Here are 85 books that On the Edge fans have personally recommended if you like
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I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because it is another time-slip novel, but mostly because of the characters that Gabaldon has created. Claire is a strong woman both in the present time zone–post-war Britain–and the Scottish Highland time zone of the seventeenth century and the uprising. You sense immediately that she is in danger as the story is told from her point of view.
I loved learning about the lives of the Scottish highlanders, how the story moves from one-time zone to another, and how the characters overlap.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and…
Betty Lennox is an elemental witch desperate to leave her desert hometown of Smokethorn, California, and sell the paranormal seniors' trailer park she inherited from her mother.
Running low on cash to maintain the park's protection spell, she accepts a dangerous job: procuring a cursed grimoire so deadly even the…
I’ve always been fascinated by things paranormal and supernatural. There is so much in the “real” world that we don’t understand and can’t prove their existence, but there is enough video and photos, as well as stories, that I don’t see how we can say there’s not more beyond our five senses. Many of my own books center on paranormal abilities and events, and I do love reading about them as well!
Carmen has created a more “ordinary world” in which extraordinary people exist in the shadows. There is romance and danger and suspense, but I like that there’s no graphic violence here. Each book in this series focuses on a different couple.
Derrick's desire to save one human girl will ignite a war...
For four thousand years, creatus have concealed themselves from the humans who hunted them almost to extinction. Unwittingly, one creatus will endanger them all...
As with most of his family, Derrick Ashton knows his future and what position he's destined to fill within his unique society. Everything changes, however, when he breaks one of his family's strictest laws and falls in love -- with a human.
In his quest to protect the woman he can never have, a twist of fate propels him into a new role that will…
I’ve always been fascinated by things paranormal and supernatural. There is so much in the “real” world that we don’t understand and can’t prove their existence, but there is enough video and photos, as well as stories, that I don’t see how we can say there’s not more beyond our five senses. Many of my own books center on paranormal abilities and events, and I do love reading about them as well!
This book is also set in an ordinary world in a small Georgia town (I think it’s Georgia!), with an extraordinary family whose lineage has women with magical powers. The townsfolk know about the “odd” family, but they aren’t wholly shunned. Each woman has her own vulnerabilities and life journey. I loved the magic and cranky apple tree!
Readers fell in love with Sarah Addison Allen's debut novel, GARDEN SPELLS. Now the tale of the Waverley women is to be revisited with a magical sequel.
Autumn has finally arrived in the small town of Bascom, North Carolina, heralded by a strange old man appearing with a beaten-up suitcase. He has stories to tell, stories that could change the lives of the Waverley women forever. But the Waverleys have enough trouble on their hands. Quiet Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley's Candies, but it's nothing like she thought it would be, and it's slowly taking over…
Planetary blockades. Rampant viral outbreaks. Can two ex-lovers forge a path through the stars to save their world?
Independent trader Gavril Danilovich is slowly slipping into madness. Stuck in quarantine on a dying planet, his raw talent to feel everyone’s emotions has him wrestling with waves of terror and rage.…
I’ve always been fascinated by things paranormal and supernatural. There is so much in the “real” world that we don’t understand and can’t prove their existence, but there is enough video and photos, as well as stories, that I don’t see how we can say there’s not more beyond our five senses. Many of my own books center on paranormal abilities and events, and I do love reading about them as well!
This is an outlier book here, the “true” story about a man who led a rather messy life, was killed in an accident, and communicated with his sister from the other side. The core messages are uplifting: we never really die, and no matter the mistakes we make in our life here, we are always loved and on track with our soul’s journey and growth.
In 2004, bad boy Billy Fingers Cohen, a homeless small-time drug dealer and addict in a state of drug induced euphoria ran into a busy intersection and was killed instantly by a speeding automobile. He left behind a grieving sister. For weeks she struggled with grief and tried to make sense of Billy's seemingly wasted life and tragic death.
A few weeks after his death, William Cohen, aka Billy Fingers, woke his sister Annie at dawn. 'I'm drifting weightlessly through these glorious stars and galaxies and I feel a Divine Presence, a kind, loving beneficent presence, twinkling all around me.'…
I grew up reading all kinds of stories, but I was also a big fan of playing outdoors. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was always a favorite of mine, but as an adult, I realized something…the one main female character who was my age, Becky Thatcher, didn’t seem to like adventure at all! I loved the idea of Becky being as much of a mischief-maker as the boys – and that became my first novel, The Actual and Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher. I love retellings of classics and how they respect the original story, but are also able to imagine a new path! I hope all readers have adventures, inside and outside of books!
