Here are 95 books that Breathing Room fans have personally recommended if you like
Breathing Room.
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I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
This book is a celebration of many things: embracing your visible markers of age, seeking a new kind of relationship with an adult child, and the fabulous music of the 80’s and 90’s.
Any person from Generation X will absolutely see pieces of themselves and their friends in the characters in this book. Originally college friends, our couple finds themselves both back in New York and via a series of missteps and then some forced proximity (not only do they have to work together, they have to work for his daughter), they fall gloriously in love.
“Get ready to embrace the force that is Lela Bennett in this sassy, funny romance that will suck you in right from the first wedding crasher moment!” –Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn
Everything went wrong. And then she went gray.
At 47, newly divorced makeup artist Lela Bennett is dreading her next steps. Dating. Meeting people. Not letting herself go. But then she runs into Donovan James and tries something different—sleeping with her sexy crush from college. Unfortunately, in a post-orgasm stupor, Lela confesses she was in love with Donovan all those years ago. He…
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
This was the first book in Natasha’s Men of Lakeside series. Most people don’t realize that this book was one of the launch titles for an entire line of romances geared to readers who are looking for “older” characters. Personally, I loved The July Guy for the heroine. Anita is an independent, sexually-confident woman who makes no apologies for her life choices. In other words, she is like many of the women I know. And Noah is not your typical romance hero. He is a widower whose only experience had been with his wife. I love how skillfully Natasha flipped the near-virgin widow(er) trope.
Art professor Anita Delgado spends eleven months of the year working. July is her month to cut loose, paint, and pick a guy to make the summer memorable. But this year she isn’t in a tropical location with an exotic man like she'd planned. She’s stuck in small-town USA dealing with a lake house she doesn’t want, inherited from a grandmother she never knew. A summer fling might be the only thing to get her through the next few weeks.
Salvage specialist Noah Colburn is running for mayor. If he doesn’t, an absolute idiot is going to ruin his beloved…
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
This books is a delightful mash-up of romantic suspense, a spy thriller, and a cozy mystery. While I was reading it, I couldn’t help thinking how much more interesting James Bond would have been if he’d been paired with women who challenged him. And it’s funny. If an author can make me laugh out loud while reading, they have me hooked. Sandra does a masterful job of infusing her characters with all the best things we learn are important to a romance as we grow older: equality, mutual respect, and a desire to form true partnerships.
A butler. A spy. A toilet brush. A romantic suspense cosy spy-thriller-mystery with a dash of grittiness and humour. It's Charade meets Remains of the Day.
After three years in the employ of a former British army officer turned Risk Assessment Specialist, widowed butler Mae Valentine is familiar with Major Kitt’s taste for scrambled eggs, bourbon, and brawling. Kitt knows of Mae’s fondness for order, her beloved dead husband, and the millions the man left her in trust. Their easy bond is tested the day Mae kills the man sent to murder her and the trust fund vanishes.
Reading and writing romance about characters who are beyond the first blush of youth is important to me because these characters represent who I am and the people I know. We live in an unapologetically youth-centric culture. When I wrote my first book, I wrote about a 40-year-old heroine, not realizing that in traditional romance publishing, no one over 30, maybe 35, gets to fall in love. Well, I had news for them. I joined forces with some other like-minded readers and writers and we created a group on Facebook called Seasoned Romance, where we say you’re never too old to fall in love.
Small town romance + coming home + second chance? This book was like catnip to me. Dakota and Dexter felt like real people I would know. I love any story that explores how our needs and ambitions change as we grow older, and this book delivered. Dexter made choices when they were young. Dakota made some career choices that have set her life in a tailspin. I also very much enjoyed the friendship between Dakota and her best friend, Sinclair (Sin). Enduring friendships are another facet of a character’s ability to love that I enjoy seeing in a good romance.
In this heartwarming second-chance romance, a woman returns home and discovers that, when it comes to finding love, there's no place like home.
