Here are 85 books that River of Ashes fans have personally recommended if you like
River of Ashes.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
My administrative career covered a mix of legal and hospital work which provided a wealth of real-life scenarios to fuel my own convoluted story ideas. Thrilled to take early retirement and pursue a writing career, I have since published five romantic suspense novels. I strive to produce quality stories on par with the countless amazing romantic suspense authors I have enjoyed since my teen years. Storyline prompts surround us. A dark bunkie, screaming neighbor, or even an oddly shaped bag of garbage can trigger my suspicion. My favorite spot to walk is the peaceful shores of Lake Huron, where my twisted imagination soars, and my best stories come to life.
Diverse characters who feel like friends; a picturesque town that will have you checking Google maps for your next road trip; a murder; an unexpected love story; what is not to love about this book?
This is my favorite read of the year. I still envision the characters months after reading, as if I visited “Beautiful” on a wild adventure to solve a mystery and met an eclectic bunch of new travel mates along the way. The ending will surprise you in more ways than one. An easy, solid 5+ stars for this one.
International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world—a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot—a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake’s tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
My administrative career covered a mix of legal and hospital work which provided a wealth of real-life scenarios to fuel my own convoluted story ideas. Thrilled to take early retirement and pursue a writing career, I have since published five romantic suspense novels. I strive to produce quality stories on par with the countless amazing romantic suspense authors I have enjoyed since my teen years. Storyline prompts surround us. A dark bunkie, screaming neighbor, or even an oddly shaped bag of garbage can trigger my suspicion. My favorite spot to walk is the peaceful shores of Lake Huron, where my twisted imagination soars, and my best stories come to life.
Karin Slaughter never disappoints in the psycho-thriller world of suspense novels, but this one was also gut-wrenching in the emotion department.
As always, her graphic descriptions put the reader alongside the horror, and the twists and turns leave you guessing until the last page. The reason I put this on my best romantic suspense list is not for a love story – definitely no classic romance here. It’s the author’s portrayal of the family’s emotion, specifically the dynamics between sisters.
No one writes sisters as well as Karin Slaughter. Weeks later, I’m still thinking about the two daughters in this story as if it had been a real-life incident.
The stunning standalone from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Will Trent and Grant County series.
One ran. One stayed. But who is...the good daughter?
Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's childhoods were destroyed by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father - a notorious defence attorney - devastated. And it left the family consumed by secrets from that shocking night.
Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer. But when violence comes to their home town again, the case triggers memories…
My administrative career covered a mix of legal and hospital work which provided a wealth of real-life scenarios to fuel my own convoluted story ideas. Thrilled to take early retirement and pursue a writing career, I have since published five romantic suspense novels. I strive to produce quality stories on par with the countless amazing romantic suspense authors I have enjoyed since my teen years. Storyline prompts surround us. A dark bunkie, screaming neighbor, or even an oddly shaped bag of garbage can trigger my suspicion. My favorite spot to walk is the peaceful shores of Lake Huron, where my twisted imagination soars, and my best stories come to life.
From the first page of Shelter in Place, the characters sucked me into their lives, had me cheering for them, crying for them, and holding my breath through terrifying situations.
The feisty female main character doesn’t want romance nor rescuing but that doesn’t mean she won’t get it. The “bad guy” comes up with enough getaway tricks to rival James Bond, and will leave you asking, “wow, what next”? I read this in one riveting stretch; absolutely could not put it down.
From Nora Roberts comes the #1 New York Times bestseller Shelter in Place (June 2018)―a powerful tale of heart, heroism...and propulsive suspense.
It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at the video-game store tended to customers. Then the shooters arrived.
The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed,…
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
My administrative career covered a mix of legal and hospital work which provided a wealth of real-life scenarios to fuel my own convoluted story ideas. Thrilled to take early retirement and pursue a writing career, I have since published five romantic suspense novels. I strive to produce quality stories on par with the countless amazing romantic suspense authors I have enjoyed since my teen years. Storyline prompts surround us. A dark bunkie, screaming neighbor, or even an oddly shaped bag of garbage can trigger my suspicion. My favorite spot to walk is the peaceful shores of Lake Huron, where my twisted imagination soars, and my best stories come to life.
I love writing and reading twists that keep the reader guessing along with the characters.
The main character in Take Your Breath Away is accused of killing his wife years before. Once he has moved away from the town of innuendos and restarted his life, what appears to be his long-lost wife reappears, leaving him and the reader asking, “what the heck?”
It takes a lot to keep me guessing until the end of the book and this one did just that. More emotional than romantic, it’s a love story gone wrong, thrilling suspense that will keep you turning the pages long into the night.
A missing woman. A husband suspected. The truth will ... Take Your Breath Away
Linwood Barclay is...
'A suspense master' Stephen King 'In a class of his own' T.M. Logan 'One of the finest thriller writers in the world' Mark Billingham
It's always the husband, isn't it?
