Here are 50 books that Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You fans have personally recommended if you like
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You.
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I love to read and write about complex characters and particularly the “unlikeable” female character. Many readers connect with my characters because they are flawed—they don’t always think or do what we want them to, or what we think they should do, which is often (frustratingly) the case with the real-life people we love and care about. Real, complex people exist in real, complex relationships, including friendships that don’t always serve them—or that do serve them, but in unconventional or superficially unclear ways. I think that reading about contradictory, inconsistent, and confused characters in relationships helps us to be kinder and more empathetic people—and, quite possibly, better friends.
Before reaching middle school, I pretty much believed that my friends—who they were and how many I had—determined my value. But my circle could be fickle; girls were ostracized for minor infractions (you bought the same coat as me!) I lived with daily fear of being dropped.
So Cat’s Eye captivated me with its lack of sentimentality in depicting (some) girls’ friendships. Elaine, a middle-aged artist, returns alone to Toronto, the city where she grew up, for a retrospective of her work. The trip gives Elaine space to reflect on her life in that city, and Cordelia, her childhood “friend”, is central to her memories.
Cordelia tormented and humiliated Elaine, even putting her life in danger, yet Elaine remained loyal to her for years. It felt very real to me that this toxic relationship would continue to preoccupy Elaine into her functional adulthood. Girlhood friendships are often fraught, and Atwood…
Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years. 'Not since Graham Greene has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's games are played, exquisitely, by little girls' LISTENER An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Second novels rarely get the love that they deserve. People come to them with all kinds of presumptions and expectations, mostly based on whatever they liked (or didn’t like!) about your first novel, and all writers live in fear of the dreaded “sophomore slump.” I spent a decade trying to write my second novel and was plagued by these very fears. To ward off the bad vibes, I want to celebrate some of my favorite second novels by some of my favorite writers. Some were bona fide hits from the get-go, while others were sadly overlooked or wrongly panned, but they’re all brilliant, beautiful, and full of heart.
Lorrie Moore is another one of my favorite writers and someone I’ve been lucky enough to write about on multiple occasions. Her first novel, Anagrams, is smart, fun, and resolutely—even defiantly—weird. Her second novel, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? is all those things and more.
Berie, the narrator, is on a bad vacation in Paris, where her marriage is teetering on the brink of collapse. Instead of dealing with her obnoxious husband, she thinks back to the summer she turned fifteen and the profound friendship she forged with a girl she worked with at a Disney-knockoff theme park in upstate New York.
Like Home Land, this novel has its cultists, and I’m happy to count myself among them. Moore, like Lipsyte, is a stylist as unmistakable as she is unprecedented, someone whose sentences I would recognize anywhere. This slim coming-of-age novel bears all her hallmarks—comic timing, gimlet…
"Touches and dazzles and entertains. An enchanting novel." --The New York Times
In this moving, poignant novel by the bestselling author of Birds of America we share a grown woman’s bittersweet nostalgia for the wildness of her youth.
The summer Berie was fifteen, she and her best friend Sils had jobs at Storyland in upstate New York where Berie sold tickets to see the beautiful Sils portray Cinderella in a strapless evening gown. They spent their breaks smoking, joking, and gossiping. After work they followed their own reckless rules, teasing the fun out of small town life, sleeping in the…
Maybe it’s because I come from a family that expresses conflict, shall we say, indirectly, but nothing fascinates me the way relationships do. What do we desire, what do we offer? And how much more do we care about friendships and family bonds than world peace? I also love stories about passions we pursue professionally, and ever since I fell in love with the food and wine world, that’s the world I’ve written about and the world in which my characters’ intense relationships play out. Real drama plays out over a drink or at a dinner table, and of course a glass of wine only unleashes a little more.
I know I have those lost friendships I still wonder about—we worked together, lived together, traveled to beach towns together, drank tequila together! We went to very bad bars and made very bad decisions together! How’d we lose touch?—and thank God these brilliant writers do too.
Schappell and Offill gather a cocktail party’s worth of lost platonic loves, reminding me that I’m not alone and giving meaningful thought to the monumental importance of friendship and the pain of losing it.
Losing a friend can be as painful and as agonizing as a divorce or the end of a love affair, yet it is rarely written about or even discussed. THE FRIEND WHO GOT AWAY is the first book to address this near-universal experience, bringing together the brave, eloquent voices of writers like Francine Prose, Katie Roiphe, Dorothy Allison, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Hood, Diana Abu Jabar, Vivian Gornick, Helen Schulman, and many others. Some write of friends who have drifted away, others of sudden breakups that took them by surprise. Some even celebrate their liberation from unhealthy or destructive relationships. Yet…
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…
Maybe it’s because I come from a family that expresses conflict, shall we say, indirectly, but nothing fascinates me the way relationships do. What do we desire, what do we offer? And how much more do we care about friendships and family bonds than world peace? I also love stories about passions we pursue professionally, and ever since I fell in love with the food and wine world, that’s the world I’ve written about and the world in which my characters’ intense relationships play out. Real drama plays out over a drink or at a dinner table, and of course a glass of wine only unleashes a little more.
