Here are 93 books that The Better Sister fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a descendant of William Bradford and Myles Standish, of Pilgrim fame. I was raised in a Massachusetts farmhouse where the commission of James Churchill as a Captain in the militia still hangs, signed by John Hancock. I have lived and breathed this stuff since first opening my eyes. My wife, MaryLu, is a retired elementary teacher who helps bring life to the young characters. Together, through the medium of novels they would actually enjoy reading, we seek to inspire American youth with the principles of our founding, so that they may be more effective in preserving and defending them.
Many an idealistic young law student like me felt that jolt in our spine early on when we saw up in the balcony of that courthouse a sleepy Scout being told, “Stand up, Jean Louise. Your father’s passin’.”
The movie is as faithful to the novel as the medium would allow. The novel is told entirely from Scout’s POV and not only focuses upon the racism of the time and place, but also upon her coming of age as a tomboy and being told to act “As a little girl should.”
The book offers more to those of us for whom the rule of law and not of men is a passion, especially in Finch’s closing: “There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of Rockefeller, a stupid man the equal of Einstein… That institution, gentlemen, is a court.”
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
Little does attorney Hiram Garbuncle know the danger he’s getting into when he reluctantly defends an immigrant brutally beaten by two policemen during a traffic stop and charged with resisting arrest.
Plot twists and turns take the reader on a suspense-filled roller coaster ride as the attorney’s negligence causes a…
I am a long-time ER nurse, aid worker, and writer, and I have long been fascinated by true crime/mysteries; much of that interest honed in the ER, where I was often stumped when patient injuries or recollections of witnesses didn’t quite add up. As amateur detectives, we ER nurses often hounded detectives with our own theories, and in one especially big murder case, we had figured out exactly what had happened and who the real killer was before the detectives did. I am also a voracious reader and love a good mystery/thriller to take me away from real life, except when I am solving real life crimes on Dateline.
I love a legal mystery/thriller and this one had me engrossed. While the courtroom drama was gripping, it was the backstory and the Assistant DA’s personal involvement in the trial that implicated his own son in a horrific murder that riveted me.
If your son was on trial for murder, what would you do?
Andy Barber's job is to put killers behind bars. And when a boy from his son Jacob's school is found stabbed to death, Andy is doubly determined to find and prosecute the perpetrator.
Until a crucial piece of evidence turns up linking Jacob to the murder. And suddenly Andy and his wife find their son accused of being a cold-blooded killer.
In the face of every parent's worst nightmare, they will do anything to defend their child. Because, deep down, they know him better than anyone.
I’m a Romanian American author who arrived in the US with a job in software development. In more than twenty years as an immigrant, I’ve struggled with the same problems these novels explore: how to build a home in a new land, away from my family; how to fit in or make my peace with not belonging; how to be the parent of American-born children whose culture is different from my native one. I’m familiar with the US immigration system from my yearslong citizenship application, and I also interviewed an immigration lawyer extensively for my thriller.
In this gripping courtroom drama, an explosion in Miracle Creek, Virginia, destroys the business of South Korean immigrants Pak and Young Yoo and puts their daughter Mary into a monthslong coma. As arguments mount against the woman accused of starting the fire, Young struggles with a question many immigrants must face. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought her child to the US, where Mary struggles as a teenager and where she was almost killed. The tension between the two generations resonated with me as a parent and immigrant. As Young hopes to discover who caused the explosion that killed two other people, she must also help Mary imagine a future in their adoptive country.
'That wonderful, brilliant sort of book you want to shove at people as soon as you've finished so they can experience it for themselves' Erin Morgenstern
A thrilling debut novel for fans of Liane Moriarty and Celeste Ng about how far we'll go to protect our families - and our deepest secrets.
In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine - a pressurised oxygen chamber that patients enter for "dives", used as an alternative therapy for conditions including autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two…
Little does attorney Hiram Garbuncle know the danger he’s getting into when he reluctantly defends an immigrant brutally beaten by two policemen during a traffic stop and charged with resisting arrest.
Plot twists and turns take the reader on a suspense-filled roller coaster ride as the attorney’s negligence causes a…
I’ve always loved mysteries and the detectives that solved them. Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot were heroes to me, but as I grew older and the world grew more complex, I started reading novels where it was not so easy to separate the good guys from the bad. The world was not black and white anymore, and justice was not so simple. Characters who had to work around the law or took matters into their own hands to earn justice became my new heroes. Phillip Marlowe and Sam Spade, while not saints themselves, did whatever they had to in order to serve justice, and I admired them for it.
I loved the way Scott Turow navigates the law and the courtroom in his fiction, and this novel especially.
Not only is this story a breathtaking page turner, it pins down the fine points of the law and behavioral nuances of the people who practice it.
This was one of the books that kept you up all night and then you found yourself wanting to read again—to find the trail of breadcrumbs you missed the first time through. Justice is served, just not as expected.
Rusty Sabich is a prosecuting lawyer in Chicago who enters a nightmare world when Carolyn, a beautiful attorney with whom he has been having an affair, is found raped and strangled. He stands accused of the crime.
This 'insider' book by a Chicago lawyer was one of the great novels of the 1980s, selling more than nine million copies, and was made into a famous film starring Harrison Ford. It's a supremely suspenseful and compelling courtroom drama about ambition, weakness, hypocrisy and American justice.
