Here are 100 books that Lock and Key fans have personally recommended if you like
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It’s quite simple, I just love history. I particularly like the dual timeline format because it’s a reminder that what has happened in the past remains relevant to the present. The narratives might be set hundreds of years apart, but there are common themes that continue to shape our lives and define us as human beings–some of them good and others that are potentially more destructive. I now write this sort of fiction, and I continue to devour it as a reader. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have.
At the time of writing, this is the last book I read, in the couple of weeks before the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Powerful is the only way to describe it.
I think it’s the ordinariness of the characters, particularly the main protagonists, that makes it so powerful. None of them had any training or expertise that would have helped them to ‘fight’ back, to resist; they are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things, which is what happened during the Second World War, particularly in occupied France.
It’s a reminder that we should never forget our history—even when it isn’t very palatable—and hope that one day we might start to learn from it.
Soon to be a major motion picture, The Nightingale is a multi-million copy bestseller across the world. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the endurance of women.
This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II when women's stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.
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…
One of the things I love most about fiction is the way it allows you to “be” different people—to experience, think, feel, and behave from inside a particular temperament, worldview, or experience. My very favorite is adding the complexity of multiple perspectives to that magic trick so that you get to live inside two or more people who may be at complete odds with each other. Reading good fiction is an exercise in empathy, and reading good fiction from multiple viewpoints is empathy supercharged. I’ve loved that immersion since I was a little kid who believed there was nothing better than a novel.
This novel is an immersive read with heaps of empathy for all its characters but especially for the two sisters whose perspectives are at the center of the story: the twin who disappears to live a secret life, passing as white, and the twin left behind.
We don’t get the perspective of Stella, the vanished twin, until 14 years after her disappearance, 150 pages into the book. By then, I was fully absorbed in the grief and unanswered questions of the people she’d abandoned, eager to finally know where she’d been all this time and to understand her complex motivations and the emotional and mental toll of relinquishing—and hiding—her racial identity, her community, her sister, and her past. I picked this book up and didn’t put it down until it was done.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP BESTSELLER #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE
'An utterly mesmerising novel..I absolutely loved this book' Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize 2019
'Epic' Kiley Reid, O, The Oprah Magazine
'Favourite book [of the] year' Issa Rae
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years…
I’ve led a storied life. One of six children, I married and divorced before the age of 20 and moved from Santa Cruz, California to New York City in my early 30s. I carved out my career as a writer while scraping by on government assistance as a single mom. They say write what you know, and I did just that. My first novel, Garden of Lies, became a New York Times bestseller, skyrocketing me from poverty to financial security. I’ve since gone on to publish 20 novels about family relationships, romantic love, and reversals of fortune. With more to come!
Give me a mystery with a fast-paced narrative and an interesting hero or heroine, and I’m hooked. This mystery, the first in a series, ticks all the boxes. When Maddie, an autistic dog handler and rumored animal psychic, discovers a dead body, she tells one reporter, "The crows told me where to look.” With that line, the book takes off down a path with many twists and turns. I fell in love with Maddie, the quirky and courageous heroine, but what resonated with me most, as one of five sisters, is the relationship between Maddie and her big sister Kenzie. The two are tight. Kenzie sees it as her role to nurture and corral Maddie in equal measures, forever trying and often failing to get her to act “normal.” Maddie chafes under her guidance but adores her. The strong and often complicated bond between sisters is vividly depicted here. I…
Can she save herself by saving the dog she loves?From Library Journal Women's Summer Reading and Romantic Times Editor's Choice author Marta Acosta comes a "heart-breaking and heart-warming" story about taking risks, making friends, and finding love, while staying true to yourself.
Broken-hearted Maddie Whitney, aka Mad Girl, is a dog trainer whose significant behavioral issues make her an outcast in the quirky small town of Coyote Run. When Maddie discovers a murdered woman in a field, she impulsively claims that she's an animal psychic to promote her canine rehabilitation center and save the family ranch.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’ve always had a soft spot for books on sisterhood. Perhaps it’s because I have a sister, but it’s partly because I’ve also lucked out on wonderful girlfriends who’ve taken the role of sisters at various stages of my life. There is an immense power in female relationships, and it’s a theme I often explore through my writing. Both my novels, The Marriage Clock and The Retreat center around strong women who consistently and generously show up for each other. I’ve compiled a list of books to celebrate the many sisters in our lives—through blood and friendship. I hope you find them as enjoyable to read as I have!
