Here are 100 books that Blaze fans have personally recommended if you like
Blaze.
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I’ve always lived in a small city in Northern Ontario (Canada) that is surrounded by smaller towns and even smaller villages. I’m a first-generation Canadian who grew up without extended family any closer than Scotland. I’ve learned first-hand how wonderful found families can be. Once I started writing, I was drawn to happy endings and small-town settings where everyone knows your business but has your back too. I hope you enjoy these small-town recommendations as much as I do. Here’s to small towns, found families, and happy endings!
This is a comfort read for me. While it was published a while ago, this series is all about love, family (blood and otherwise), comfort, and friendship.
Four lifelong friends form Vows, a wedding destination and planning business. Vows is like the small towns I love so much. In this book, Mackensie and Carter stumble around each other until they realize the differences don’t matter when hearts fall in love.
The found family vibe of the four friends and their extended families fills me up every time I read.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents her first trade original-a novel of love, friendship, and family-in this beautiful french flap edition of Book One in the Bride Quartet.
Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most at home behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments before an important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeing stars.
A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitely not Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs to take her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’ve always lived in a small city in Northern Ontario (Canada) that is surrounded by smaller towns and even smaller villages. I’m a first-generation Canadian who grew up without extended family any closer than Scotland. I’ve learned first-hand how wonderful found families can be. Once I started writing, I was drawn to happy endings and small-town settings where everyone knows your business but has your back too. I hope you enjoy these small-town recommendations as much as I do. Here’s to small towns, found families, and happy endings!
I love Kait Nolan’s entire Misfit Inn series and the Men of Misfit Inn series, as well!
The main characters are foster children who spent time in the same foster home—talk about found family! The characters all have pasts that led them to being in foster care. Kait shows them dealing with the traumas in their backgrounds as they stretch themselves to become better for the person they love. Happy swoon!
In this series opener, I love how Kennedy and Xander both have lots of feelings for the other, along with very good reasons not to trust the other. Watching them work for it makes for a fabulous story!
She thought she could never go home again. Kennedy Reynolds has spent the past decade traveling the world as a free spirit. She never looks back at the past, the place, or the love she left behind--until her adopted mother's unexpected death forces her home to Eden's Ridge, Tennessee.
Deputy Xander Kincaid has never forgotten his first love. He's spent ten long years waiting for the chance to make up for one bone-headed mistake that sent her running. Now that she's finally home, he wants to give her so much more than just an apology.
I’ve always lived in a small city in Northern Ontario (Canada) that is surrounded by smaller towns and even smaller villages. I’m a first-generation Canadian who grew up without extended family any closer than Scotland. I’ve learned first-hand how wonderful found families can be. Once I started writing, I was drawn to happy endings and small-town settings where everyone knows your business but has your back too. I hope you enjoy these small-town recommendations as much as I do. Here’s to small towns, found families, and happy endings!
I love this small-town romance with its strong characters and emotional plot.
I enjoyed Thea’s unique backstory. To survive it, she needs to be tough and careful, meaning she has walls that Shep has to learn to scale. Thankfully, he’s up to the task.
The Colson family is full of found family and real family, a fabulous combination that proves love comes in all forms and for all people. I loved the emotional roller coaster and, of course, the happy ending!
Get ready for your next reading obsession, the spicy small-town romance filled with mystery and suspense from the bestselling author, perfect for fans of Elsie Silver and Colleen Hoover.
'Shep is everything you could possibly want in a book boyfriend' 5* Reader review 'The sense of found family is one of the best I've ever read' 5* Reader review 'Had me on the edge of my seat' 5* Reader review _________________________________________________________________
Trust doesn't come easily when you've been running for as long as I have, which is why moving in with a man I barely know is such a bad…
The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall
by
Paul Wilborn,
It’s 1985, and Ronald Armstrong, known in the magic mushroom trade as “Trip,” takes a “sober” job as a driver for a retired Tampa mobster. His boss, Charlie Wall, has survived four attempts on his life, the last one in 1955. When Charlie falls into depression, Trip rebuilds his boss’…
I’ve always lived in a small city in Northern Ontario (Canada) that is surrounded by smaller towns and even smaller villages. I’m a first-generation Canadian who grew up without extended family any closer than Scotland. I’ve learned first-hand how wonderful found families can be. Once I started writing, I was drawn to happy endings and small-town settings where everyone knows your business but has your back too. I hope you enjoy these small-town recommendations as much as I do. Here’s to small towns, found families, and happy endings!
