Here are 76 books that Family Secrets fans have personally recommended if you like
Family Secrets.
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I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
A CIA assassin who is forced to go undercover as a girly girl in the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana? From that premise alone, I knew this would be a fun read, and wow, does Jana DeLeon ever deliver in book one of her Miss Fortune Mystery series.
It’s a fabulous fish-out-of-water story filled with quirky characters of all ages, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and wrongs to be made right. There’s a splash of romance and plenty of laughs in this well-paced, sassy whodunit. My favorite kind of lighthearted mystery!
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever-in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out…
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 retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
Not only did I, as the reader, get a great mystery to solve, but the main character is a baker who owns her own shop, The Cookie Jar, so there are a ton of delightful recipes included! I enjoyed the family dynamics in Fluke’s books between Hannah, her two sisters, and her mother.
The romantic dynamic between Hannah and the two love interests was intriguing. It’s also set in Minnesota, where I’m originally from, so I could perfectly picture the setting and feel the cold in winter.
First in the New York Times-bestselling mystery series: “A cleverly plotted cozy full of appealing characters and delicious cookie recipes.”—Publishers Weekly
Take one amateur sleuth. Mix in some eccentric Minnesota locals. Add a generous dollop of crackling suspense, and you've got the recipe for this mystery series featuring Hannah Swensen, the red-haired, cookie-baking heroine whose gingersnaps are almost as tart as her comments and whose penchant for solving crime is definitely stirring things up.
While dodging her mother’s attempts to marry her off, Hannah runs The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden’s most popular bakery. But after Ron LaSalle, the beloved deliveryman…
I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
Cozy mysteries tend to have an amateur sleuth with a day job who lives in a small town. Not only is the protagonist everything I love in a character—flawed, relatable, and hysterically funny—but I found her day job a refreshing change from other cozies I’ve read.
Not only is she a female tow truck driver in a male-dominated profession, but she’s also a girly girl who does the job in high heels. I also loved that it was clear the author thoroughly researched the profession, making it highly believable. After reading the first, I eagerly awaited new releases in the series. I’m hooked!
Super-feminine and confirmed shoe-a-holic Delaney Morran receives an unexpected inheritance--the keys to a tow truck from a dad she's never known. Even though she hasn't changed a tire, or even driven any kind of a truck, she's determined to make the rough and dangerous business a success. When she hauls a vehicle with the body of her jerk-of-an ex hidden in the trunk, the small-town cops in Spruce Ridge, Colorado do not believe this a coincidence. They have her in their headlights as the prime suspect. When the news hits, her business stalls. As a woman trying to make a…
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 retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
This book isn’t typically what I read, but I am so glad I did! Rather than a traditional mystery where the threat is typically from a person, the threat here is from nature, secrets, and the perils of being alone in a remote lighthouse for months, especially since the last caretaker disappeared years ago.
It’s a psychological thriller set in Alaska with an independent, oh-so-brave female lead, and I found myself cheering her on as she conquered the dangers and her fears. I truly enjoyed every page of this book.
Hitchhiking her way through Alaska, a young woman named Anna is picked up by Kyle, a fisherman. Anna and Kyle quickly fall for each other, as they are both adventurous, fiercely independent, and in love with the raw beauty and solitude of Alaska. To cement their relationship, they agree to become caretakers of a remote lighthouse perched on a small rock in the middle of a deep channela place that has been uninhabited since the last caretaker mysteriously disappeared two decades ago. What seems the perfect adventure for these two quickly unravels, as closely-held secrets pull them apart, and the…
I’ve been working professionally as a writer for twenty-five years. I’m nothing close to a household name, but a number of my articles have gone viral throughout the years. I’ve had educators reach out to mention they’ve taught my work at both the high school and college levels. Writing is an occupation of passion, and the authors I’ve mentioned are all talented and passionate about their craft. It’s rare to find people who speak the truth anywhere in our society. These writers don’t just speak the truth, they make it sing.
Dan Woll is an exceptional author who writes about outdoor life in Northern Wisconsin. He’s an avid runner, cyclist, and climber. This collection features an account of the Barneveld tornado that blew through Wisconsin back in 1984. Woll’s work is filled with both humor and wisdom. This is a great book for anyone with a passion for the outdoors.
Dan Woll, co-author of Death on Cache Lake is back with more tales of adventure in the Northwoods. This time, they’re true! You will love this book if you’ve ever paddled a canoe on a wild river, climbed a mountain, cycled lonely country roads, or sat by a roaring campfire while a solitary loon cries on a moonlit lake.
In the ‘60s, everyone was reading—or claiming to have read—Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I faked reading it, to appear cool. The idea of a road trip, though—characters running away, running toward, or often both—and the self-discovery that ensues—was so intriguing, I made it the heart of the novel I first drafted decades ago. I wrote about a middle-aged woman who flees her life to find a lost love and her lost youth, then put the manuscript away. For 30 years. When I retired from my social work career, I pulled it from the closet, revised it, and became an author at 74.
