Here are 73 books that Happiness for Beginners fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a little girl I dreamed of becoming a sports reporter. I loved to write and spent most of my free time playing or watching sports. I earned an academic-athletic scholarship to Davidson College to play volleyball and went on to receive my master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California. After landing a job as media personality with the Houston Texans, I thought my career would skyrocket to national television. But I quickly learned that the world of sports journalism is anything but predictable. As I balanced motherhood and a career in sports reporting, I realized the most fascinating stories were the ones being created inside my own head.
I pitched Sideline Confidential as The Devil Wears Prada set in professional football.
When I saw that Lauren Weisberger had written a sports novel, I was all in. After pro tennis player Charlie Silver suffers a devastating loss and injury at Wimbledon, she fires her longtime coach and sets out to rebrand her image from goodie girl to vicious competitor and sexy cover girl.
Of course, this journey abounds with bad decisions - like Charlie wearing a tiara in a tennis match- and results in some in-depth soul-searching about the person and player she really wants to be. This entertaining read mixes together the right amounts of sexiness and sports to appeal to any fiction fan.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and When Life Gives You Lululemons comes a dishy tell-all about a beautiful tennis prodigy who, after changing coaches, suddenly makes headlines on and off the court.
How far would you go to reach the top?
When America’s sweetheart, Charlotte “Charlie” Silver, makes a pact with the devil, the infamously brutal coach Todd Feltner, Good Girl Charlie is banished. After all, no one ever wins big by playing nice. Charlie finds herself catapulted into a world of celebrity stylists, private parties, charity events on mega-yachts, and secret dates…
Think how tough it is to reach adulthood in today's complicated world. Now imagine doing so in front of a global audience. That's what growing up in show business is like. Every youthful mistake laid bare for all to see. Malefactors looking to ensnare the naive at any turn. Each…
As a little girl I dreamed of becoming a sports reporter. I loved to write and spent most of my free time playing or watching sports. I earned an academic-athletic scholarship to Davidson College to play volleyball and went on to receive my master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California. After landing a job as media personality with the Houston Texans, I thought my career would skyrocket to national television. But I quickly learned that the world of sports journalism is anything but predictable. As I balanced motherhood and a career in sports reporting, I realized the most fascinating stories were the ones being created inside my own head.
Sports fiction is having a mega moment thanks to Carrie Soto Is Back, which has reigned atop The New York Times bestseller list.
As a former college volleyball player, I was particularly drawn to this novel because it follows a woman athlete’s comeback- the excruciating physical grind she endures as well as the emotional growth she realizes. Taylor Jenkins Reid captures the details and strategies behind professional tennis and makes them dramatic and compelling, which isn’t an easy feat. I know from experience.
But what makes this novel special is the heroine or perhaps the antiheroine. Tennis legend Carrie Soto can be hard to like because she is cold, brazen, unapologetic, arrogant, yet insecure and scared. As I read the novel, I felt myself shift from wanting to strangle her to rooting for her to win one more Grand Slam and open herself to love.
From the bestselling author of MALIBU RISING, DAISY JONES & THE SIX and THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO
'There's something about Carrie I will take forward with me in my life, and be a little better for. This book comes out in a few short weeks and you should preorder it. It made me cry twice, and when I finished reading, I had to sit for a minute with the hole it left in my chest . . . just order it' EMILY HENRY
As a little girl I dreamed of becoming a sports reporter. I loved to write and spent most of my free time playing or watching sports. I earned an academic-athletic scholarship to Davidson College to play volleyball and went on to receive my master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California. After landing a job as media personality with the Houston Texans, I thought my career would skyrocket to national television. But I quickly learned that the world of sports journalism is anything but predictable. As I balanced motherhood and a career in sports reporting, I realized the most fascinating stories were the ones being created inside my own head.
When this novel came out, I was traversing Texas, working as a sideline reporter for college football games.
I instantly related to the heroine Shea Rigsby who grew up on Texas football and dreams of becoming a football reporter. I had been in her shoes. That was my dream too. But you don’t have to be a football fan to appreciate this book. As Shea pursues a job covering the NFL and sparks fly with the Cowboy’s star quarterback, she struggles to find contentment in her career and romantic life.
It isn’t until she opens her heart to unexpected love and faces challenging family dynamics that she’s able to realize her deepest desires.