Since leaving her North Carolina town and the boy who broke her heart, Dakota Jones has focused on making it big as a journalist. But when a mistake in her personal life gets splashed across the tabloids and causes her to lose her job, she has no choice but to return home until she can figure out what to do next.
Dexter Roberts never forgot Dakota, and he's always regretted the way things ended between them. Now…
I grew up fascinated by and terrified of Hollywood in equal measure, fascinated because my mother was once married to a movie star and terrified because she refused to talk about that time in her life, saying she preferred to “pretend it never happened.” Accordingly, I’ve always been drawn to stories that involve characters who live in the orbit of stage and screen stars, people whose lives are touched, and in many cases forever changed by fame even if their face is not the one people recognize. These novels all offer glimpses into the heady rush of fame and its many foibles.
This book includes so many of my favorite things: an inn on the coast of Italy, a young innkeeper with outsized dreams, movie stars, an almost-romance, and a chance for rekindled love.
I clung to every page as the story moved back and forth from the 1960s to the present day, from the set of Cleopatra in Rome to Hollywood backlots. This book is like a vacation full of interesting people you want to know better, the kind of vacation you never want to end.
I read this novel just as I was starting to write in earnest, and before I fully understood how hard it is to pull off a feat of complex storytelling as elegantly as Walter does in this novel. It’s a marvel.
The #1 New York Times bestseller—Jess Walter’s “absolute masterpiece” (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author): the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in contemporary Hollywood.
The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet. Hailed by critics and loved by readers of literary and historical fiction, Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962...and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later.
I read bios and memoirs because I need to know what really happened. I read several bios of the same person; then piece together a sense of the truth. As a journalist, I understand that all of a person’s life won’t make it into the final story. Editors have a mission of their own; books are molded by exigent demands and social mores. That’s why The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1965 had one view of its subject, and Manning Marable’s bio in 2011 another. I’ve read both and other accounts to formulate my own ideas about the man and his times.
I’ve thought of Sharon Stone as a rebel since seeing her breakthrough filmBasic Instinct. Every interview I’d read since then convinced me that I was right. This memoir shows why. The title comes from her life-and-death fight with a brain aneurysm which derailed her film career but not her life. Right off the bat, Stone’s memoir makes the distinction between lace-curtain Irish and kitchen-sink Irish, her family standing on the kitchen sink side. This class distinction and loyalty to her roots in Pennsylvania are part of her honesty, her fight against the phoniness of the film industry, and the appeal of this story. It’s also her strength as her family comes to her side when her career is jettisoned by serious illness.
One of Vogue's Best Books to Read in 2021 One of O Magazine's 55 Most Anticipated Books of 2021 One of Marie Claire's 25 Best 2021 Memoirs to Pre-Order Now
'Electrifying.' The Sunday Times
'A glorious, rogue, raw account ... It is funny; it is shocking; it is good.' The Times
'Dangerous, alluring and misunderstood: Sharon Stone remains one of our best ever movie stars ... Her new book serves as a spectacular reminder of the outrageous fun of her Nineties fame and why she is more than due for…
Ever had anyone say something about you with utter conviction that isn’t true? Have you ever looked at someone famous and thought their life looked perfect? Ever felt not enough because of the way you look? As a former Miss Universe, international model, fashion editor, and entertainment journalist with a degree in psychology, I’ve lived these truths vicariously. I’m fascinated with image, perception, and truth. What’s behind the smile? What happens when the lights dim? Who are you when no one is watching? What secrets do you hide, how do they damage you, and what will you do to keep them hidden? I’ve been the target. I know the cost.
Nothing is accidental. Every word that you think is throwaway is part of the character build. Nothing is told. You have to link it. You have diverse characters without commentary. You have an understanding of motivation. You have illicit love. You have a challenging protagonist. What you think is true may not be true. You may glimpse real people, but you cannot say for sure. Unspoken truths. Secrets. Sex. Glamor.