When this astonishing debut novel about a complicated mother-daughter relationship came out, I wondered if the author had met my mother. Because Adele August believes there’s nothing for her in her small Wisconsin town, she sets off for Los Angeles with her twelve-year-old daughter and a dream—Ann will be a child star; Adele will make a wealthy marriage; they’ll live the lives they were meant to. Simpson’s writing is gorgeous: “My mother and I should have both been girls who stayed out on the porch a little longer than the rest… who strained to hear the long-distance trucks on the highway... girls who looked at the sky and wanted to go away… but who finally sighed, and calling the dog with a mixture of reluctance and relief, shut the door and went home.” Reality can’t live up to Adele’s delusions; mother-child roles are often reversed; but love underlies this tangled…
A national bestseller—adapted into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon—Anywhere But Here is the heart-rending tale of a mother and daughter. A moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer, the novel follows the two women as they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions. A brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation, Anywhere But Here is a story about the things we do for love, and a powerful study of familial bonds.
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…
Author Greil Marcus’ phrase “the old, weird America” gave me exactly the right words for something I’ve always felt: that there is a specific weirdness to the American landscape, an uncontrollable current of strange that runs beneath the carefully cultivated surface of heroes and neighbors and shared, stable dreams. Of course, as William Faulkner observed, the past isn’t past, and America is as weird as it’s ever been. Maybe weirder. Look at the news. Look out your window. No surprise, then, that I’m drawn to such a perspective when I read other people’s stories, and seldom get completely away from it when I write my own.
A stunning assembly of archival photographs and newspaper clippings from Jackson County, Wisconsin, in the last decade and a half of the 19th century, and the definitive explanation of why nobody in old-time photographs is ever smiling—and, I choose to believe, the real reason the parts of The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas were filmed in black and white. Economic privation, unceasing bereavement, disease both physical and mental—in other words, Tuesday. Was there any joy in Jackson County? Somewhere, I’m sure. What’s documented here is a stark, powerful beauty. The most real book I’ve ever encountered, and one of two on face-out display on my bookshelves.
This book is about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910. Against these are juxtaposed excerpts from the Badger State Banner, from the Mendota State (asylum) Record Book, and occasionally quotations from the writings of Hamlin Garland and Glenway Wescott.
I am passionate about little-told stories of women’s lives. Too often, women have been either minimized or silenced, and in so doing, we have ignored the experience of half of humanity. I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s in the South, where girls and women were not listened to. For this reason, among others, it was hard for me to speak up for myself, hard for me to write. I found the stories of strong, courageous women—bad-ass women—whether fictional or real, to be life-affirming and inspirational in my own journey as a writer. These stories have helped me to say, “It’s my turn. I’m talking now.”
I love me a tomboy. And that’s Caddie Woodlawn, who lives on the Wisconsin frontier with her family in the 1860s, where there are still Indians in the woods, and all the richness of nature to explore with her two brothers. Plus lots of mischief to get into. The threat of a proper, domestic young lady’s life looms, but with her father to support her, Caddie resists it.
I love this book because it brings me back to my own childhood, where my siblings and I played for endless days in the woods and creek around our home, making pretend food out of sticks and mud, catching frogs and salamanders, and building forts. The kind of childhood that few children now have in suburban America.
I’m the tenth kid in my family. I can’t think of a single part of my personality that wasn’t defined by my interactions with my siblings, then later their partners, and then later their children. The thing about family is that, yes, it’s a source of stress and even trauma, but I’ve also found it the truest path to not just meaning in life but something like salvation. I love stories that put us at that tipping point, in part because I think most of us live there, whether we realize it or not.
I love this book because it shouldn’t work. On paper, the notion that an introverted boy’s quasi-imaginary friend is what holds together a dysfunctional family is a lost cause. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to try writing it. But that’s just what Elizabeth Genovise did.
It’s a saga of broken kids clinging to one another in the shadow of broken parents, all hoping against hope for the most unlikely of saviors. I found it sometimes weird and whacky but always profoundly insightful.
Forty-one-year-old Abra, the narrator of Third Class Relics, gathers with her brother and cousins for an uncomfortable dinner the night after her father's wake. No one speaks of the one missing family member-Jeffrey, the youngest cousin-nor of his doppelganger, Rupert, whose name Abra's father cried out just before his death. When the evening comes to a close, Abra finds herself prowling her family's history against her will. As she journeys through their darkest chapters, she is forced to confront the complex role Jeffrey/Rupert played in both healing and destroying them all, as well as the significance of her relationship with…
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’m a writer who grew up in the Midwest, moved away for a while, and has now raised my own kids here. I love reading other writers' takes on what kinds of stories they see unfolding here. As I get older, I realize that great stories can grow out of the ground anywhere, with the right amount of sunshine, darkness, and water.
This is another book that rings deep and true for me.
The writing is amazing, and the book is full of quirky characters who have secrets. When those secrets start to come out, the people have to deal not only with the pieces of their current lives but also with starting their past ones back together.
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence-or her previous marriage-to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack's workshop shortly thereafter, he's not the first…