When his wife Brie vanishes from their home one night, never to be seen again, people assume Andy got away with murder. The police can't build a case against him, but still his friends and neighbours abandon him.
Six years later, Andy's life is back on track, and he's settled with a new…
I have always loved getting lost in the literary world of romance and happily ever afters. Family, friends, large casts of characters, laugh-out-loud situations, and sexy thrills—the more the better. After years in the corporate world, I found my passion for writing romance. I have over 18 books published, several Best Seller banners, and am currently finishing the next book in the Men of Action series.
I happened upon False Start late one afternoon and stayed up way into the night to finish. The prose has all my favorites—second chances, sports romance, and a narrative that took me back to the beginning of where the love story began. Bryant Hudson is 1000% swoon-worthy with a heart that belongs to only one woman. I fell hard and fast for his charm, and still get tingles thinking of his pursuit to win her back. Hudson + Zhanna = off the charts.
Football, a kitten, and 14 dates. Zhanna Hale THEN My father is a legend. Some call me football royalty, and in my hometown of Louisiana, I suppose I am. His legacy didn’t prepare me for Bryant Hudson. The quarterback. I swore I’d never date football players. Permanently. Yet Bryant had other plans.Three dates and a handful of conversations, I handed him my heart without realizing it. But, Bryant shatters my soul. I’m left picking up the pieces. If only erasing him from my heart was as easy. Bryant Hudson NOW I lost at the only game that matters. And it…
I have no French or Acadian ancestors—as far as I know—yet the majority of my 21 books (history and fiction) explore different aspects of French colonial or Acadian history. Childhood visits to historic sites like the Port-Royal Habitation, Grand-Pré, Louisbourg and Fort Anne must have planted the seeds for the historian and writer I would become. Then again, working for years as an historian at the Fortress of Louisbourg definitely helped. France made me a chevalier of its Ordre des Palmes académiques for my body of work.
It comes as a surprise to many, but no Acadians were deported to Louisiana. It was a French colony in 1755, and those making the decisions about where the deportees were to go did not want to strengthen any French colony. They chose the Anglo-American colonies so there could be assimilation. The reason so many Acadians—renamed Cajuns—ended up in Louisiana was because of later migrations; voluntary migrations, not forced deportations. This book examines the growth, evolution, and political involvement of Louisiana's large Acadian community between the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and 1877, the end of Reconstruction in Louisiana. It’s a study that offers a good introduction to the Acadians (Cajuns) of that state.
This book is the first to examine comprehensively the demographic growth, cultural evolution, and political involvement of Louisiana's large Acadian community between the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803), when the transplanted culture began to take on a decidedly Louisiana character, and 1877, the end of Reconstruction in Louisiana, when traditional distinctions between Acadians and neighboring groups had ceased to be valid.
Serving as a model for ethnohistories of other nonliterate peoples, Acadian to Cajun reveals how authentic cultural history can be derived from alternative historical resources when primary materials such as newspapers, correspondence, and diaries are not available. Here,…
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
Despite what my kids think, I am not actually old enough to have “been there” during the Civil War itself, but I have spent my entire professional career studying it. Years in archives reading other people’s mail, old newspaper accounts, dusty diaries, and handwritten testimonies, along with sifting through records books and ledgers of all descriptions have taught me exactly how intertwined slavery, Civil War, and emancipation all were, and I am dedicated to trying to explain the connections to anyone who reads my books, stumbles across my digital history work, or sits in my classroom at Georgetown University, where I teach history. Two good places to see the results of my efforts include What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War which won the Avery Craven Award for best book on the Civil War and was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize, and Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War, which won the Jefferson Davis Prize and was also a finalist for the Lincoln Prize.
Kate Stone was 20 years old when the Civil War came, living as a cherished daughter in a large, loving, wealthy Louisiana family headed by her indomitable widowed mother. The war up-ended Kate’s world. Beloved brothers joined the Confederate Army. First luxuries and then necessities dried up. Union forces helped themselves to Kate’s favorite horse. Neighbors and relations died or left. Eventually Kate and her family did, too, “refugeeing” to Texas where they did not always mingle smoothly with the locals. Meanwhile, the same forces that shattered Kate’s world opened the doors to a new one for the many enslaved people on whom Kate and her family relied. Kate’s marvelously eloquent diary offers readers a front-row seat into the drama of the Confederate homefront as a young woman on the cusp of adulthood experienced it, and from the corner of the reader’s eye, we also see glimpses of enslaved people…
This journal records the Civil War experiences of a sensitive, well-educated, young southern woman. Kate Stone was twenty when the war began, living with her widowed mother, five brothers, and younger sister at Brokenburn, their plantation home in northeastern Louisiana. When Grant moved against Vicksburg, the family fled before the invading armies, eventually found refuge in Texas, and finally returned to a devastated home.
