Here are 100 books that Lioness fans have personally recommended if you like
Lioness.
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I became a Christian when I was 16 and have studied the Bible throughout my lifetime. I have been a professional writer and author for more than 40 years. I have also studied literature at numerous universities and taught English, journalism, and writing. Combine all of these, and it is understandable why librarians at a library convention once surrounded me and said, “We trust your research!” You can see why I am adamant, even in fiction and poetry, about the piece being well-written, well-researched, and three-dimensional believable characters who tap into our emotions. I set high standards for myself, and high standards for books I read and recommend.
I attended a Bible study where the male leader had the “Marys” in the New Testament mixed up. Once home, I sorted the women out. It can be confusing.
Such as, there are two different accounts of women anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with their hair—Mary from Bethany and an unnamed sinner woman. Salome (Virgin Mary’s sister) is sometimes called Mary. There were three Marys at the tomb.
In Women Who Followed Jesus, author Dani Daley Mackall dramatizes nine women (including four Marys) in narrative (historical fiction) accounts of their encounters with Jesus. Before each woman’s story are scriptures. After each first-person biblical account are questions for reflection and a prayer.
This book clarified the women and gave insight into how they may have felt. I also learned about Jewish customs because of the deep research.
ECPA Easter Bestseller 2024 2025 FINALIST Christian Book Awards
"Powerful daily encouragement that will enhance your walk with God." ―Jerry B. Jenkins, writer of the Left Behind series and The Chosen novels
Step into the untold stories of the women who walked with Jesus―women whose faith, courage, and devotion shaped the early church.
Women Who Followed Jesus is a transformative 40-day devotional that brings fresh insight into the lives of Mary, the Mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; Joanna; Susanna; Salome; and others who witnessed Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection. From the author of Three Wise Women comes this Bible-Based Devotional…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I became a Christian when I was 16 and have studied the Bible throughout my lifetime. I have been a professional writer and author for more than 40 years. I have also studied literature at numerous universities and taught English, journalism, and writing. Combine all of these, and it is understandable why librarians at a library convention once surrounded me and said, “We trust your research!” You can see why I am adamant, even in fiction and poetry, about the piece being well-written, well-researched, and three-dimensional believable characters who tap into our emotions. I set high standards for myself, and high standards for books I read and recommend.
As a journalist, author Shannon Bream did not disappoint by applying her skills to deep research of the 16 women she wrote about in this nonfiction book.
I have studied the Bible nearly my entire life and hadn’t realized Hagar was the first person to see an angel and the first to give God a name – El Ro-i, “the God of seeing.” Bream sets this book up in an unusual manner by pairing two women per chapter. Very unique!
After my poetry book about Bible women released, people kept asking if I had read The Women of the Bible Speak. (Our titles are even similar.) I had not read her book. (It is common to not read what you are writing about so as not to be influenced.)
Once I read Bream’s book, it was evident why people saw mine as a companion. I am a fan now,…
The women of the Bible lived timeless stories-by examining them, we can understand what it means to be a woman of faith.
People unfamiliar with Scripture often assume that women play a small, secondary role in the Bible. But in fact, they were central figures in numerous Biblical tales. It was Queen Esther's bravery at a vital point in history which saved her entire people. The Bible contains warriors like Jael, judges like Deborah, and prophets like Miriam. The first person to witness Jesus' resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who promptly became the first Christian…
I became a Christian when I was 16 and have studied the Bible throughout my lifetime. I have been a professional writer and author for more than 40 years. I have also studied literature at numerous universities and taught English, journalism, and writing. Combine all of these, and it is understandable why librarians at a library convention once surrounded me and said, “We trust your research!” You can see why I am adamant, even in fiction and poetry, about the piece being well-written, well-researched, and three-dimensional believable characters who tap into our emotions. I set high standards for myself, and high standards for books I read and recommend.
Francine Rivers has always been a master at writing biblical fiction.
As a teen my daughter read many of Rivers’s novels. But I never took the time to do so until another best-selling author recommended to me A Lineage of Grace. It is a collection of short stories, nearly the length of novellas, following five women in the lineage of Jesus Christ.
The story that captured me most was Tamar’s. I had never thought about her viewpoint as a Canaanite, or why she went to the extreme measure she did, pretending to be a prostitute, to hold her father-in-law Judah to his promise and bare his children.
I love books that make me see something on a slant, from a different viewpoint. There are also Bible study questions at the end of each woman’s story.
The complete biblical historical fiction compilation by the New York Times bestselling author of Redeeming Love and A Voice in the Wind.
