Here are 83 books that Love After Love fans have personally recommended if you like
Love After Love.
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I am the product of a love triangle—an unusual one, between a French Holocaust survivor, an African student from France’s colonies, and a black GI. My parents came of age during really turbulent times and led big, bold lives. They rarely spoke about their pasts, but once I began digging—in the letters they exchanged, in conversations with my grandmother and aunts, with their childhood friends—I realized that all three had witnessed up close so much of the drama and horrors of the twentieth century and that what they had lived together merited being told. My parents’ love triangle is at the heart of my love of love-triangle stories.
Likemy first recommendation, this is a classic love triangle story, classically told. I’m rooting for Fermina and Florentino to realize the dream love that they imagined in their youths and that they wrote out in all those letters. And then life intercedes…
As in so much of Garcia Marquez’s work, there aren’t clear heroes and villains, just characters I care deeply about and watch—biting my nails all the while—as they make decisions that end up complicating and eventually compromising their own hopes and aspirations.
There are novels, like journeys, which you never want to end: this is one of them. One seventh of July at six in the afternoon, a woman of 71 and a man of 78 ascend a gangplank and begin one of the greatest adventures in modern literature. The man is Florentino Ariza, President of the Carribean River Boat Company; the woman is his childhood sweetheart, the recently widowed Fermina Daza. She has earache. He is bald and lame. Their journey up-river, at an age when they can expect 'nothing more in life', holds out a shimmering promise: the consummation of…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Sometimes, the setting of a novel can stay with you long after the details of the plot and characters have faded. My debut novel, The Lindens, was inspired by my grandmother’s home in the Wiltshire countryside where I grew up. As much as the house itself, I wanted to bring to life the land and nature around it: the garden and the orchard, the meadows and the woods, the plants and the birds and the changing seasons. I hope it’s a home that readers feel they can inhabit – just like the ones on this list.
Come for the oil paintings and the glass doors, stay for a tender and poignant portrait of family life. The Philadelphia mansion at the heart of this novel casts a spell over its characters – it’s the childhood home that Danny and Maeve have been banished from but are inexorably drawn back to.
Ann Patchett is one of my favourite contemporary novelists – few writers unpack their characters’ emotional baggage with such warmth, wit, and compassion.
Lose yourself in the story of a lifetime - the unforgettable Sunday Times bestseller
'Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature' Guardian
Nominated for the Women's Prize 2020
A STORY OF TWO SIBLINGS, THEIR CHILDHOOD HOME, AND A PAST THAT THEY CAN'T LET GO.
Like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns. We pretended that what we had lost was the house, not our mother, not our father. We pretended that what we had lost had been taken from us by the person who still lived inside.
In the…
I was born in a Jamaican far-district just before independence. That historical fact is only one aspect of my in-between childhood. My daily imaginative fare was European fairy tales; my mother’s stories of growing up; and folktales, rife with plantation monsters, that my grand-uncle told. There was no distance between life and those tales: our life was mythic. The district people were poor. So they understood inexactitudes profoundly enough to put two and two together and make five. They worshipped integrity, and church was central. Inevitably, genre-crossing, “impossible” realities, and the many ways love interrupts history, were set in my imagination by the time I was seven and knew I would write.
The love triangle in this debut novel is unusual but wholly believable, when you consider the history between its two settings: Jamaica and the USA. A frightened 18-year-old from Kingston’s inner city gives up her baby to the wealthy American couple for whom she works as a maid. Years later when a young American man and his parents come to the island, Dinah is convinced that he is her long-lost son, and she cannot be unconvinced. At the end, we think about the astonishing ways love crosses but never dissolves barriers of race, class, national origin, and above all, family. Sharma Taylor’s purposive genre-bending (love story, crime story, yard fiction), is part of the book’s riches, as is the tenderness of her empathic insight.
'An outstanding debut' CHERIE JONES, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House
'Vivid and authentic' LEONE ROSS, author of This One Sky Day
'Cacophonic, alive and heartbreaking' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of The Mercies
As featured on BBC's Cultural Frontline podcast
At eighteen years old, Dinah gave away her baby son to the rich couple she worked for before they left Jamaica. They never returned. She never forgot him.
Eighteen years later, a young man comes from the US to Kingston. From the moment she sees him, Dinah never doubts - this is her son.