The Number One New York Times bestseller. Ask yourself: what would you do if the one for you was the only person you couldn't have?
Shea Rigsby is content enough with her life in the small town of Walker, Texas. She has her dream fangirl job working for Walker's football team, a mostly satisfactory relationship with her boyfriend, and even if she's got the sneaking feeling life is passing her by, she doesn't quite have the confidence to do anything about it. But everything changes when the mother of Lucy, Shea's best friend, dies suddenly. Lucy's father, now a widower,…
I’ve spent my entire life running from my past, hiding from myself, and never letting anyone get close enough to see behind my walls, but when he walks back into my life and wraps his arms around me, I swear it’s the first breath I’ve taken since he left.
As a little girl I dreamed of becoming a sports reporter. I loved to write and spent most of my free time playing or watching sports. I earned an academic-athletic scholarship to Davidson College to play volleyball and went on to receive my master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California. After landing a job as media personality with the Houston Texans, I thought my career would skyrocket to national television. But I quickly learned that the world of sports journalism is anything but predictable. As I balanced motherhood and a career in sports reporting, I realized the most fascinating stories were the ones being created inside my own head.
I was querying my manuscript to an agent, and she suggested Intercepted as a comp title.
I devoured it in two days. Marlee Harper is fresh off a breakup with a jerk NFL receiver. She’s sworn off players and the ruthless wives and girlfriends (WAGs) who surround them. Enter the team’s new star quarterback Gavin Pope, a fling from Marlee’s past who is ready to woo her.
Intercepted plays the genre of sports romance perfectly. The writing is witty. Marlee is relatable, possessing the flaws and sass that make you root for her. And the steaminess factor is high, proving that sports books can be sexy in all the right ways.
Marlee Harper is the perfect girlfriend. She's definitely had enough practice by dating her NFL-star boyfriend for the last ten years. But when she discovers he has been tackling other women on the sly, she vows to never date an athlete again. There's just one problem: Gavin Pope, the new hotshot quarterback, has Marlee in his sights.�Gavin fights to show Marlee he's nothing like her ex. But not everyone is ready to let her escape her past, and when the gossip makes Marlee public enemy number one, she worries about more than just her reputation.�It will take a Hail Mary…
As an avid trail-runner and mountain-biker who’s done a ton of outdoorsy things, from sailboat racing on the Chesapeake Bay to rockclimbing to backpacking in the Pacific Northwest, I’m convinced that nothing gets you closer to someone’s experience than a well-told first-person account. The best personal narratives make you feel the cold, glow with the exhilaration, and burn with ambition to go, to do, to see for yourself — and can even make you look at the world, and yourself, in a new way. These books, different as they are, have all done those things for me.
I really love a lot of the writing between the two world wars — there’s something clear-eyed but lacking in guile, almost willfully large-spirited and generous. The two Muries alternate chapters, Mardie describing everyday life in the beautiful but rapidly-changing Jackson Hole of the 1930s and 40s, while Olaus writes about and illustrates his work as a famous wildlife biologist. I regularly re-read this book when I want to feel good about people and the world.
For over thirty-seven years, Margaret and Olaus Murie made their home in the mountainous wilderness of the Tetons, where Olaus Murie conducted his famous studies of the American elk, the wapiti. Through these years their home was almost a nature-conservation shrine to thousands of Americans interested in the out-of-doors, in animals, in nature in general. Wapiti Wilderness, begun by Mrs. Murie as a sequel to her Two in the Far North, which told of the Muries' life and expeditions in Alaska, became a book written by both the Muries.
In alternate chapters, Olaus tells of his work as a field…
I'm an English writer now living in the wilds of Tasmania, Australia. My love of books began at school. I devoured the classics and couldn’t wait to audition for the lead in the next school play. Both my father and brother were in the military and I saw firsthand their love and duty for country, and family often with great cost to their mental health and wellbeing. I write stories about heroes like them and the women who win their hearts. Love takes courage.
Another first-in-series story that falls squarely into the protective romance category with fierce alpha heroes and the women who win their hearts.
I love these larger-than-life heroes and Ms. Crouch effortlessly makes them believable, especially when you want to escape everyday reality. Not recommended on a regular basis, but something we all want to do at times, on holiday, at the weekend or simply after a rough day at the office.
I love the way Zac patiently and carefully rebuilds his shaky relationship with Annie. Guess I really am a sucker for the hard, in this case, very muscular frame, and the gooey center living inside the man.
