Here are 100 books that Bee Season fans have personally recommended if you like
Bee Season.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Reseda, California plays an important part in my novels. I grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family, and we experienced the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. My parents got divorced, and my brother and I were raised by our working mom until she became paralyzed by a stroke. I found refuge in writing. I wrote The Remainders in 2016 during a tumultuous time when issues of family conflict, homelessness, and the growing cruelty of society came into focus. Still, I believe decency and compassion will prevail. The books I write and enjoy reading seek to find light in the darkest of circumstances.
I read this powerful graphic novel series when the first collections came out in the 1980s.
It shows the horrors of the Holocaust and the impact it has on the families of the survivors. Maus is best known for depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, but Art’s troubled relationship with his father Vladik and the death of his mother Anja by suicide frame the story.
Maus is my favorite graphic novel series and a must-read for understanding the Holocaust and how it shaped Jewish life since.
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker) • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • One of Variety’s “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read”
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his…
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…
Reseda, California plays an important part in my novels. I grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family, and we experienced the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. My parents got divorced, and my brother and I were raised by our working mom until she became paralyzed by a stroke. I found refuge in writing. I wrote The Remainders in 2016 during a tumultuous time when issues of family conflict, homelessness, and the growing cruelty of society came into focus. Still, I believe decency and compassion will prevail. The books I write and enjoy reading seek to find light in the darkest of circumstances.
A girl’s discomfort with puberty is only part of the story. The other part is 11-year-old Margaret growing up in an interfaith family with a Jewish father and Christian mother.
Margaret struggles to find a religious identity. She must contend with her father’s mother who hopes she embraces Judaism and her conservative Christian maternal grandparents who reject their daughter’s interfaith marriage. This powerful coming-of-age story has gotten recent attention from a recent film and challenges from book bans. For me, it’s another example of Judy Blume’s insight, humor, and humanity.
Meet Margaret. She's going through all the same things most teenage girls have to face; fitting in, friendship and first bras.
Life isn't easy for Margaret. She's moved away from her childhood home, she's starting a new school, finding new friends - and she's convinced she's not normal. For a start she hasn't got a clue whether she wants to be Jewish like her father or Christian like her mother. Everyone else seems really sure of who they are. And, worst of all, she's a 'late developer'. She just knows that all her friends…
As a longtime reader and writer of artsy erotic fiction, I love it when erotic stories mix sexiness with humor. But not too much – that would probably kill the mood. Besides, isn’t sex already a cringeworthy topic as it is? Stories in my book are thoughtful and evocative, but each one is followed by a philosophical dialogue between a man and a woman about what they have just read. (I call these dialogues “Erotic Interludes.”) To my surprise and delight, almost all these interludes have turned out to be funny (and entertaining to write). Here is my list of sexy stories which always make me laugh.
This notorious 1969 Roth novel is a monologue of a self-loathing and sexually repressed Jewish man to his psychologist.
He recounts in excruciating detail his efforts to escape his parents’ interference in his life and his lifelong obsession with bedding a "shiksa" (non-Jewish woman). Portnoy’s rants are brilliant, vulgar, and entertaining – though the cultural references are dated and female readers might become incensed at the demeaning descriptions of “Monkey” (the shiksa he finally beds).
In a story I wrote, a man facetiously asks his female friend whether Carrie Bradshaw’s neuroticism and sexual dalliances would make her the “female Portnoy.” Both are insightful, emotionally needy, and charming characters. Behind this novel’s sexual humor is a complex portrait of a man trapped by his own obsessions.
'The most outrageously funny book about sex written' Guardian
Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)]:A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.
Portnoy's Complaint tells the tale of young Jewish lawyer Alexander Portnoy and his scandalous sexual confessions to his psychiatrist.
As narrated by Portnoy, he takes the reader on a journey through his childhood to adolescence to present day while articulating his sexual desire, frustration and neurosis in shockingly candid ways.
Hysterically funny and daringly intimate, Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
Reseda, California plays an important part in my novels. I grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family, and we experienced the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. My parents got divorced, and my brother and I were raised by our working mom until she became paralyzed by a stroke. I found refuge in writing. I wrote The Remainders in 2016 during a tumultuous time when issues of family conflict, homelessness, and the growing cruelty of society came into focus. Still, I believe decency and compassion will prevail. The books I write and enjoy reading seek to find light in the darkest of circumstances.
If you want to understand the struggle Jews like me face in modern America, read this classic novel.