As someone perpetually in search of a good romcom, I found this story of three sisters who have inherited their family’s wedding planning business delightful.
While there is no shortage of spats and disagreements as each sister attempts to define her role within the business and family, when disaster strikes, it’s lovely to see them rally together and help each other find her own happily ever after.
One of BuzzFeed's "Books Coming Out This Summer That You Need to Seriously Read" * One of Bustle's "New Romance Novels to Make Your Spring Reading Even Dreamier Than You Imagined"
A charming romantic comedy about three sisters who are struggling to keep the family wedding planning business afloat-all the while trying to write their own happily-ever-afters in the process.
All's fair in love and business.
The de la Rosa family and their wedding planning business have been creating happily ever afters in the Washington, DC area for years, making even the most difficult bride's day a fairytale. But when…
As a mom of three who's struggled to find a balance between parenting, career, and meeting my own needs, I'm intensely interested in the way our society views motherhood. There are so many different ways to become a mother and so many different opinions about what makes a “good mom.” On the one hand, our culture has incredibly high expectations and seems to judge women no matter what choices they make. At the same time, we don’t offer struggling moms basic supports like low-cost childcare, mental health benefits, or paid maternity leave. I love reading novels that recognize this paradox and take a generous view of the many definitions of motherhood.
I couldn’t put this one down! I kept asking myself what I would have done if I was in the same situation as Sarah, who found herself accidentally kidnapping a child to protect her from an abusive mom. The story made me think deeply about whether biology or bonding should matter more when deciding who deserves to raise a child.
I love it when authors aren’t afraid to dive into the perspective of unlikeable characters, and I appreciated that Frey gives us chapters from the perspective of the biological mom, whose misery and overwhelm I found relatable even as her parenting choices made me cringe.
Emma Grace Townsend. Five years old. Gray eyes. Brown hair. Missing since June.
Emma Townsend is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude.
Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Abandoned by her mother. Kidnapper.
Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal - and when a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her, far away from home. But if it's to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?
I love book club.If I could make it a requirement for everyone in the universe to give it a try, I would. I was an English major in college, so that feeling of ending an amazing story and needing someone to discuss it with never fully went away. All book club books should be thought-provoking, but the best add that intricate and wholehearted understanding, I think, that only literature can. Why do the characters you least understood or felt a kinship with suddenly have your heart, what do they want, need, feel, think? I hope these novels help you better understand. The who and what are beside the point.
I think I’ll be recommending this book to people until the end of time. It’s just so, so good.
What I love most about it is it brings a forgotten part of history to life: a time when orphanages in 1950s Quebec misdiagnosed children as mentally ill to qualify for the better funding allocated to psychiatric hospitals. An obscure moment in history, generations of family scandals and secrets, and a forbidden love story? Yes, please.
Philomena meets Orphan Train in this suspenseful, provocative novel filled with love, secrets, and deceit—the story of a young unwed mother who is forcibly separated from her daughter at birth and the lengths to which they go to find each other.
In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility—much like Maggie Hughes’ parents. Maggie’s English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don’t include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie’s heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby…
A grumpy-sunshine, slow-burn, sweet-and-steamy romance set in wild and beautiful small-town Colorado. Lane Gravers is a wanderer, adventurer, yoga instructor, and social butterfly when she meets reserved, quiet, pensive Logan Hickory, a loner inventor with a painful past.
Dive into this small-town, steamy romance between two opposites who find love…
As a former teen who faced my own slew of challenges, I became a YA author who writes about teen characters who do the same. It’s not easy being an adolescent these days: From the seeming hopelessness of some social, academic, and family situations to the lack of support many teens receive, things can seem pretty bleak at times. As the protagonists in books like the ones I’ve mentioned here show us, however, there are many good people out there who are willing to help if we’re willing to hang in there and keep pushing forward toward a better day and a better life.