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I was born in a Jamaican far-district just before independence. That historical fact is only one aspect of my in-between childhood. My daily imaginative fare was European fairy tales; my mother’s stories of growing up; and folktales, rife with plantation monsters, that my grand-uncle told. There was no distance between life and those tales: our life was mythic. The district people were poor. So they understood inexactitudes profoundly enough to put two and two together and make five. They worshipped integrity, and church was central. Inevitably, genre-crossing, “impossible” realities, and the many ways love interrupts history, were set in my imagination by the time I was seven and knew I would write.
For me, growing up in the Caribbean, books that don’t separate between the “naturalistic” world and so-called “other” worlds, always ring uniquely true. Gorée is a transnational story set in Castries, St. Lucia, New York City, USA, Dakar, Senegal, and London, England. It’s the story of a family whose great losses parallel the loss of Africa's children through the transatlantic slave trade and the difficult, if not impossible, return of those stolen away. The novel’s love and loss stories are all in some way are filtered through the door of no return on Gorée Island in Senegal. The stories are not told in the physical realm only and do not only rely on physical portals. Barry's loves and lovers must return to the past and make the journey in spirit too.
A contemporary portrait of estrangement, this novel explores the African diaspora and the encounters made by people of African descent as they journey from New York to London, St. Lucia, and Senegal. Traveling to Africa to meet her ex-husband’s new family, Magdalene and her daughter Khadi are brought face-to-face with the perils of forgotten pasts—both social and cultural. And when Khadi's trip to the slave port of Goree takes an unfavorable turn, certain divisions in global culture become evident, making this a powerful investigation into the continuing repercussions of the slave trade.
I’m an award-winning author whose books are all set on my beautiful island of Barbados. Reading and writing have always been a part of my life and I’m obsessed with books that explore other cultures and lifestyles. There’s nothing more intoxicating than reading about new foods and new environments all interconnected by our shared humanity. They could be fantasy books with great world-building or literary fiction that explore a tiny Asian city I never heard about. All of these incredible books have influenced my writing and expanded my knowledge of the world around me.
Probably one of the darker reads on my list but, man! This Trinidadian book delivers such top-notch story-telling that you’ll ask yourself why you don’t read more Caribbean fiction.
This book also looks at twins but the choices are taken out of their hands and placed in those of their parents. The author injected it with a bit of humour but it’s also a tear-jerker in the end. I highly recommend.
A TIMES AND EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB FIRST NOVEL AWARD WINNER OF THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2020 ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE AND THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FIRST BOOK AWARD
WINNER OF BARNES & NOBLE'S 2019 DISCOVER NEW WRITERS PRIZE
'So hard to put down.' Daily Mail
'Startling . . . Remarkable.' Economist
'Right away I was utterly absorbed.' Sarah Jessica Parker
One father. Two sons. An impossible choice.
When thirteen-year-old Paul doesn't return home one afternoon, even…
Having taught college courses on and written books about theatre, film, and popular music for over forty years, I have great respect for those who write about the popular art form known as musical theatre. As a theatergoer, I've watched the Broadway (and Off-Broadway) musical develop, change, and sometimes decline. It seems musicals are more popular today than ever before; they certainly are more diverse. I grew up with the traditional Rodgers and Hammerstein model and have seen musicals take on new forms over the years.
It is an exciting art form that deserves to be written about.
If you are looking for a highly opinionated and passionate account of the Broadway musical and the changes it has undergone over the decades, this book is for you. Grant does not pull his punches and the general tone is one of despair at the decline in the quality of musicals. But the book is well researched and offers many provocative ideas which the die-hard musical fan will find fascinating. It's the kind of work that you want to read after you have a solid knowledge of American musical theatre and you want to have your traditional ideas challenged.
Winner of the ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award (2005)Many of today’s Broadway shows, from Rent to The Lion King, have become commercial hits, but do they have the cultural importance or the dramatic and musical artistry of such enduring productions as Oklahoma!, Show Boat, or Kiss Me, Kate? Mark N. Grant traces the transformation of singing and melody, libretto and lyric writing, dance rhythms, sound design, and choreography and stage direction through three distinct eras: the formative period (1866–1927), the golden age (1927–1966), and the fall (1967 to the present). He explores how and why the unsophisticated genre of pre-1927 musical comedy…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
Since adolescence I’ve written scripts, stories, and songs. For ten years I wrote songs and sketches for NPR’s Morning Edition as “Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters.” Among my young-adult novels, my favorite remains Alex Icicle: A Romance in Ten Torrid Chapters, a literate howl of romantic obsession by an over-educated and under-loved madman. I think my funniest comedy novel is Who’s Killing the Great Writers of America?that not only kills off some famous writers, but simultaneously parodies their style. And, of course, Stephen King ends up solving the whole crazy conspiracy. I taught writing for many years, and I’m pleased to report that my students taught me more than anything I ever taught them.