Kate began her journal in May, 1861, and made regular entries up to November, 1865. She included briefer sketches in 1867 and 1868. In chronicling her everyday activities, Kate reveals much about a way of life…
Lilian Terry’s background is quite out-of-the-ordinary. Born in Egypt in 1930 to Maltese and Italian parents, she undertook academic studies in Cairo and Florence. Terry studied classical piano until age 17, developing an interest in jazz in her early teens. She participated in a variety of ways with jazz in Europe, beginning in the 1950s. As a singer, she was an active performer and recording artist. At the same time, she produced radio and television shows for Italy’s RAI network, and this activity led to some of her encounters with major figures of American jazz. Seven of these interactions (most of which spanned decades) are the subject of Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends.
Donald Marquis takes you firmly by the hand and leads you into that Wonderland that was New Orleans from 1877, when Bolden was born; then through the brief but extraordinary rise of Bolden’s personality and the powerful sound of his trumpet echoing through the streets of New Orleans. The author brings out Buddy’s tragic descent into mental illness, his entrance into the Insane Asylum of Louisiana, and his untimely death in 1930 at the young age of thirty-three. The book is a very sober tale of life in those times, it is rooted in the political and artistic history of jazz music and a very touching homage to a ghost. Today there are people wondering if Buddy Bolden really did exist?
The beginnings of jazz and the story of Charles ""Buddy"" Bolden (1877- 1931) are inextricably intertwined. Just after the turn of the century, New Orleanians could often hear Bolden's powerful horn from the city's parks and through dance hall windows. Despite his lack of formal training, his unique style- both musical and personal- made him the first ""king"" of New Orleans jazz and the inspiration for such later jazz greats as King Oliver, Kid Ory, and Louis Armstrong.
For years the legend of Buddy Bolden was overshadowed by myths about his music, his reckless lifestyle, and his mental instability. In…
Since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the supernatural. I’ve always been especially captivated by vampires. My love for vampires and many of the books I’ve read about them contributed to the inspiration that led me to write my own stories. My passion for the series I created drives me. Building my own fantasy world and creating the characters within it has been an amazing experience. Most days, I feel like I’m just a spectator in their world, and they’re writing the story themselves. I hope you, too, will find enjoyment and possibly inspiration in the books from this list, just as I have.
It’s been many years since I read this book, but I recall the moment I fell in love with Sookie’s story so clearly; it was like last week.
It was a usual busy night. I was making dinner for my family, and while I kept an eye on what was cooking on the stovetop, I flipped this book open to the middle, curious if I’d enjoy it. I quickly read about half a page, and I was immediately amused and sucked right in. Just those few lines hooked me, and I especially loved how the author told the story. I couldn’t wait to start from the beginning and make my way through the series. That night, I started book one of Sookie’s story and continued devouring each book as quickly as possible.
It’s been years since I finished Sookie’s story, and I often think about her and the world I…
Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much - not because she's not pretty - she's a very cute bubbly blonde - or not interested in a social life. She really is ...but Sookie's got a bit of a disability. She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill: he's tall, he's dark and he's handsome - and Sookie can't 'hear' a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting all her life for. But Bill has…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I am an Australian writer living in Europe. Returning to my hometown on the East Coast of Australia post-COVID, I confronted relentless rain and king tides threatening the beach promenade cafes. Witnessing the potential demise of these familiar spots sparked the idea for my novel. Opening with a dystopian scene of future tourists exploring submerged coastal cafes with snorkels, my work delves into the realm of "cli-fi" (climate fiction). Against the backdrop of imminent climate danger, my characters, a lovable yet obstinate Australian ensemble, navigate a world profoundly altered by the impacts of climate change. I hope what I have written is an exaggeration. I fear it may not be.
Humans can be brave, and humans can be stubborn. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is both.
Refusing to leave New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina built strength out at sea in 2005, he stays and finds himself stranded in an eerily flooded city, seemingly alone and without help. He paddles the watery “streets” in an old kayak and finds others who could not or did not leave, offering help, and for his efforts, is arrested as a suspected terrorist and looter.
This book is not a simple tale of an everyday hero. We meet a character that downplays the dangers of a brewing storm but, despite his stubbornness, is also capable of great selflessness and bravery. The negligence of the institutions we expect to protect us is an insidious theme that runs throughout.
WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD AND THE LA TIMES BOOK AWARD
'Masterly. Brilliantly crafted, powerfully written and deftly reported' Guardian
The urgent and unforgettable true story of post-Katrina New Orleans . . .
In August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina blew in, the city of New Orleans has been abandoned by most citizens. But resident Abdulrahman Zeitoun, though his wife and family had gone, refused to leave. For days he traversed an apocalyptic landscape of flooded streets by canoe. But eventually he came to the attention of those 'guarding' this drowned city. Only then did Zeitoun's nightmare really begin.