I love the strong found-family vibe in this one (like many of the books Jill Shalvis writes).
Harper arrives in the small town where she last felt happy. She has no idea what’s in store for her. She’s strong, independent, and most definitely not looking for a relationship. Oops.
Shalvis combines humor, love, found family, and a roller coaster of emotions in this wonderful found-family romance. A fabulous read!
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis returns to Sunrise Cove with a beguiling, lighthearted story about fresh starts, second chances and true love.
When Harper Shaw's life falls apart, she knows it's time for a change. She removes everything that doesn't spark joy-from her soul-sucking job to eating kale to making lists-and sets off for the last place she was happy, Lake Tahoe (who wouldn't feel good there, right?) to fulfill her dream of opening her own bakery.
With her Sugar Pine Bakery in between a tavern, owned by sexy, grumpy Bodie Campbell, and a bookstore, run by her…
An avid reader from an early age, what has moved me most were the characters who faced adversity and fought to overcome it. In my 30s, I lost my way, followed a guru, and took almost a decade to realize I was in a cult. Psychotherapy helped me get out and led me to become a psychotherapist. The books I've recommended have encouraged and inspired me to heal and to grow, to build a good, strong, healthy life–even though I fell more than once and didn't know for sure if I could get back up. I hope these books will inspire you as they inspired me.
You don't have to be a cult survivor to have been abused by a traumatizing narcissist, but if you are a survivor, this book is essential and indispensable. I've recommended it countless times, not just to cult survivors for whom it is written, but to others who have broken free from abusive relationships.
When I left a cult in 1994, my shame and my feeling of isolation felt like a prison. This book put me on the road to freedom. It has everything you need to know about what to expect and how to navigate re-entry into your own life, a life that can be free from undue influence and control.
3rd Edition Updated and revised, including a new section on the Troubled Teen Industry
Cult victims and those who have experienced abusive relationships often suffer from fear, confusion, low self-esteem, and post-traumatic stress. Take Back Your Life explains the seductive draw that leads people into such situations, provides insightful information for assessing what happened, and hands-on tools for getting back on track.
I am a private practice therapist who has treated adolescents for over 15 years. Since 2016, I’ve helped teens and young adults struggling with gender identity. I discovered, through working with hundreds of families and dozens of adolescents, that many teens develop gender dysphoria only after intellectually questioning their “gender identity.” I found this fascinating and have spent the last 10 years trying to understand this phenomenon. Through my work with parents and adolescents and as a podcast co-host on Gender: A Wider Lens, I’m exploring the following questions: How do individuals make meaning of their distress? What happens when we turn to culturally salient narratives about illness, diagnoses, and treatment pathways?
My favorite kinds of books are ones that challenge conventional wisdom in a way that feels intuitively familiar and true. This is how I felt while reading this book.
As a therapist, I know how capable and resilient people can be, but I also come into contact with prolonged suffering in my work. I really enjoyed reading about the heroic and remarkable people he profiled, and I loved how Bonanno weaves in science with personal narrative.
I felt like his examples and interviews really brought to life the data on resilience, and I got a ton of practical and useful ideas for how to respond to challenging situations, from big-T trauma to everyday difficulties.
After 9/11, thousands of mental health professionals from across the country assembled in Manhattan to help handle the almost certain avalanche of traumatized New Yorkers. Curiously, it never came. While plenty of people did seek mental health counseling after 9/11, the numbers were nowhere near expected.
As renowned psychologist George Bonanno argues, psychiatrists failed to predict the response to 9/11 because our model of trauma is wrong. Psychiatrists only study clinically traumatized people, and over time this skewed sample has led us to believe that trauma was the natural response to stress. But what about all the people who never…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
I spent many years deeply angry at my parents and not really understanding why. When I found out about shame, and how it was passed down from generation to generation, I was finally able to crack the code. Their “permissiveness” was actually neglect. Without meaning to, they had put their shame on me and I was still suffering from not really being seen. I made it my mission to help others heal their shame so they can be better people and better parents, and live fuller lives. I am the co-director of the Center for Healing Shame and co-author of Embracing Shame.
I discovered this book before almost anyone else in a New Age store that sold jewelry and cards and had a small selection of books. When I picked it up and saw two tigers on the cover, I had to buy it.
