Books like Black Tickets — picked by fans

This remains one of the most haunting novels I have ever read. I cannot shake the character of Judge Holden, a formidable man both physically and intellectually, who deploys his insidious intellect to justify acts of abject violence seemingly only for the sake of violence itself. I was mesmerized by a world where “all covenants were brittle.” This was no straight-up Western as I had expected. It was something more.

McCarthy pushed the boundaries of the classic Western by challenging the notion that good will ultimately overcome evil and the hero will save the day. There was no hero here, and the day was truly lost to forces beyond the characters’ control, hallmarks of the Southern Gothic tradition. I was hooked on this curious blend of genres!

For years, I refused to re-embrace Holden Caulfield, because Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin, declared it inspired him to bloodshed. I’m glad I did, getting the juices circulating for my novel.

Holden, manic-depressed over his brother’s death, cut loose from his prep school, may speak in a stream-of-consciousness babble, but he enunciated an old-soul contempt of Ivy-League elitism that reverberates today.

When Holden declares, “The more expensive a school, the more crooks it has,” it’s a literary MRI on American classism still tearing us asunder.

Craig Nova’s beautifully sad novel Trombone was much overlooked when it was first published. As melancholy as the trombone solos that ne’er-do-well father and arsonist Dean Golancz plays every time one of his many affairs ends, this book is about dangerous criminals, love, familial loyalty, and big moral questions. Mostly it’s a father-son story and love triangle in the guise of a crime novel, with beautiful, lush, gritty use of language throughout.  

Mickelson’s Ghosts was the final book of famous novelist and equally famous writing teacher John Gardner, published a few months before his death in a motorcycle accident at the too-young age of 49. It tells the story of Peter Mickelson, a once-famous philosopher nearing the end of his career, and finding himself buying a run-down house he can't afford with his ex-wife and the I.R.S. breathing down his neck. Soon the rationalist philosopher finds himself living in a world of bad decisions, sex, hauntings and ghosts, and religious cults—a world where rationalism can’t save him from his own creeping madness and mortality. 

Max and Lina have a complicated history, to say the least. He’s the brother of her ex-fiancé, the former best man at Lina’s wedding, and he’s also the reason her intended groom left her standing at the altar. As she makes a bid for a prominent hotel’s business, she’s paired with Max on a marketing project that forces her to deal with the man that ruined her life. Determined to keep him from ruining everything again while indulging in a bit of petty revenge, Lina seeks to get Max to drop out of the marketing campaign. But as they spend more time together, she realizes that Max, who was the worst best man ever, might be the greatest love of her life.

I love this book because it’s rich with humor, heart, and culture. Mia Sosa does a terrific job of making us laugh, while still making us aware of… show more.

This book grabbed my heart and is still holding on. I have never read a hero more committed to what is right and willing to pursue it at all costs, in spite of his imperfections. His compassion and level of sacrifice are unmatched. Both he and the heroine are wounded, yet in different ways. Her journey to trust is one that touched me deeply. Bischof knows how to write the heart and paint the power of redemption. 

I was utterly awed by Kase Johnstun’s boundless love for the characters in this novel, which I learned later was informed by memories of and letters by his grandparents.

It overflows with some of my favorite things about the literature that most often resonates with me: When an author of great skill can mine memory and history, spend time with it, apply the transformative agent of imagination, and emerge into the world with work laden with genuineness.

I find Johnstun’s work to be imbued with love, which he marries to considerable storytelling chops. He’s a writer more people should know about, so it’s become a bit of a mission of mine to shout his name.

Frances lives in the Victorian Era in London, but in her hometown of New York, it’s the Gilded Age. This is her background in all its glittering and horrifying glory. 

Crime novels fit quite naturally in this era. I love a loathsome villain and Rosemary Simpson serves up some of the worst in her Gilded Age series. She uses actual events, like the great blizzard of 1888, as catalysts for some heinous crimes. If you needed to dispose of a body, what better place than a snowdrift? 

Prudence MacKenzie, the dead man’s fiancé and our sleuth, doesn’t seem to realize the danger she’s in. I spent the entire read on the edge of my seat wondering if she’d make it to the end of the book alive. This is historical noir in elegant Gilded Age style.

I can’t help it. I adore a book bold enough to begin with its do-gooder main character playing cards at a brothel!

Yet beyond its popularity as a forbidden-desire romantasy, From Blood And Ash addresses spiritual themes like awakening and self-empowerment. I particularly admire how Armentrout creates characters with intense chemistry within a storyline that challenges indoctrination.

This novel sizzles as it explores plot lines pulled from today’s headlines – everything from abuse by religious authority figures to the nature of blind faith and the importance of personal truth.

I’d talk about Mariana Zapata for days without coming out for air. The queen of slow-burn will leave you squirming in your seat shouting “Just kiss already!” on the top of your lungs. It’s a sweet blooming romance between childhood friends who spent years apart. If you read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, you were probably waiting for Zack’s story. Bonus? Zack is the sweetest and the pure definition of a cinnamon roll hero.