I’m a little obsessed with the sheer ferocity with which Elisa Albert writes the world, and when I this short, sharp novel the phrase that stuck in my head was, “This is all teeth.” And boy, do I mean that in a good way.
Ari Walker is still trying to get her footing after the birth of her baby when Mina, a former cult musician, moves to town and the two bond hard. I still think about Albert’s description of Mina, her round cheeks and her messy hair and the jarring realization that this woman is not affecting carelessness with standard beauty norms, but truly does not give a good goddamn. It’s about those people who are both alien and intimate and who make you more yourself.
Sometimes I'm with the baby and I think: you're my heart and my soul, and I would die for you. Other times I think: tiny moron, leave me the fuck alone
A year has passed since Ari gave birth and still she can't locate herself in her altered universe. Sleep-deprived, lonely and unprepared, she struggles through the strange, disjointed rhythms of her days and nights. Her own mother long dead and her girlhood friendships faded, she is a woman in need. When Mina - older, alone, pregnant - moves to town, Ari sees hope of a comrade-in-arms. Perhaps the hostile…
Growing up, I witnessed my mother have a number of precognitive episodes. I later realized I was very intuitive at times. As a technical analyst in commodities I recognized that intuition was playing a huge part in my success in calling the markets. Feeling uncomfortable in groups, I became very much an introvert. I feel others’ strong emotions and even their physical pain at times. It’s painful to watch shows where people are fighting or being hurt. Later in life I realized there was a name for my discomfort. Clairsentience. Writing/reading paranormal stories about others is not only comforting to me, but psychologically grounding as well.
Detective Paranormal: I love reading Indie books like Book 1 in thePsychic Detective Ellen Owensseries because they offer such diverse styles. Mitchell takes care to develop her characters beyond their career roles, which I like.
Detective Owens struggles to accept her gifts, which can be a blessing and a curse for her. Visions aren’t readily accepted as evidence in police work; however she quickly learns they canoffer leads. When Ellen spies a woman at a cemetery several times wearing the same clothes, she’s drawn into a 1978 cold case where an editor named Regina Mitchell disappears, leaving her young son behind. Although a psychic newbie, Ellen’s family isn’t, so she has her mother for support as she winds her way through this complex old and cold case.
If you love crime and ghost stories, then you'll love this novel which combines these two genres. Homicide detective Ellen Owens has recently moved into a new home just outside of her hometown, Columbus, Georgia. After a chance sighting of two grieving women, at a nearby cemetery, Ellen and her partner Nathan are drawn into a thirty year-old cold case.
In 1978, a young editor named Regina Ann Mitchell went missing on her way to a work related party. The only thing ever found of her was her car, parked next to a bridge crossing over the Chattahoochee river.
I've always been fascinated by experiences that exist on the border of the ordinary. Growing up, my grandmother would tell us, in serious tones, of the fairies and ghosts she had encountered—how closely the natural and the “supernatural” are linked. In my twenties, I would read a lot about shamanism and the kinds of extraordinary experiences they would actively seek. Later, noticing similarities between those experiences and the spontaneous experiences of ordinary people, my interest continued to grow. Near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, but especially crisis apparitions—these experiences spoke strongly to me about how little we still know of the nature of the mind and how much there is yet to discover!
This one is a real hidden gem for someone like me who is so interested in spontaneous accounts of ESP. Eason offers dozens of extraordinary and fascinating accounts of telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance collected from truly the most “ordinary people.” Concentrating her efforts on quiet housing estates, spooky suburbs, and their anonymous residents, this work shines in its compelling ordinariness.
The accounts, though, are anything but, and I love how the links are made between the stories collected and some of the oldest tales. Something that really came out for me in this work, too, is just how common the strangest experiences are and how the fact we don't share them is really why it can sometimes feel like the opposite is true. Can't recommend enough!
Fascinating psychic happenings and ordinary grass-roots experience, this book relates true stories of phantoms, poltergeists and spirit guides reliably reported from modern terraced homes and shopping streets. Telepathy, near-death experiences and out-of-body journeys are examined. Dedicated ghost hunters welcoming a fresh slant on their favourite topic will be intrigued by this book. But millions of suburb-dwellers everywhere will also be intrigued by the prospect of psychic events among the ordinary semis and settees. This title is an ideal blend of New Age spirituality and suburban common sense.
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…
My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
Loyalty. Love. Relationships. They are all essential elements in my favorite books, and nowhere are they more present than in this one.