As soon as I read it, I thought, “This is the most useful way of thinking about and working with trauma that I have ever seen. When I called to try to join a training program, I was told there was no training program yet. I kept checking, then finally gave up.
It took several years before Peter Levine finally started a training program, and I signed up. Somatic Experiencing has deeply influenced my work.
Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.
Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on…
Too many women experience trauma and a lot of these rely on fiction as a means of escape. The more realistic, flawed, diverse characters we have in books, the more real women feel heard and accepted. Life after trauma can be bumpy and unpredictable, especially when it comes to romance and relationships. Allowing readers to explore this in a safe space is not only great storytelling, but meaningful.
What I love about Jennifer’s writing is that her stories focus on the hope in recovery, with the climactic moment usually happening early on. Cora is kidnapped with her brother-in-law-to-be (Dean) by a prolific serial killer.
The story follows their journey, which is fraught with the pitfalls and messiness of the human condition. Both characters make mistakes, and it is one of those books you really want to throw at the wall out of desperation. This book makes you feel all your feelings. It shows the reader that everyone reacts differently, and sometimes love, even from unexpected places, can be immensely healing.
WARNING: This book contains subject matter that may be sensitive for some readers, including dark and triggering content. 18+ only. Please read responsibly. When Cora attends her sister’s birthday party, she expects at most a hangover or a walk of shame. She doesn’t anticipate a stolen wallet, leaving her stranded and dependent on Dean—her arch nemesis and ultimate thorn in her side. And she really doesn’t anticipate waking up in shackles in a madman’s basement. To make matters worse, Dean shares the space in his own set of chains. After fifteen years of teasing, insults, and practical jokes, the ultimate…
My passion for the Kennedy family dates to seeing JFK in person as a young child. Shortly after his death, my mother purchased a children’s book about the 35th president, which I read repeatedly and still have in my extensive “Kennedy library.” It led me to pursue a professional career as a political scientist, specializing in the presidency and First Ladies. I now direct Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, am a member of the Advisory Board of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation, and serve on the Board of the White House Historical Association, founded by Mrs. Kennedy in 1961.
Many books have been written about Mrs. Kennedy’s post-White House life, especially her 1968 marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, her jet-set lifestyle, and her second widowhood as a successful New York book editor, but I find Leaming’s deeply researched look at how JFK’s horrific assassination may well have afflicted the former First Lady with PTSD to be as credible as it is moving.
For almost six decades, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has fascinated people worldwide. The subject of numerous books and thousands of articles, her life has probably been documented in millions of words. And yet, there has always remained something mysterious, something private about this very public woman. With extraordinary skill and great sensitivity, Barbara Learning explores the seemingly magical world of Jackie's youth, her fairy-tale marriage to a wealthy and handsome Senator and Presidential candidate and her astonishing transformation into a deft political wife and unique First Lady. This spirited young woman's rejection of the idea of a safe marriage" as the…
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
I'm a professor of cognitive and forensic cognitive science. I have consulted on hundreds of criminal cases, most involving violent crime, and have published a body of research on the cognitive dynamics involved in eyewitness memory, officer-involved shootings, and training for IED detection in counterterrorism environments. The dynamics I've studied in the law-enforcement/forensic realm have proven to be important in the realm of firefighting and other first-response emergency services, as I also discuss in my book Thinking Under Pressure. This is an important field of study across the emergency and first response services, and will probably become more important in the future.
Colonel Grossman's work, with Loren Christensen, discusses, in practical if sometimes harsh terms, the realities of psychology in combat, hard realities encountered by military personnel and by law enforcement officers.
This is a critical work for anyone interested in the realities of the human mind in battle, and especially for those mental health personnel who may have to deal with the harsh realities of violence in mental health settings without personal experience or personal understanding of the field realities of combat and violence.
This book should be required reading for anyone dealing with military or law enforcement personnel in the mental health realm.
On Combat looks at what happens to the human body under the stresses of deadly battle the impact on the nervous system, heart, breathing, visual and auditory perception, memory - then discusses new research findings as to what measures warriors can take to prevent such debilitations so they can stay in the fight, survive, and win. A brief, but insightful look at history shows the evolution of combat, the development of the physical and psychological leverage that enables humans to kill other humans, followed by an objective examination of domestic violence in America. The authors reveal the nature of the…
