79 Books Like Healer of the Water Monster

I read this book after a long, dull period when I couldn’t seem to find anything to read that sparked my interest. Trail of Lightning picked me up, whirled me around, and made me fall head-over-heels in love with speculative fiction again.

Set in a bleak, post-apocalyptic world, it’s brutal and gripping, but where there should only be sadness and despair, there are unexpected moments of un-looked-for kindness. This isn’t a light read, and it isn’t exactly happy—but there’s a beautiful optimism underlying the bleakness, that after all, even in the worst of circumstances and at the worst of times, people can be kind. 

R. Allen Chappell’s novel resonates with me from the reality of his depiction of life among the Navajo, reflecting his personal familiarity with the people. His protagonists portray diverse, very human characters with all their inherent weaknesses and strengths, tested by the hard life on the Rez. In Magpie Speaks, Charlie Yazzie’s unflappably grounded outlook balances Paul T’Sosi ’s immersive belief in the old ways, a traditional way of thinking that permits the existence of witches who can cause him harm with their supernatural powers. His depiction of Harley Ponyboy, a sometime drunk (“just because I’m drinking now doesn’t make me a drunk”) is both sympathetic and alarming to me. Chappell’s characters are real.

As with Tara Westover’s book, I was inspired by David Crow’s story of self-determinism in the face of incredible adversity. David was raised in abject poverty on a Navajo reservation. His father was a “violent ex-con who forced his son to commit crimes.”

I related to David’s unwavering resolve, forging his way into college and ultimately creating a successful lobbying firm in D.C. I was drawn in by his simple, unadorned writing and was profoundly moved by his willingness to tell his life story unvarnished and unapologetically.

LaFarge’s first novel, Laughing Boy, about the love affair between a reservation Indian and one who had been raised in a religious school, won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize. LaFarge spent much of his life fighting for Native American rights, sometimes in the “dark of Washington.” I wanted to grow up to be an Indian. I still do.

Another unlikely heroine, but only because she sees ghosts—okay, okay, maybe also because seeing ghosts or even talking about them is strictly forbidden in Rita Todacheene’s Navajo culture.

I loved this book so, so much for both its detail and its unusual premise. Todacheene’s ghosts haunt her and play an active part in her investigations as a forensic photographer. And, since the author was a forensic photographer herself, the work rings true and sharp. Ghosts aside, she also has to contend with her own culture, a struggle with which I’m intimately familiar.  

I also loved the way that Emerson structured this book—Todacheene’s beloved cameras, acting as framing devices, guide us through her timeline, and she keeps on learning things about herself even as we go from the most advanced camera to the oldest possible film-based option. I can’t wait to read the second in this series to see what our… show more.

I was inspired by his descriptions. He captures the ethos of a place, the unique attributes that elevate mere locations to sensory experiences. I use the five senses as a guideline when writing descriptions. Tony Hillerman can place the reader in the scene, and I’m inspired to accomplish the same thing.

This book was a frolicking gallop through 19th-century New Mexico and points west–places I know well. Based in Austin, me and my family often go skiing in Santa Fe and Taos, oblivious to the history lurking there. Reading Sides’ description of the frontier during that era transported me to those places from an entirely different perspective. And few people in American history have had more vivid adventures than Kit Carson, whether fending off warring parties of Comanches and Utes or leading military expeditions across the Sierras.

I loved how Hides writes with empathy about the final free days of Indians before they’re rounded into destitute reservations. Gave me an entirely new perspective on this gorgeous corner of the world. 

Brugge., et al. rests its case on the personal lives of Navajos who became poisoned by the uranium that pervaded nearly the entire Navajo Nation from the 1940s until the mines were closed in the 1970s to about 2015.

Much of the editing was done by Navajos, which provides a clear and strong message describing how the many deaths from uranium poison have shredded the cultural fabric of Navajo life.

It is an intensely personal book that is very strong in its account of these effects on families, elders, and future generations.

Wars take a long time to end. Work is done to bury the loss, grief, and guilt described above as quickly as possible. Oftentimes the forces that stand to profit from this forgetting succeed, except among those groups which are either ignored or for whom the loss is too deep. What Layli Long Soldier’s brilliant Whereas discloses is how the acts of government, the papers generated like planks over a well, seek to hide that grief and loss, and how those groups might reclaim the stories those papers hope to disappear. 

I am a huge fan of Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee novels. I was privileged to meet Mr. Hillerman at a writers convention. He was gracious and supportive of other authors and I learned a lot from his presentation. The main characters of his series are two male Navajo police officers but in The Fallen Man he introduced Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito. In that story she is a new officer with the tribal police but in Skeleton Man she has become a federal Customs Patrol officer. Smart and capable, she holds her own, be it in the office with senior male officers or in the harsh, challenging American Southwest desert territory that is her “beat.” As an indoor girl, I was almost more impressed with the latter as I was with her role in solving the case.