Ann Kinnear, like my other favorite female psychics, is torn between doing what she feels she should and doing what she’d like to do—which is to hide behind closed doors. It’s the same dilemma I would have if I were gifted (or maybe it’s cursed) with an ability like Ann has.
As I had hoped, Ann chooses to make a difference, securing a spot as one of my favorite books.
The dead will not be silenced, and Ann will do whatever it takes to solve the case of one woman’s lost life … even if it means endangering her own.
“A frighteningly meticulous villain and a formidable protagonist will have readers breezing through the pages.” —Kirkus Reviews
★★★★★ “Airtight. Crucial plot details lock into place in the denouement like the tumblers of a Diebold safe. The characters are clever, real, and enjoyable, but also organic, their emotions genuinely wrought; there is no formula for brilliant writing like this.” —Robert Blake Whitehill, Bestselling Author of The Ben Blackshaw Series
My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
My favorite part of this book is the supporting characters. T.J., Dobbs, and Sparky—the wonder dog. Funny, smart, and wise, the two older gents carry the story from beginning to end, taking the town’s new arrival under their protective wings.
It’s Jessie, the new girl in town, who has the psychic ability, but it’s T. J. and Dobbs, who figure out how to put the pieces together. Like all my favorite books, there is mystery, suspense, and romance, but what I really like is the psychic element. It’s different from most.
From Ninie Hammon, the sorceress of psychological suspense, comes the first book of her long-anticipated and thrilling new Through The Canvas series: Black Water - a book that won't stop squeezing your book-loving heart before the final page.
Bailey Donahue was supposed to stay dead...
After witnessing her husband's murder, Bailey's been ripped from her life and secreted away in the Witness Protection Program.
Too bad the sleepy town of Shadow Rock was the wrong place to hide.
Believed dead by the mafia, Bailey finds herself trapped in a torturous limbo, walled-off from her old life. But that's where she…
Mixing the magical with everyday life is part of my Louisiana culture. Our history is a rich gumbo of legends from Indigenous peoples, Africa, the Caribbean, Spain, and France. So, as a child, hearing stories of the supernatural didn’t seem abnormal at all. I was ten years old when I became hooked on supernatural suspense. I voraciously read Agatha Christie's mysteries and spooky comic books. The comic book sleuths were sometimes as scary as the villains they chased. And I loved every page. What fun I had during summer school breaks! If you’re like me and love mysteries with paranormal twists, dive in. You won’t be disappointed in this list.
I loved the imaginative world-building, but even more, the fantastic sleuth is like no other I’ve encountered. The setting is a world where birds (avians) are the dominant evolved species instead of simians. Investigator Prentice Tasifa is a hawk who can “see the unseen” with her extraordinary sense of sight.
That’s why, in this world, hawks are police detectives. Tasifa travels far and wide throughout the Kingdom of Aves to solve serious crimes, including murder. Even more fascinating is how other birds (vultures, chickens, doves) have developed roles that align with their characteristics. I enjoyed the mystery plot twists.
Sent to investigate a strange murder in a quiet remote egg, can Hawk Tasifa find the killer before she becomes the next target?
Prentice Tasifa is an investigative hawk whose been deployed from The Order to the small egg of Gould, a mountain village. A missing girl had been found dead. Hawks investigate strange and difficult situations throughout the kingdom of Aves. They can “see the unseen,” by accessing a unique ability to activate hawk-like vision, a trait they carry through their bloodlines.
When Prentice arrives in Gould, she soon discovers that there isn’t just one bird dead, but three.…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m a paranormal fantasy author who loves vampires. They’re my favorite supernatural creatures. I think my obsession with vamps started when I saw Underworld for the first time. I had watched Blade before and thought, “I’d like to see a movie with just as much action but also romance” and voila! Some prefer the darker, less romantic vampire stories in which the bloodsuckers are monsters, but I prefer to read and write stories where they’re more than just their hunger. So if you’re like me and like a good combination of vampire action and seduction, you will probably enjoy the books on my list.
This is the fifth book of the Evernight series by Claudia Gray, but I believe it can be read as a standalone. It’s my favorite, too. Here we see a more traditional approach to the vampire myth. Silver, stakes, and running water are weaknesses. I love Balthazar. He’s a bit brooding, but also interesting. The villains are truly chilling. You know what? I think I’m going to re-read this one right now.
For hundreds of years, the vampire Balthazar has been alone—without allies, without love.
When Balthazar agrees to help Skye Tierney, a human girl who once attended Evernight Academy, he has no idea how dangerous it will be. Skye’s newfound psychic powers have caught the attention of Redgrave, the cruel, seductive master vampire responsible for murdering Balthazar and his family four centuries ago. Now Redgrave plans to use Skye’s powers for his own evil purposes.
Balthazar will do whatever it takes to stop Redgrave and exact his long-awaited revenge against his killer. As Skye and Balthazar stand together to fight him,…