The Bible is filled with inspiring stories of unlikely candidates God chose to change eternity. This bestselling compilation in one volume contains five novellas about such people―women in the family tree of Jesus Christ.
Tamar. Rahab. Ruth. Bathsheba. Mary.
Each was faced with extraordinary―even scandalous―challenges. But they had courage. They lived daring lives. Sometimes they made mistakes―big mistakes. And yet God, in His infinite mercy and grace, used them to bring forth the Christ, the Savior of the…
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
I became a Christian when I was 16 and have studied the Bible throughout my lifetime. I have been a professional writer and author for more than 40 years. I have also studied literature at numerous universities and taught English, journalism, and writing. Combine all of these, and it is understandable why librarians at a library convention once surrounded me and said, “We trust your research!” You can see why I am adamant, even in fiction and poetry, about the piece being well-written, well-researched, and three-dimensional believable characters who tap into our emotions. I set high standards for myself, and high standards for books I read and recommend.
What I loved most about this collection of free verse persona poetry were the poems about women in the Bible.
I found certain lines sticking with me, such as “I danced,” reflecting the cavalier attitude King Herod’s step-daughter Salome had regarding her part in the beheading of John the Baptist. The author was also thought-provoking in her viewpoint of motives for women such as Bathsheba.
The rest of the book is filled with poems about the author, Childress, growing up in Appalachia. However, the biblical women poems, in my opinion, are among the best I have read in this sub-genre.
In Outside the Frame, Catherine Pritchard Childress gives full-throated voice to those who are historically silenced, while bearing witness to a complex culture that both perpetuates that silence and cries out to be heard and to be seen. Seeking to subvert tradition in the pursuit of truth, these poems move seamlessly between worlds-the biblical and the contemporary, the mythical and the uncomfortably real. The speakers in here reflect not the poet, but any woman-all women-from Lot's wife to housewife-unnamed, unheard, yet unrelenting. Whether set in ancient history or contemporary Appalachia, these poems at once rage and sing, disrupt and reconcile.…
I am a Northern Irish crime writer. I worship storytellers, no matter if the stories are relayed on the page, the screen, or in songs. As long as the stories come across as real, then I am happy.
I, as a storyteller, endeavor to be more of a "camera" than a “writer.” I believe it’s all there waiting for me, and as a “camera,” I am allowed to go deep into myself and record all that my imagination is producing. I believe all the books I have selected have helped me in some small way understand why some of us can commit crimes while others can’t.
This time the detective whose shoes I am allowed to tread in are those of Cliff Janeway, a Denver Homicide detective, investigating the murder of a local rare books scout.
I grew to know what it feels like to be a detective. To someone like myself - who prefers to pick up my rare first editions, not on the internet but by rummaging around for hours in bookstores - this and the other titles in John Donning's atmospheric Janeway titles are pure mana from heaven.
The author ran the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver for a decade. Mr. Donning's writing voice is so authentic, I have to keep reminding myself that Janeway is the detective and not the author.
"A joy to read for its wealth of inside knowledge about the antiquarian book business and its eccentric traders." -The New York Times Book Review
In the bestselling first novel of the Cliff Janeway bibliomystery series, former Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway trades his badge for a bookstore-and quickly finds that rare books and murder make a volatile mix.
Janeway, a tough, book-loving cop with a penchant for collecting rare first editions, becomes obsessed with the death of local book scout Bobby Westfall-a gentle loner with a sharp eye for valuable volumes. When the lead suspect slips through the…
I came from a country town in Australia and I love the sense of community that’s still so woven into the fabric of society in country towns. That enjoyment drove me to write the award-winning Hope Creek Series, which has all the elements of small town romance I admire. The importance of a strong sense of identity within the community, support from townspeople in keeping each other’s secrets or in rallying around to try to help each other in times of crisis. The willingness to stand by a mate despite the mate being flawed.
I don’t mind a little bit of spice in romance books, but I also enjoy the sweeter romances that RaeAnne Thayne writes.
I agree that they have a real Hallmark flavour to them, and while I don’t write that style, I loved the Haven Point series. I find this author’s focus on families very satisfying; I love the relatability of her characters and the deep dive into the emotional connections between them.
I also like the way she handles more sensitive topics such as grief and depression. I think it’s really important to include such very important topics in romance novels, as I think the way the characters handle the situations they face can be an inspiration sometimes for readers who are going through similar dilemmas.
'A rising star in the romance world.' bestselling author Debbie Macomber
The first book in the New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne's Haven Point series.