More to the Story by Hena Khan is a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women. This version features four Muslim Pakistani-American sisters who live in Georgia. Their experiences and personalities both mirror and bring new light to the characters that I read and appreciated as a child. The novel delves into the personal challenges and joint effort of being a family in ways that are authentic and familiar. The details of setting and culture make the characters and story truly stand on their own. The importance of empathy, individuality, and support are all things that I loved about this book.
From the critically acclaimed author of Amina's Voice comes a new story inspired by Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic, Little Women, featuring four sisters from a modern American Muslim family living in Georgia.
When Jameela Mirza is picked to be feature editor of her middle school newspaper, she's one step closer to being an award-winning journalist like her late grandfather. The problem is her editor-in-chief keeps shooting down her article ideas. Jameela's assigned to write about the new boy in school, who has a cool British accent but doesn't share much, and wonders how she'll make his story gripping enough…
I grew up a farm kid and then worked as a park ranger fresh out of college. This background draws me to the history of American preservation, where so much that seems natural also has deep cultural roots. I find the American South—with its combination of irony and tragedy, beauty, and flaws—the most fascinating place on earth to study. Or maybe I’m just pulling for the home team.
This history of Providence Canyon in southwestern Georgia explores a seemingly ironic state park: one dedicated to preserving a network of massive erosion gullies formed by poor cotton farming. But Providence Canyon is so much more than ironic, as this book beautifully illustrates. Yes, improvident farming harmed the land—as was the case across much of the South—but the spectacular gullies of Stewart County came from the intersection of human abuse and terrifyingly fragile soil structures. And they are somehow sublimely beautiful, despite their grim past. The park is perhaps the perfect place to witness the way in which human and natural actions are always tied together. Come for the gullies, stay for the lessons!
Providence Canyon State Park, also known as Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon," preserves a network of massive erosion gullies allegedly caused by poor farming practices during the nineteenth century. It is a park that protects the scenic results of an environmental disaster. While little known today, Providence Canyon enjoyed a modicum of fame in the 1930s. During that decade, local boosters attempted to have Providence Canyon protected as a national park, insisting that it was natural. At the same time, national and international soil experts and other environmental reformers used Providence Canyon as the apotheosis of human, and particularly southern, land…
I’ve been an avid horror fan since staying up late and watching old monster movies on the television when I was a kid. Zombies were always my favorite and after reading hundreds of zombie books I thought I could write with a unique perspective. Drawing from years of military, trucking, and prepping experience, I wrote the Zombie Road series as a tale that offered more hope than doom and gloom. Most of the characters are based on real people so they have real personalities, real hopes and dreams, and real flaws. If you decide to read the series and want to be surprised by the story arc, don’t read too many reviews, just dive right in.
Pierce writes intelligent military zompoc because he’d been in the thick of things during the Rhodesian war. He knows a thing or two about writing battle scenes because he’s done a thing or two in real life. This story is different because it isn’t about a tiny group of survivors trying to make through the apocalypse. It’s bigger in scope and encompasses one governor and the national guard doing all they can to hold the line against the undead hordes. Intelligent writing and “believable” scenarios set this military thriller apart from many of the rest.
In the midst of a Zombie apocalypse and nuclear horror the libertarian governor of Georgia must impose martial law and act against her personal beliefs to enable the people of her state to survive. Ultimately new problems arise: mass insanity and almost universal PTSD. Virtually everyone is armed and suicides actually threaten human viability. In Georgia the National Guard, State Defense Forces and militia fight a series of desperate battles while the central government unleashed a frenzied and ill planned nuclear response that almost completed what the re-animates had failed to accomplish. With Washington buried in radioactive dust, US Army…
Working as a prosecutor, trial lawyer for defendants, and as a magistrate, I’m always bothered by the misconception most people have of our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, cops are crooked, judges are corrupt, and witnesses lie on the stand. Not everyone, not every day, but more often than you would ever imagine. I write true crime books about cases where the underlying focus is on officials who are incompetent, derelict in their duties, or simply downright corrupt. The cases are always suspenseful, but justice is rarely served, and both the defendant and the public are the ones who lose.
When you live in Columbus, Georgia, this one takes on special meaning. During an eight-month period in 1977 and 1978, Columbus was terrorized by a mysterious serial killer who raped and ritualistically strangled seven elderly women in one of the community’s finer neighborhoods.