Written from alternative viewpoints, it rounds out the real-life aspect that there is no truth because everyone’s truth is colored by their own bias. Again, it's unexpected and a fast read–and just like with my last recommendation–you don’t like her, then you do.
"If you're looking for a book to take on holiday this summer, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has got all the glitz and glamour to make it a perfect beach read." -Bustle
From the New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & the Six-an entrancing and "wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet" (PopSugar) as she reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready…
I am an old movie fan and a novelist who has been writing historical fiction about show business since 2010. As a stickler for detail, I use oodles of old Hollywood biographies and other research sources to learn everything I can about my subjects and weave as accurate a tale as I can. My Forgotten Actresses series is up to four books, with plenty more under construction.
As someone who adores all things Pickford (and has written about Mary’s sister-in-law, Olive Thomas), there’s no way I couldn’t include this book, which covers the association between silent star Mary Pickford and her scenarist Frances Marion.
I love the dynamic between these two powerful women, and Benjamin does a good job of establishing their relationship. There is a lot to love about this book: the writing, the dialog, and the detail. I love this book!
My only quibble is the picture they used for the front cover. I’d have picked it up long before I did if they’d actually used a picture of Mary and Frances because I would have recognized instantly who it was about.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue and The Aviator’s Wife, a “rich exploration of two Hollywood friends who shaped the movies” (USA Today)—screenwriter Frances Marion and superstar Mary Pickford
“Full of Old Hollywood glamour and true details about the pair’s historic careers . . . a captivating ode to a legendary bond.”—Real Simple
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to…
As a child, I loved singing and acting and fantasized about what it might be like to be a famous movie star. Though the practical side of my brain led me to become a lawyer instead, my fascination with Hollywood never waned. When I set out to write my first novel, I finally had the opportunity to explore celebrity culture. But I'm just a regular person, living a very normal life. The books I’m recommending lift the curtain on fame and explore the ultimate fantasy: what if a beloved, uber-famous actor or actress actually fell in love with you?
To me, the star of this novel is the witty banter between the characters and the super sexy will-they-or-won’t-they tension.
The main character is a divorced journalist who writes an in-depth profile about a very well-known actor. I particularly enjoyed how normal seeming the female main character was, and yet it was highly believable that the male actor would find her deeply attractive and interesting.
As a film studies scholar from a working-class background (which is pretty rare in UK academia!), I’ve long been fascinated by the Hollywood Left and the prospect of what they could have achieved had they not been expunged from the scene. Many of the social justice causes they embraced—anti-fascism, anti-racism, workers’ rights, etc.—resonate very strongly with contemporary concerns. The persecution of these creative workers also serves as an ever-timely warning from history about the importance of maintaining vigilance in the face of totalitarian thinking and systems of oppression.
Rebecca Prime is one of the contributors to my book and her book is a fascinating sequel to that volume. It covers the careers of several blacklisted filmmakers who fled Hollywood and America, seeking to find new work and life opportunities in Europe. Impeccably researched and elegantly written, Prime’s study tells the story of a generation of creative workers that was lost to the USA but which made a vital contribution to European and British cinemas. As she details, many of the exiled filmmakers faced almighty personal and professional struggles to adjust to their new circumstances, and while a few (e.g. Joseph Losey and Jules Dassin) would eventually achieve fabulous success, many other exiles found it difficult to secure regular and fulfilling work opportunities or personal happiness.
Rebecca Prime documents the untold story of the American directors, screenwriters, and actors who exiled themselves to Europe as a result of the Hollywood blacklist. During the 1950s and 1960s, these Hollywood emigres directed, wrote, or starred in almost one hundred European productions, their contributions ranging from crime film masterpieces like Du rififi chez les hommes (1955, Jules Dassin, director) to international blockbusters like The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, screenwriters) and acclaimed art films like The Servant (1963, Joseph Losey, director). At once a lively portrait of a lesser-known American "lost generation" and…