He’d protect her from any threat… But what if the biggest threat is him?
Doctor Anne Griffin is back in Oak Creek, Wyoming only because she has no other options. Here, she was always the shy, stuttering girl, invisible to everyone.
Except Zac Mackay. The very reason she left in the first place.
Zac’s years in Special Forces taught him survival skills, and he’s created a company—Linear Tactical—to teach those skills to others, so they never have to live in fear.
Then why is Annie, the last person he’d ever want to hurt, afraid of him?
I walked to the library every Saturday to find a new mystery. I think I read everyone and read some more than once. As I matured, I discovered the mixture of romance and suspense I was hooked. I literally read every book in the genre’ at my local library.
The damaged heroine and the cocky MC. The dialogue and writing are fun and the ‘who-dun-it’ kept me guessing. The beauty of the Grand Tetons is so well described you feel like you there and in awe of the backdrop.
The sole survivor of a brutal crime, Reece Gilmore is on the run, desperately fighting the panic attacks and the nightmares that haunt her. She doesn't intend to stay in the sleepy town of Angel's Fist one second longer than she needs to, despite its friendly - if curious - inhabitants, and the irresistible attraction of local writer Brody.
However, on a hike into the mountains she witnesses a couple having a vicious argument that culminates in murder. Faced with a lack of evidence, the authorities in Angel's Fist find it hard to believe Reece's story. But when a series…
I've been a lawyer for 30 years, 20 of them as an elected district attorney, and writing relieves stress for me. Real crime is messy and irrational; crime fiction restores order. But literary fiction is too slow—a novel must compel the reader to turn the page. Good thrillers tackle major issues, revealing themes that deepen our understanding of humanity. I've witnessed courage during grief and stress, but I'd never betray that trust by writing nonfiction accounts. I deliberately jumbled character traits and real events and combined them with my understanding of modern police techniques like geofencing and DNA.
The king of the cowboy detectives, Walt Longmire, must choose a course for his life after Vietnam. We know our hero devoted his life to serving his neighbors, yet here we confront the moment of stark paths before him. The choice not only represents a personal sacrifice but requires those he loves to sacrifice. The calling to seek justice demands a constant commitment.
Johnson presents a villain who has surrendered to his baser nature. A trope of mystery fiction contrasting with a hero capable of overcoming such self-destructiveness. I listened to the audiobook.
The thirteenth novel in Craig Johnson's beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series, the basis for the hit Netflix series Longmire
Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of twenty-five armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion train known as the Western Star, which ran the length of…
When our two sons were younger, I ran a book club for moms. We met at the local library branch once a month—an excuse to get out of the house for some adult conversation. I frequently offer book suggestions to friends and family because I keep my finger on the pulse of what books moms want to read, especially in the summertime at the beach. Typically, I read three to four beach reads on vacation, and I like a variety of genres. I gravitate towards stories with some element of romance, fitting since I’m a sweet romance writer who loves a good book.
This book is an irresistible thriller about Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker who rents an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming for some rest and relaxation and stumbles upon an intriguing rancher and townsfolk with secrets to keep.
The sexual attraction between Grace and Calvin Wells, the handsome rancher, kept me turning the pages. I never saw the shocking twist coming at the end. It made me think twice about booking a vacation rental in a remote area without cell service!
I devoured this novel in a few days, making it a good choice for a quick beach read.
Winner of the 2025 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Spring Competition - Women's Fiction
Kelly needs a break, even if it’s only for the weekend. But visiting her aunt in Sun City turns into an unexpected care-giving situation, prompting her to face avoided decisions.
Landscape is always important in my writing, and Yellowstone, which I’ve visited numerous times, is such a special place, rich with geodiversity and teeming with danger, that it kind of demanded to be a setting for my novel. I’ve also always been kind of obsessed with bears, and Yellowstone is grizzly country. But I didn’t want to write the stereotypical “man against nature” book. I’m too much of a feminist for that.
I recommend One for the Blackbird, One for the Crowfor three reasons. First, it’s set in the same general time and place as my novel and depicts many of the hardships that frontier women faced in the second half of the 19th century. It also tells a story about an unlikely but necessary friendship, thematically akin to my novel. And finally, the prose is lovely and a joy to read.
From the bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night comes a powerful and poetic novel of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier.
Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn't think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage…