Two Jewish boys—one secular and the other expected to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Chasidic rabbi—grow up in 1940s Brooklyn against the backdrop of World War II and the founding of Israel. It shows the conflict we face between family expectations and assimilating in a country where we don’t feel fully welcome.
A coming-of-age classic about two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, this “profound and universal” (The Wall Street Journal) story of faith, family, tradition, and assimilation remains deeply pertinent today.
“Works of this caliber should be occasion for singing in the streets and shouting from the rooftops.” —Chicago Tribune
It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident at a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe,…
I am Casey Kelleher, a crime writer and author of 17 novels. I have always been a complete and utter bookworm, but my true passion is crime and psych thrillers. Most of my stories concentrate on the victim–or, as I prefer to call them, the survivor. That’s who I champion in my stories, highlighting the strength of that person who has overcome whatever harsh reality that’s been forced upon them. But I also like to get inside the perpetrator’s head. I want to know the ‘whys’ of what they do. Psychology is very complex, but I do believe that there can be good and bad/darkness and light in all of us.
This book was just something else completely for me. I went in blind, knowing nothing about the story or subject matter–which is dark and complex. The writing style is just perfection, and I can honestly say I’ve never been so obsessed with a book in my entire life. I don’t read books for a second time (because, let's face it, who has time for that when our reading lists are already never-ending), But I would happily devour this one all over again. In fact, I get jealous when I hear people start it for the very first time.
It's dark and complex, and it will split the audience in two, with no room for an in-between. You will either ADORE this book or LOATHE it. For me, it was perfection.
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing…
When I was a child, there was a wooded lot across from my house. All the neighborhood kids gathered there daily after school, running amongst the tall conifers, making forts, and climbing the smaller trees. I begged to be able to play there, but was never allowed. So sometimes, I’d sneak across the street and stand at the edge of the trees and desperately wonder what was within the gloriously dark shadows. There’s just something magical about kids spending time in secret places, away from the cares of the adult world. I'm a Pacific Northwest author, graphic designer, and coffee addict who lives for mysteries of any kind. I'm the author of two YA mystery fiction trilogies, two children's books, and one nonfiction history.
The eerie Claymore mansion is the secret spot of mystery in this very suspenseful—yet still lighthearted and fun—novel by Darren Sapp. Thirteen-year-old Kevin and his group of friends become entwined in a summer mystery surrounding a decades-old crime. I loved this book so much because it was a perfect balance of mystery, friendship, and classic summer teenage antics before the advent of cellphones and computers.
Devil’s Backbone dirt road weaves through tall East Texas trees. The eerie Claymore mansion sits silently along the path. Thirteen-year-old Kevin Bishop and friends plan to spend their summer swimming, playing baseball, and erecting a massive fort in the nearby woods. Their daily journey requires a bike ride down that road and by that mansion—the site of a gruesome unsolved murder near the turn-of-the-century. They stumble upon evidence to solve the mystery as unforeseen adversaries make this a summer they’ll never forget.
This coming-of-age tale will take readers down memory lane…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
After finding out a close friend of mine had what was once called Multiple Personality Disorder, I set out looking for stories, only to find that, according to most fictional representations, my friend was likely to be a violent, amnesiac murderer. Fortunately, this is wildly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it's socially prominent, and enormously destructive. This has sparked a decade-long obsession (and close friendship), the result of which is my debut novel, When Fire Splits the Sky, which was released in November of 2022 by Unsolicited Press. My other writing has been nominated for the Rhysling and Best of the Net, and has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and F(r)iction, among others.
Paul Lynch was recently announced as the (very deserving) winner of the Booker Prize, but I’ve been a fan of his ever since his spectacular novel about the Ireland’s Great Famine, Grace.
How do you capture trauma on a national level? Of course, you embody it in the personal, and I was in constant awe of Lynch’s immediate, visceral sentences, and their ability to force me to embody Grace’s experience living through absolutely unimaginable history.
One memorable section is made up of four entirely blacked-out pages, a brilliant nod to the way trauma overwhelms and erases.
From the Booker Prize-winning author of Prophet Song, a sweeping, Dickensian story of a young girl on a life-changing journey across nineteenth-century Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine.
Early one October morning, Grace's mother snatches her from sleep and brutally cuts off her hair, declaring, "You are the strong one now." With winter close at hand and Ireland already suffering, Grace is no longer safe at home. And so her mother outfits her in men's clothing and casts her out.