While the prose style of Act One is a little fussy, florid, and overly eager to impress, this is still a moving, funny, and emotional biography of a talented, ambitious young man who is determined to make his mark as a Broadway playwright. And, at the end, when he single-handedly turns his out-of-town failure (co-written with George S. Kaufman) into a hit, you want to stand up and cheer.
Moss Hart's Act One, which Lincoln Center Theater presented in 2014 as a play written and directed by James Lapine, is one of the great American memoirs, a glorious memorial to a bygone age filled with all the wonder, drama, and heartbreak that surrounded Broadway in the early twentieth century. Hart's story inspired a generation of theatergoers, dramatists, and readers everywhere as he eloquently chronicled his impoverished childhood and his long, determined struggle to reach the opening night of his first Broadway hit. Act One is the quintessential American success story.
I have always loved history, from ancient Egyptian times up to recent history (the 1950s and 1960s). Put history in the context of a crime and the history becomes even more fascinating. A book where the history of that time comes vividly alive for the reader is the greatest pleasure a reader can experience.
Agatha Christie is deservedly the world’s best-selling crime writer, and most of her readers are familiar with Miss Marple and Hercules Poirot, but with this book we have the undiscovered gems of the mysterious Harley Quin and his partner Mr. Satterthwaite. The book is evocative of England in the 1930s. It makes for addictive reading and shows Christie at her very best.
A unique offering from the Queen of Crime. This Agatha Christie Signature Edition features the hero the world-famous author was most fond of - Mr Harley Quin, the enigmatic friend and counterpart of the rational Mr Satterthwaite.
So far, it had been a typical New Year's Eve house party. But Mr Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - sensed that the real drama of the evening was yet to unfold.
So it proved when a mysterious stranger arrived after midnight. Who was this Mr Quin? And why did his presence have such a pronounced effect on Eleanor Portal,…
As a brainy, bullied Queer theater kid, I was 14 before I ever saw anyone like myself onstage or onscreen. Then—Wham—in June of 1980 I sawA Chorus Lineon Broadway and Fame at the movies. But there weren’t any books that showed the theater life as it was actually lived. When I published my love letter to my high school theater friends in 2004, no one had written a novel about our kind. Today, as someone who’s managed to make a living as a writer-director of musicals, I strive to share the whole truth with the young artists I mentor.
Everything that can wrong in live theatre happened to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark—and on the biggest scale possible. How Glen Berger, the only non-rich and famous person on the creative team ofThe Lion Kingdirector Julie Taymor and U2 rockers Bono and The Edge, managed to tell all without being sued is a mystery. Maybe it’s because the fights, failures, and firings are all just another day at work on Broadway—as are the accidents. Every outrageous incident Berger relates I have personally experienced in the musicals I’ve written—from on Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway and around the globe. ReadingSong of Spider-Man prepared me for the worst, from producers applying Mafia-style pressure to witnessing an actor plummet to the stage like a dead weight.
As you might imagine, writing a Broadway musical has its challenges. But it turns out there are challenges one can't begin to imagine when collaborating with two rock legends and a superstar director to stage the biggest, most expensive production in theatre history. Renowned director Julie Taymor picked playwright Glen Berger to co-write the book for a $25 million Spider-Man musical. Together-along with U2's Bono and Edge-they would shape a work that was technically daring and emotionally profound, with a story fuelled by the hero's quest for love...and the villains' quest for revenge. Or at least, that's what they'd hoped…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I’ve always had a passion for wounded heroes and strong heroines. My earliest memories are reading books where the heroine saves the day. I’ve never wanted the heroine to need the hero in order to make her life complete. Even as a child, when my dad read me books at night—one of my favorite memories—I preferred stories where the heroine saved the day. As an adult, I’ve loved to read stories where the hero is brave enough to show his vulnerable side, and when I decided to become a writer, those were the books I wanted to write.
Another wounded hero book, but I’m choosing this one because not only is it one of my favorites from the series, but Lynn Kurland packs so much emotion into every page that I cry and laugh and live the book while I’m reading it and long after.
It’s time travel (but they always seem to bring chocolate with them ☺ ) and the love is so strong. Her stories are like catnip.
From Lynn Kurland, the New York Times bestselling author of the Nine Kingdom series.
Set near the Scottish border at a rugged castle on the edge of the sea, this is the story of a courageous lord who lost everything he held dear. Of a strong young woman willing to sacrifice everything for happiness. Two lost souls who find in each other a reason to live again, to laugh again, and to love for the first time...
