Here are 85 books that Swan Song fans have personally recommended if you like
Swan Song.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As a writer, wife, and mom, I love reading novels and memoirs about women who are navigating parenting, relationships, and careers simultaneously. My favorites are those that make me laugh out loud while presenting a relatable picture of all this juggling act entails. Smart and witty heroines who approach life with a can-do spirit and the ability to laugh at themselves as the world tosses one curveball after another their way capture my heart every time.
It’s hard to match Nora Ephron’s wit and wisdom. In this novel, which mirrors events from the novelist and screenwriter’s real life, cookbook writer Rachel Samstat learns that her husband is cheating on her while she’s pregnant. Even as her life is falling apart, Rachel maintains her sense of humor while dropping the “everything is perfect” routine and speaking her mind.
In this tale of love and loss, Ephron serves up hilarious and heartbreaking moments in equal portions alongside mouthwatering recipes.
If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it' Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long…
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…
I’m a French-born, London-based novelist and food writer. As an author, I have nurtured my voice at the kitchen counter, where I find language loosens up and as a reader, cookbooks, food memoirs, and novels sit in one pile on my bedside table. Food is never not political and I find that its depiction is a wonderful narrative tool, for plot development with the setting of a meal or to portray a character through ingredients for examples. The relationship between food, culture, and writing is something I also explore with my podcast, book club, and culinary community The Salmon Pink Kitchen. Happy reading, and bon appétit!
I devoured this modern classic comedy of manners like a good period drama.
The novel follows the adolescent years of Sebastian, duke and heir of the country house Chevron, where his mother Lucy plots luncheons and indulges parties where alcohol, games, and affairs are the prime guests. The tone is witty and the food, from the ingredients on display to the behaviours of those who eat, is used as a powerful show of appearances.
An instant bestseller when it was published in 1930, this glittering satire of Edwardian high society features a privileged brother and sister torn between tradition and a chance at an independent life.
Sebastian is young, handsome, moody, and the heir to Chevron, a vast and opulent ducal estate. He feels a deep love for the countryside and for his patrimony, but he loathes the frivolous social world his mother and her shallow friends represent. At one of his mother’s decadent house parties, Sebastian meets two people who shake his sense of self: Leonard Anquetil, a lowborn arctic explorer, who questions…
My name is Joy Gerken pen name Joy M., Lilley. I live in Kent, England with husband Michael and our three rescue cats. We have four children, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. I began writing in 2013 after retiring from a long nursing career. My list is multi-genre, I like to both read and write books from all genres. It broadens my horizons and helps me focus more clearly on my own writing. I recommend all five books to you as I have enjoyed the reading of them all.
This is a glorious read that supplies verve, love, and heart. Two siblings are still living with their mother in their fifties in poverty and isolation. There is a serious risk of the inability to cope following their mother's demise. Music is a theme running throughout this charming story of resilience, and the survival instinct.
The two find they are living on the fringes of society, however, the ending proves that light can be spun from darkness.
Named a Best Book of the Month by Entertainment Weekly, PopSugar, Bustle, Chicago Review of Books, PureWow, a Best Book of Summer by Daily Beast and one of Good Housekeeping's Best Books of 2021
"Full of dramatic twists and turns right up until its moving, beautiful end." —NPR Books
At fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world…
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’m a French-born, London-based novelist and food writer. As an author, I have nurtured my voice at the kitchen counter, where I find language loosens up and as a reader, cookbooks, food memoirs, and novels sit in one pile on my bedside table. Food is never not political and I find that its depiction is a wonderful narrative tool, for plot development with the setting of a meal or to portray a character through ingredients for examples. The relationship between food, culture, and writing is something I also explore with my podcast, book club, and culinary community The Salmon Pink Kitchen. Happy reading, and bon appétit!
If you’re looking for a novel that will make your mouth water with flavours and cravings, then Elisa Shua Dusapin is the writer you need. From the supermarket’s chilled section to hot pots of noodles, the pages of this short novel are an explosion for the senses. But the descriptions of the food are not only delicious, they also serve the purpose of the plot in this novel set over the course of one summer in Tokyo, about identity, loneliness, and language.
The Pachinko Parlour is translated from French into English by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and will be published in the UK on 18th August 2022.
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, Winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long.
It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko, in an apartment in an abandoned hotel, and lying on the floor at her grandparents’: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the…
My connection to books about Iran goes beyond simple curiosity—it's personal. Reading these stories feels like going back to the streets and memories that shaped my childhood. The books I’ve chosen to highlight here offer powerful and moving portraits of Iranian life. They reflect the struggles and beauty of a country that has played a big role in my own journey, both personally and as a writer. Each one shows a different side of Iran, capturing voices and experiences that are often overlooked or misunderstood. Together, they offer a deeper understanding of what it means to be Iranian.
This novel tells a powerful story about the strength and determination of women in today’s Iran. Kamali brings together the voices of three generations, each woman facing her own challenges as she tries to carve out a life of her own in a society full of expectations and restrictions.
The writing is rich and heartfelt, and the characters feel real—each of their journeys touching on themes like love, tradition, and the deep desire for freedom. Kamali paints a vivid picture of life in Tehran, giving the story a strong sense of place. It’s a moving tribute to the courage of women who keep pushing forward, even when the world pushes back.
An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.
Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn…
I've been a book doctor and acquiring editor for almost twenty years. I've read hundreds of debut novels, both published and not. I've always been amazed and impressed when an author is able to create a unique and internally consistent universe for their story. I also know—as a writer of ten fantasy and science fiction novels—that building a vivid, alternate world is a very difficult thing to do well. In the best stories the fictional world defines the characters in it, shapes them, and gives their struggle meaning. It's why we relate to their journey and make their success our own.
A Ragged Magic hooked me from the opening when Rhiannon watches while her family is falsely accused and then publicly executed. Rhiannon herself is captured and undergoes a torturous ritual against her will – one which infuses and amplifies her burgeoning magical aptitude. The magic inThe Runeboundseries is unique and fascinating. This book and its vulnerable main character drew me into her world.
Rhiannon has the Sight - the ability to glimpse the hearts and minds of others. Her visions attract the attention of the powerful kirche, which has condemned all magic outside the holy orders. Thrust into intrigue and danger, Rhiannon must learn to control her growing power, and master ...
A RAGGED MAGIC
"Lindsey S. Johnson debuts strongly with her tale of betrayal, magic and political intrigue. She breaks our hearts open in the first chapter ... with her fast-paced, often poetic prose ... " --KEN SCHOLES, award-winning author of The Psalms of Isaak
"Lindsey S. Johnson's strong, confident voice ...…
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…
I love reading adaptations of classics which complicate the original texts in interesting ways, I have just written one myself, The Middle Daughter. Transcultural adaptations, particularly remind us that we are all members of one human family, dealing with the same kind of problems across time and space and cultures. In these times of deepening polarization, it's important to see that there's more that unites us than not.
This is a bold exploration of racism, jealousy, revenge, class, and friendship.
Set in an elementary school in the US in the 1970s, this is a bold re-imagination of Shakespeare’s Othello. Although the characters are children, Chevalier doesn’t devolve into simplistic language and emotions.
She handles heavy themes with a deftness of hand that makes this a compulsively readable, if sometimes uncomfortable book.
'O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back.'
Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat's son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day - so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can't stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players - teachers and pupils alike - will never be the same…
Growing up in a globe-trotting diplomatic service family, I listened avidly to my parents’ tales of their romance in Moscow at the height of the Cold War in 1958, how they were trailed by the KGB and ripped listening devices out of apartment walls. They spoke thrillingly of the constant threat and the dangers they faced. There were other stories, of other places, including Peking at the start of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a few scenes of which I was just old enough to witness. So I have always been curious about this era and read Cold War intelligence histories, many of them recommended by my remarkable mother.
Love, loyalty, and betrayal combine in a chillingly real early-1960s Cold War nightmare for Lily, the wife of a civil servant inadvertently caught up in a no-win situation after helping a friend, then accused of passing papers to the Russians in London.
What resonates with me is the terrible aftermath and the effect on his family of political intrigue more powerful than any of them knows. Or does Lily’s husband know exactly what he has done? What I love about this novel is the quiet way the tension grips until the marriage and family are no longer ordinary.
The writing, as always from Helen Dunmore, is lyrical, elegant, and restrained, adding another dimension of pleasure.
“A spy novel but one that has been quietly and ingeniously deepened well beyond the ambitions of genre . . . [it] is one of those books that you read with your heart in your mouth, your mind fully engaged, and with a sense of desolation as you note the dwindling number of pages left before it comes to an end.”—Chicago Tribune
“Dunmore has always been fantastic on the complexity of people's motivations and the secret reasons they act as they do. This book is no exception . . . a page turner...as much a surprising love story as it…
I’ve always enjoyed the intrigue of the mystery and the constant back and forth of the twists and turns offer in a well-written novel. The tremor of my nerves at the base of my neck as I try to figure out the culprit and their intentions, has always enticed my imagination. To, me, those sensations are mind stimulating, and are only born through reading.
Jessica Reel and Will Robie are CIA assassins who have found themselves asThe Target after a mission has been botched and one of their own was killed. Now, being watched under the microscope they are assigned to an almost impossible mission where their only option is kill or be killed. The partners know that they have marks on their backs but have no choice but to obey the orders that have been dealt to them. Will they be able to stave off the unknown mercenary from murdering the first family, as Reel and Robie find themselves once again in the throes of the spy wars.
The world's greatest assassins are on a high-risk mission for the President--but a powerful mastermind wants them dead in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller.
The President knows it's a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats against the nation would multiply. So the president turns to the one team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel.
Together, Robie and Reel's talents as assassins are unmatched.…
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…
Thrillers are just that—thrilling. But thrillers with lots of explosions and gunfights aren’t that appealing to me since I know the hero will make it. With realistic domestic, at-home-style thrillers, the thrilling nature is how the scenarios could really happen. Those are the most thrilling ideas, the ones I can see how they could actually happen to someone—or to me. That makes it exciting. This is why I read many of them and have written quite a few, too, because there’s nothing more thrilling than thinking your home, or the people in it, isn’t as safe as you thought.
The twists kept on coming—literally until the final pages. Just when I thought I had it all sorted out, pow comes another, then another!
The plot might have seemed straightforward once I got into it, but it’s anything but. It’s complex yet easy to digest and piece together. Unbelievably addicting. One of my all-time favorites.
'A fiendishly clever thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. This one will keep you guessing.' - Anita Shreve, author of The Stars are Fire
The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekannen is the shocking Richard and Judy Bookclub bestseller with twists you won't see coming.
Marrying a man with a past was always going to come with problems, but you never expect to become the focus of another woman's obsession.
Nellie just wanted to live the life she'd always dreamed about with Richard. But who is his ex-wife, Vanessa? Wasn't…