A fresh start is all Eliza wants for Christmas...
Nothing short of a miracle can restore Eliza Hayward's Christmas cheer. The job she pinned her dreams on has gone up in smoke and now she's stuck in an unfamiliar little town for Christmas.
Enter Aidan Caine. He can help Eliza find the perfect Christmas project - the renovation of his lakeside guest lodge. Soon he sees how quickly he could fall for her.…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
I have enjoyed personal experiences that are probably unlike those of most women my age and background. I thought it would be a unique example to write about myself, growing up as a local child in British Colonial Singapore, at a time when most other local children who grew up in Singapore during the early 50s and 60s had lives fraught with hardships, poverty, and distress. The common theme is extensive in all the book references I have made, as every story is about someone’s growing-up years in an Oriental or Eastern environment, and their relationships or lack thereof, with their respective parent(s).
Her book inspired me to write my own memoir about my experiences as a local child living the life of an expat in the British colonial territory of Singapore in the 1960s.
This is her autobiographical memoir of her life and childhood. I found her story captured in a sophisticated writing style. It covers all the elements of how she kickstarted her career as a writer and the catalysts behind the stories of all her books.
From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir on her life as a writer, her childhood and the symbiotic relationship between fiction and emotional memory.
In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan is at her most intimate in revealing the truths and inspirations that underlie her extraordinary fiction.
By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gathers together evidence of all that made it both unlikely and inevitable…
People behave rationally and irrationally. Observing and thinking about human nature is the sport of my lifetime. In literature and art, I worship real wit. I thirst for the unusual, the deadpan, the acknowledging of one thing while another slips in unseen. Wit has been, for me, a shield and a tool for good. I try not to use it as a weapon because wit as a weapon often damages a wider target than one intends. I strive to endow my fictional women, my protagonists, with sharp yet understated wit that spares no one, not even themselves. Especially not themselves. The books I recommend here live up to my standards.
Protagonist Vera Kelly’s personality is the kind I grew up with in my blue-collar neighborhood. Sample line: “In fact I could tell she wanted to like me, which was probably why my first instinct was to lie to her.” Right on: If you didn’t have a cynical edge, you’d be somebody’s toast sooner or later.
Vera, a tech-savvy spy in the midst of the South American political upheaval of the 1960s, makes no big announcement about being queer, and she doesn’t consider herself some frail victim either. Cheers to that! I can relate.
Although I consider most contemporary novels to be tricked up and dumbed down, this one’s an exception. The writing’s unapologetically smart. I dig it. I’m in Mensa; what can I say?
New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA.
Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake…
I became fascinated by the origin and evolution of life as a chemistry student after watching the TV series The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. I have been thrilled by the dramatic breakthroughs that have occurred since then, and I’ve written many articles and reviews on this and related topics for newspapers and magazines such as the Guardian, Independent, The Times, Daily Mail, Financial Times, Scientific American, New Scientist, New Humanist, World Medicine, New Statesman, and three books on various aspects of the evolution of both life and technology, including Thinking Small and Large.
I have spent a lifetime researching the deep history of life.
All the books I’ve chosen demonstrate a convergence of exciting ideas, and I love the way Peter Brannen’s book joins the dots in a totally fresh way, showing how life gained energy at key stages, all involving CO2. It is the starting point for every living thing on the planet; it has regulated the climate throughout 4 billion years, and through the fossil remains of ancient photosynthesis has powered our world since the Industrial Revolution.
In a world seeking answers to deep-rooted problems, this is the most powerful message for the future that we need. I have never before been so mindblown by a book.
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn't merely the by-product of burning fossil fuels—it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable…
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…
I’ve been an avid reader since childhood. I read almost all genres, but my favorite genre is fiction. I love fiction for the escape, and I love it even more when the books stay with me long after I’ve finished reading the last page. Whether it’s the amazing characters, provocative themes, or enviable relationships, most of my favorite books are the ones that I can’t stop thinking about. I’d love to give readers the same joy when they read my books and hope they continue to think about my characters long after they’re done reading.
AN INSTANT BESTSELLER! Pre-order now to receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION-only available on the first printing while supplies last! The collector's hardcover features solid sprayed edges and illustrated endpapers.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Measure-the million-copy bestseller and a Read with Jenna TODAY Show pick-comes a stunning speculative story of healing, self-discovery, forgiveness, and found friendship.
"A masterful, tender exploration of love, loss, and the poignant echoes of memory... A profoundly moving read." -Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