When her younger brother Colly follows after her, the two set off on a remarkable odyssey in the…
As a teenager, I began to question the myths my parents told about our family, but when saying so caused trouble, I confided my stories to paper instead. That’s how I became a writer. My first love has always been fiction, but I broke into print writing history—about quirky subjects in which I find deep meaning, like the potato’s revolutionary influence on the Western world, or how the invasion and occupation of Belgium in 1914 foretold Nazi Europe. My fascination with subversion shapes my novels too—my quiet, lonely protagonists would never storm the barricades yet appear radical because of how they live, a circumstance I know well.
I have a soft spot for characters who find strength by dint of superhuman effort, and the way this fifteen-year-old takes charge after the 1906 earthquake—haltingly, uncertainly, as is only plausible—makes me wish I’d met her.
Her path is steeper than the San Francisco hills, yet her refusal to ask for pity wins me over. I also admire how Edgarian uses her protagonist’s coming of age to represent San Francisco’s, a parallel delivered with a light touch.
But above all, the novel explores the fraught relation between women and power; and how Vera walks that tightrope makes compelling fiction.
New York Times bestselling author Carol Edgarian delivers “an all-encompassing and enthralling” (Oprah Daily) novel featuring an unforgettable heroine coming of age in the aftermath of catastrophe, and her quest for love and reinvention.
Meet Vera Johnson, fifteen-year-old illegitimate daughter of Rose, notorious proprietor of San Francisco’s most legendary bordello. Vera has grown up straddling two worlds—the madam’s alluring sphere, replete with tickets to the opera, surly henchmen, and scant morality, and the quiet domestic life of the family paid to raise her.
On the morning of the great quake, Vera’s worlds collide. As the city burns and looters vie…
Writer, reader, editor, reviewer, publisher… those are all parts of me. With a lifetime of experience in the “words” industry, I have a pretty good handle on what makes a book not just good, but hot. I say this with the understanding that each reader brings their own histories to the reading experience, and what one person may like, another may not. Nonetheless, I offer you my professional and personal favorites in the mystery/thriller/suspense categories. It is my sincere hope that you find these books as addictive as I’d found them. Superb and clever writing, engaging characters, unpredictable plots—yes, please! Though I occasionally step outside my comfort zone, I'm consistently drawn back to these categories.
The cover made me buy it, and the writing made me love it. An unexpected amateur sleuth, a mere teenager trying to find his missing sister, is the crux of this story filled with captivating characters and constant go-go-go. The entire plot blew my mind with its twists and tensions and completely unexpected angles. I highly recommend this revered mystery/thriller/suspense novel set during the Age of Aquarius—1968 in Laguna Beach, California.
A Thousand Steps is a beguiling thriller, an incisive coming-of-age story, and a vivid portrait of a turbulent time and place by three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker.
Laguna Beach, California, 1968. The Age of Aquarius is in full swing. Timothy Leary is a rock star. LSD is God. Folks from all over are flocking to Laguna, seeking peace, love, and enlightenment.
Matt Anthony is just trying get by.
Matt is sixteen, broke, and never sure where his next meal is coming from. Mom’s a stoner, his deadbeat…
I’m a big-time fantasy reader, and I’ve always loved non-human characters in fiction, whether it was The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. It never sat right with me that the Beast becomes human when I got to understand his vulnerability in monster form; I hated that Ariel wanted boring human legs. I was a romance novel hater for a long time, too, because I thought they were repetitive (and mostly straight). Finding queer indie romance that embraced these monsters and explored what makes them monstrous caused a huge shift in the way I interpret all relationships in literature, and it definitely influenced my choice to write monster romance.
This book is just pure, sexy, chaotic fun (with sapphic monster ladies, of course). I’m an absolute sucker for a good genre-bender, and this one is not only chock-full of a variety of monsters, but it’s also a mystery, a comedy, an erotica, and a kind of Bildungsroman all rolled into one.
I laughed out loud more than once when reading this, and certain twists were executed so well that they had me flipping back to the beginning to find the clever foreshadowing. Also, the monsters are plentiful and their interactions are an absolute blast.
This was the book that made Jemma Topaz an insta-buy author for me.
Rosemary Dulahan, answering a strange job posting, arrives in Monstertown – a place inhabited by magical beings from another world.
Navigating the politics of sphinxes, lamias, and secrets, she must learn how to get along with her non-human coworkers and maybe romance a few monster girls along the way.
There's nothing she wants less than getting caught up in a murder mystery troubling all of Monstertown... but the mystery doesn't care what she wants, and she's about to discover the darker side of her new world.
