Books like Harper Wells — picked by fans

An avid reader since the age of 7, I have long loved history. When combined with fiction and throwing in a time slip, my imagination is unlimited! I have a passion for introducing historical fact to young readers, and time-slip adventure is a fun and engaging way to do it, without being bogged down with superfluous information. Young people’s reading levels have changed (as recent statistics worldwide show). As a writer, I gain inspiration from these novels for my own works.

An avid reader since the age of 7, I have long loved history. When combined with fiction and throwing in a time slip, my imagination is unlimited! I have a passion for introducing historical fact to young readers, and time-slip adventure is a fun and engaging way to do it, without being bogged down with superfluous information. Young people’s reading levels have changed (as recent statistics worldwide show). As a writer, I gain inspiration from these novels for my own works.

An avid reader since the age of 7, I have long loved history. When combined with fiction and throwing in a time slip, my imagination is unlimited! I have a passion for introducing historical fact to young readers, and time-slip adventure is a fun and engaging way to do it, without being bogged down with superfluous information. Young people’s reading levels have changed (as recent statistics worldwide show). As a writer, I gain inspiration from these novels for my own works.

An avid reader since the age of 7, I have long loved history. When combined with fiction and throwing in a time slip, my imagination is unlimited! I have a passion for introducing historical fact to young readers, and time-slip adventure is a fun and engaging way to do it, without being bogged down with superfluous information. Young people’s reading levels have changed (as recent statistics worldwide show). As a writer, I gain inspiration from these novels for my own works.

Loads of people want to be writers and the dream can come true! It did for me. So, I want to tell people about the books that have helped to turn me into a novelist. Initially, I wrote journalistic pieces about bizarre leisure activities for various British newspapers and magazines: I lay on a bed of nails, walked on red hot coals, met people who collect bricks as a hobby...and even lost my underpants while performing on the flying trapeze! (No kidding!) But my ultimate goal was always to become a novelist. Then, one day, I discovered the subject I just had to turn into a novel. And the result was...Death and Mr. Pickwick. 

I am an Australian author and an avid reader. Although I love reading books set in other countries, I particularly enjoy stories that take place in Australia, as I can really identify with them. I especially relate to those set in the Australian outback or small rural towns, as for several years I lived in remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. I understand how in small towns it is very difficult to keep secrets, as everybody knows everyone else’s business, and I now realise this is becoming an underlying theme in my writing. I have a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Tasmania.

Before becoming a psychological thriller writer I trained as a Clinical Psychologist, and I continue to practice as a therapist alongside my writing. Clinical Psychologists work in the field of mental health, bringing me into regular contact with the more difficult, distressed, or disturbed aspects of human psychology. Similarly, my novels typically explore the darker sides of what it means to be human, including themes of guilt, loss, fractured relationships, and trauma. The books on my list delve into this compelling and fascinating territory, and have inspired me as both a psychologist and a storyteller.

What can better give expertise on the books one loves than decades of reading? I’ve always had a passion for sympathetic, strong characters, especially women. At the core of all my novels, readers will find a sympathetic and strong heroine. In Girlfriend Trouble, Lian is the catalyst that changes the lives of everyone around her for the better; or, more precisely, Lian’s compassion, wisdom, and serene nature are what change things. I’m probably too idealistic, but it’s better than being a cynic. There’s an element of this in all the books I’ve recommended, and those I’ve written. I like to think there’s more of it in the real world too.

I’m a Pom, as Aussies would say, born and bred in England to an Australian mother and British father. I emigrated to Australia as a ten-pound Pom way back when and though I eventually came home again I’ve always retained an affection and a curiosity about the country, which in time led me to write three books about my own family history there. The early days of colonial Australia, when around 1400 people, half of whom were convicts, ventured across the world to found a penal colony in a country they knew almost nothing about, is one of the most fascinating and frankly unlikely stories you could ever hope to come across. 

I’ve been writing about climate change for the past 14 years. I have been the Environment and Energy Editor for the news website, The Conversation, and worked for the government in renewable energy and reducing emissions from transport. Now I work for a conservation organisation, protecting land for nature. My first novel, A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, was set in a climate-changed Melbourne and an idyllic past San Francisco. My most recent novel, From the Wreck, is historical fiction set in the 1870s but is also about modern humans’ history of ecocide. I have also written essays and a non-fiction guide The Handbook: Surviving & Living with Climate Change.