Boy Toy is a book that stands out for me because it tackles a rarely discussed subject in young adult literature—the sexual abuse of boys. In this case, the protagonist, Josh, was molested by a teacher when he was younger. Now that he is about to graduate from high school, the repercussions of that abuse, along with the everyday stress he deals with, is coming back to haunt him. Lyga handles this subject matter in an unflinching and realistic way, which can be uncomfortable at times. That said, Boy Toy is definitely a worthwhile, original read.
Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is. Five years ago, Josh’s life changed. Drastically. And everyone in his school, his town—seems like the world—thinks they understand. But they don’t—they can’t. And now, about to graduate from high school, Josh is still trying to sort through the pieces. First there’s Rachel, the girl he thought he’d lost years ago. She’s back, and she’s determined to be part of his life, whether he wants her there or not.Then there are college decisions to make, and the toughest baseball game of his life coming up, and a coach who…
I’ve been fascinated with the macabre since childhood and have always been drawn to the darker sides of humanity. In nearly every story, the villain is my favorite character, and I’m most intrigued with their motives. From The Magic Tree House to Artemis Fowl to The Hunger Games to The Purge, I’ve consumed as much sci-fi, dystopian, thriller fiction as possible my entire life. I’ve written several thriller novels and dystopian books and have worked with Bradley Fuller, the producer of The Purge and A Quiet Place, on the possible movie adaptation of my debut novel. If you also like dystopian thrillers, feel free to check out my recommendations!
I appreciated how this book lingered in my brain long after finishing it, both because of the fast-paced action and because of the compelling characters. I was never a hundred percent certain who were the “good guys” and who were the “bad guys” which kept me glued to the pages until I was finished.
It really was an edge-of-your-seat page turner. I loved the gritty vibe, sharp wit, and brutal storylines that reminded me of old YA novels pushing boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn’t.
Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.
Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her—people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to eliminate the abuser of another. They’re taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los…
I used to be afraid of the thriller section, assuming it was synonymous with horror. It took me until my 30s to register that I’d been reading thrillers for years without realising it. Tomorrow When the War Began, the Hunger Games, A Wrinkle in Time, The Darkest Minds, Mortal Engines: they’re all big loves. I’ve come to realise that thriller basically just means heart-pumping. There’s something about a book keeping you on the edge of your seat, desperate to turn the page and find out what happens next.
I was in a reading slump when I read this book, and it jump-started my love of reading again. I was genuinely impressed by the cleverly woven descent of Coriolanus Snow’s mind into the evil President Snow we witness in the Hunger Games trilogy (plus all the easter eggs along the way). This book was so good I read it twice back-to-back.
Ambition will fuel him.Competition will drive him.But power has its price.
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District…
A fake date, romance, and a conniving co-worker you'd love to shut down. Fun summer reading!
Liza loves helping people and creating designer shoes that feel as good as they look. Financially overextended and recovering from a divorce, her last-ditch opportunity to pitch her firm for investment falls flat. Then…
I am the product of biracial parents, and the idea of passing or not has always fascinated me as well as disgusted me. The reasons one would want to pass in this era are much different than the survival aspect my ancestors who passed had to consider in the 19th century. In writing my YA historical novels, being biracial always enters in, no matter the topic, because it is who I am and, in the end, always rears its head for consideration.
I love this book because it is very well written, blending prose and poetry to tell a very compelling and personal story about a young man struggling with a reason for living amid a confusing personal tragedy.
Jaime happens to be my cousin, so of course, I love it for that reason. But that aside, since Jaime is also biracial, this book is a must-read for exploring identity and its emotional implications.
Sixteen-year-old Jayson Porter wants to believe things will get better. But the harsh realities of his life never seem to change. Living in the inland-Florida projects with his abusive mother, he tries unsuccessfully to fit in at his predominately white school, while struggling to maintain even a thread of a relationship with his drug-addicted father. As the pressure mounts, there's only one thing Jayson feels he has control over--the choice of whether to live or die.
In this powerful, gripping novel, Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Jaime Adoff explores the harsh reality of a teenager's life, giving hope even in…
