100 Books Like Lady Eve's Last Con

This book is bonkers in the best way.

Beryl is accidentally abducted by Zylar, an alien from the planet Barath, and the two end up competing in a series of deadly trials to win the right to be together.

If you’d told me how invested I would become in the romance between Zylar, a chitin-armored extraterrestrial who’s sweet but a little lacking in confidence, and Beryl, a no-nonsense former childcare worker from Missouri, I wouldn’t have believed you. 

Their journey is both funny (Zylar calls Beryl "Terrible One" after misreading her smile as a threat display) and touching, as they work with each other to explore their differences and find compromises.

Oh, and did I mention there’s a talking dog?

This is the first romance book I ever read.

It’s possible this is the reason behind my deep-seated belief that all romances should include comedy and science fiction, because Douglas Adams is the master of both.

But it’s not just hilarious and full of great SF ideas (like dolphins saving humanity by retrieving a replacement Earth from a parallel universe) – the romance between Arthur and Fenchurch is genuinely swoonworthy, to the point where I picked a passage from the book as a reading at my wedding.

When I heard the words "Regency romance in space," I was already sold, but A Civil Campaign exceeded my expectations to become one of my favorite books of all time.

It’s hard to overstate the joy I experienced watching Miles Vorkosigan, military strategist and genius, fall flat on his face as he tries to woo quiet, intense widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson.

Navigating the complex social dynamics of the feudal colony planet of Barrayar, Miles’s romantic quest culminates in a proposal that rivals Darcy’s first attempt in its fist-in-mouth awfulness, and a love confession via letter that’s learn-by-heart-worthy.

This book made me laugh out loud from the first page.

But the way it puts the com in romcom isn't the only special thing about it. The worldbuilding is surprisingly deep and sharply observed, offering a glimpse of a scarily plausible near future – protagonist Trinity works as a remote Uber driver, masquerading as self-driving AI because the real technology isn’t reliable enough.

And the characters are beautifully drawn: Trinity’s journey out of trauma to reclaiming her identity is heartwarming, and biosynthetic humanoid love interest Li Wei is equal parts hot, quirky, and adorable.

I’m an absolute sucker for a ‘what really happened that night’ tale and this is one of my all time favourites due to the unreliable narration and the sense of slowly creeping dread.

The core of this book is the messy tangle of friendship, obsession, and unspoken longing, which I can never get enough of. Throughout my first read of the story, I re-evaluated what I thought I knew, and went back to the start over and over. I had to know who was lying…

I’ve long been fascinated by the mysteries of the Anasazi, or the Pueblo Dwellers of southwestern Utah. How and why did a thriving culture of literally thousands of people who had built stone buildings into cliff faces suddenly and inexplicably disappear? Having read numerous books by archaeologists on the subject, I was really no closer to an answer. But when Preston and Child wrote a novel, a combination of adventure, tech thriller, and mythology, I was completely on board.

Archaeologist Nora Kelly’s father disappeared without a trace 16 years earlier in the remote desert, searching for the legendary Quivira, a city of gold and wonder, the lost city of the Anasazi Indians. Pulling together a team, using some NASA satellite research to find a starting place, Nora leads a team into the desolate canyonlands in search of the city—only to find extraordinary mythology, life-threatening natural events, and a deadly, dangerous… show more.

There are many remedies for racism, including education, transmission, and prevention. So as not to limit myself to the human and social sciences, I suggest this children's novel by Ayaan Mohamud. It's an embodied account, a fictionalized testimony that we discover by following Hanan, the main character, who attends a prestigious school where she is subjected to a very routine form of Islamophobic ostracism.

She follows her mother's advice to stay the course and not overreact for a while. But after a tragedy, this position is no longer tenable and she makes her voice heard, in other words, she takes her place as a visible Muslim in American society in a different way.

This novel will delight young and old alike and is a good complement to the more scientific works cited in this list of recommendations. It was originally written for my children, so they wouldn't shut up.

In 2000, there were few English-language fantasy books based on Japanese myths. I opened this one, and instantly, Heian Period Feudal Japan came alive in a lyrical, mesmerizing way, unlike the dry history books.

And unlike the fantasy I’d grown up with, the main voice of the book was a woman—a complicated, imperfect magical kitsune who also felt like a human woman. This book made me hungrier for more non-Western myths as a lens through which to view my own concepts of womanhood.

I was immediately taken with author/filmmaker Nicholas Meyer's brilliant pairing of a flailing, cocaine-addicted Sherlock Holmes with a winningly rendered Sigmund Freud, whom a desperate Doctor Watson has recruited to save the self-destructive detective.

Freud’s efforts eventually teased out the darkest of secrets driving Holmes’ notorious substance abuse in a manner I found enthralling. I believe the best historical novels confidently ground you in a time and a place that captivates but also conjures a reality all their own in their blending of fact and fiction, which this novel does in spades.

I’ve revisited it many times over the years. A wonderful film adaptation by Meyer was also released many years ago, starring Nichol Williamson as Holmes and Alan Arkin as Freud.

I love this humorous coming-of-age story narrated by a naïve yet academically smart girl who is juggling the various conflicting truths of her life—what she is taught in school, what she learns at home, what she learns from her friends and her siblings, what she is told about how life is and what she observes for herself. How is a person to reconcile all these truths?

By becoming the Queen of England, which is what Monei, the narrator, says she wants to become when she grows up since the Queen is the only woman, as far as Monei can tell, who can make decisions. This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Dow brilliantly captures the perplexed voice of a growing girl and the idiom of Botswana life around Independence.