dreams came about.
I read that Noel Streatfeild actually spent time with a travelling circus to achieve authenticity in this story. Well, you can almost smell the greasepaint and sawdust.
Rather than being sent to separate orphanages, sheltered siblings Santa and Peter run away to Cob’s Circus where their Uncle Gus performs on the trapeze. Peter learns to ride and to understand animals, and Santa learns to tumble, but they need to persuade their uncle to like them and decide to keep them. Though old-fashioned, this tale is vivid with colour and spectacle, and the atmosphere so well-captured.
When their snobbish Aunt Rebecca dies, leaving them alone and penniless, Peter and Santa are faced with the dreadful prospect of life in separate orphanages. Desperate, they run away to find their only living relative - Uncle Gus - who works in a circus.
But Gus doesn't suffer fools gladly. To fit into his world, Peter and Santa must work harder than they've ever done in their lives.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve always been drawn to the dark, mysterious, and weird. Originally influenced by science fiction and fantasy, then later by mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and horror, I loved the mental visuals and excitement of being in extreme, reality-bending situations. Combine these aspects, and that’s why I told my own story with these same themes:In Tents is my homage to small-town culture… twisted into a darker reality.
The earliest publication date of this collection goes all the way back to 1935. A strange circus comes to town, with the performers consisting of creatures who talk less about circusy things than they do about philosophy and some strangely specific moralizing. Those thought-provoking aspects are what stick in my mind now. What first drew me to the story was the mystery of the circus itself, and the wonderfully creative creatures inside of it.
Abalone, Arizona, is a sleepy southwestern town whose chief concerns are boredom and surviving the Great Depression-that is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents.
Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real-a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, witches, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, an ancient god, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao himself. The circus unfolds, spinning magical, dark strands that ensnare the town's populace: the sea…