Despite intensive efforts on the part of the police, who proved to be incompetent, the Stocking Strangler, as he came to be known, managed to elude capture. After the last murder in April 1978, the case went cold. In the spring of 1984, a series of fortuitous events connected to an unrelated murder and a stolen pistol led to the capture of Carlton Gary, who had recently escaped from a South Carolina prison.
Following a dramatic trial in August 1986, Gary was convicted of three of the seven Columbus murders and sentenced to death, a penalty that would not be carried out until March 2018.
During an eight-month period in 1977 and 1978, the city of Columbus, Georgia, was terrorized by a mysterious serial killer who raped and ritualistically strangled seven elderly women in one of the community's finer neighborhoods. Despite intensive efforts on the part of police the Stocking Strangler, as he came to be known, managed to elude capture. After the last murder in April 1978, the case went cold. In the spring of 1984, a series of fortuitous events connected to an unrelated murder and a stolen pistol led to the capture of Carlton Gary, who had recently escaped from a South…
Nobody’s Magicbegan, not as the series of novellas it became, but as a collection of stories I couldn’t stop telling. And it wasn’t just my characters’ comings and goings that enthralled me. It was the way they demanded I let them tell their own stories. I enjoy reading and writing novellas because they allow space for action, voice, and reflection, and they can tackle manifold themes and conversations in a space that is both large and small. At the same time, they demand endings that are neither predictable nor neat, but rather force the reader to speculate on what becomes of these characters they’ve come to know and love.
I have loved Black literature written in Southern AAVE since reading Charles Chesnutt’sThe Conjure Woman in graduate school.But perhaps what I love most about the narrator, Octavia (also known as Sweet Pea), is that she’s fluent in many languages: the language of the hood where she lives, of the classroom where she excels, and of the playground, where her poverty is often a cause for ridicule, but where her sassy, outspoken nature is treated with grudging respect. Early 1980s Atlanta is an unsafe place for children: drugs, gangs, and the Atlanta Child Murders are threatening their very existence, and like many of the stories on my list, Octavia’s triptych also ends with a departure. However, her wit and savvy make clear that, wherever she lands, she’s going to be alright.
In the summer of 1979 black children were disappearing from the streets of Atlanta. By the time this heinous killing spree was over, 29 children were dead. This haunting menace provides a powerful backdrop to the stories of three young children fighting the painful everyday battle of adolescence. Tasha, Rodney and Octavia each has a unique voice and story and each is struggling to find a path through the turmoil. Tasha, who is coping with the separation of her parents, is discovering the first sweet pain of a crush on a tough but tender boy named Jashante from the rough…
When I was a child, my mother and I shared and discussed Zane Grey books. I loved his portrayal of the past and read every one. My obsession with historical fiction grew, and I wrote my first draft of Elephant in the Room at age sixteen. I’m stuck in the period between 1875 and 1940 because of the simplicity driving life as well as the complexity of larger events changing the world. Wilder, Steinbeck, Twain, all picked me off my feet and set me down in their shoes. I’m not able to remove them. I write about courageous women because we are, whether it’s expressed or is in waiting.
Set in the depression era in North Carolina’s turpentine pine forests, Rae Lynn Cobb learns a Tar Heel’s dangerous work. After life in an orphanage, she appreciates the work, a home of her own, and her loving husband. When he dies, with her grief-stricken help, she cuts her hair and flees dressed in his clothes and driving his rattle-trap truck. As a man, she works in a hazardous and treacherous turpentine labor camp and becomes indebted to the company-owned commissary. Like most labor camps, the owners have ways to keep indebted workers from running – dogs and guns. She gets locked in a sweatbox by a scheming man and survives, runs again, and finds peace. Rae does what is necessary with quiet grit and determination. For me, this book exemplifies what is missing in our world—personal responsibility—and I couldn't quit cheering for the heroine. A beautiful historical novel.
Where the Crawdads Sing meets The Four Winds as award-winning author Donna Everhart's latest novel immerses readers in its unique setting—the turpentine camps and pine forests of the American South during the Great Depression. This captivating story of friendship, survival, and three vagabonds' intersecting lives will stay with readers long after turning the final page.
It takes courage to save yourself...
In the dense pine forests of North Carolina, turpentiners labor, hacking into tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname, and hauling the resin to stills to be refined. Among them…