I'm an author of more than twenty Christian fiction books. I write true romantic suspense with equal parts engaging romance and thrilling suspense. My debut novel was a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest, and many of my subsequent titles have reached bestseller status. I engage with readers through my blog, which is recognized as a top 25 Christian fiction blog on Feedspot, and my Facebook group, "Heartbeats and Hideaways."
I loved this book by Colleen Coble for its romance, suspense, and mystery blend. The unique storyline immediately drew me in, with the heroine’s repressed memories unraveling upon her return to the scene of her childhood trauma.
The twists and turns in this gripping thriller kept me guessing. The female lead is relatable, and the love interest adds something special to the story. The subplot about the injured orca was an endearing addition to the novel.
In this USA TODAY bestselling romantic suspense, Claire's visit to a luxury hotel in Maine awakens repressed memories that undermine all she holds dear.
In 1989, Claire Dellamare disappeared from her own fourth birthday party at the Hotel Tourmaline on the island of Folly Shoals, Maine. She showed up a year later at the same hotel, with a note pinned to her dress but no explanation. Nobody knows where Claire spent that year-and until now, Claire didn't even know she had ever been missing.
But when Claire returns to the Hotel Tourmaline for a business meeting with her CEO father,…
I’ve always been fascinated by people’s motives whether that be in real life or written on the page. That’s what drew me to write in the thriller genre to begin with because at the core, it's about finding out why people do things. But sometimes this genre portrays female characters as either innocent damsels or evil femme fatales, neither of which captures that women are a mix of good and bad like all other people. That’s why I try to write my female protagonists in my novels, short stories, and fictional podcasts, in a way that makes them conflicted humans and causes them to experience both downfalls and triumphs.
This novel is exactly what I look for in a thriller.
It’s fast-paced, filled with twists, and full of complex female characters.
The Howell Family is forced to move from California to Brooklyn for the husband’s job. Wife and mother, Nora is tasked with setting up their new home and getting her two teen daughters settled into their new schools.
However, she discovers their new Brownstone was the site of a grisly murder of an entire family in the 1990s. Soon one of the daughters notices someone stalking her and their house causing the family to fear the killer has returned.
But Nora isn’t the helpless stay-at-home mother everyone thinks she is as she goes through great lengths including hiding a dark past to keep her family safe.
One of Bibliofile's Most Anticipated Mystery/Thriller Books!
“Great psychological suspense with a wallop of a twist.” —Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author
New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub makes her trade paperback debut with a fast-paced thriller in the vein of Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs and Megan Collins’ The Winter Sister. Here, a family making a fresh start moves into a house which was the site of an unsolved triple homicide—and are watched by an unknown person...
The watcher sees who you are...and knows what you did.
Long before I earned a degree in psychology, I was fascinated by human relationships and motivations. Since reading novels is an excellent way to delve into the minds of a variety of people, the library became my second home. I well remember my first binge-read—Nancy Drew. I devoured the entire series sitting under a catalpa tree in my grandfather’s backyard. So it’s probably not surprising that I’m now the author of 60+ novels in the romantic suspense and contemporary romance genres—none of which include sex, swear words, or gratuitous violence. Because as suspense superstar Mary Higgins Clark once said, you don’t need any of those to tell a compelling story.
I expected great things from this wonderful writer and was not disappointed. This was my first-ever split-time novel, and I was hesitant to pick it up because historical fiction isn’t my favorite genre. But this beautiful tale of love, duty, honor, devotion, and second chances seamlessly wove together two remarkable love stories—one present day, one Civil-War era—in a lovely, lyrical tapestry that tugged at my heartstrings. And as you can see from my list, it opened me up to other stories that use the split-time technique to tell generational stories.
New York Times bestselling author Linda Goodnight welcomes you to Honey Ridge, Tennessee, and a house that's rich with secrets and brimming with sweet possibilities
Memories of motherhood and marriage are fresh for Julia Presley—though tragedy took away both years ago. Finding comfort in the routine of running the Peach Orchard Inn, she lets the historic, mysterious place fill the voids of love and family. No more pleasure of a man's gentle kiss. No more joy in hearing a child call her Mommy. Life is calm, unchanging…until a stranger with a young boy and soul-deep secrets shows up in her…
When my children were 1, 3, and 5, my husband and I adopted two teenage boys. Suddenly, I was a mom to five, trying to keep my head above water. I turned to other women for advice, friendship, and compassion. While bonding over our chaotic lives, I found stories. My friends offered new perspectives on my world. I learned that every woman is living life on her own terms, and no two tales are the same. This is the magic of listening to another woman. I'm passionate about telling these stories so we can all see the world from a unique perspective and look at our situations with new understanding.
I love this book for a few reasons. 1.) I love a book where the location becomes a character in and of itself. This book takes place in the San Yuan Islands of Washington State, a location that is near and dear to my heart as I grew up in the area. I spent most of my childhood roaming the shores and popping into the little boutique shops dotting the islands.
The vivid descriptions of the landscape brought me back to those days. 2.) I loved the way this story focuses on a mother/daughter relationship that isn’t the typical “happy family” dynamic. A sprinkle of romance and a touch of culinary had me turning the pages until the very end.
“Heartfelt, heartwarming, joyful, and uplifting. You can't go wrong with a Rachel Linden book.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
After a day of unrivaled disappointments, a promising young chef finds every bite of food suddenly tastes bitter. To save her career, she travels to the Pacific Northwest to reconnect with her estranged mom, and discovers a family legacy she never suspected in this delicious novel from the bestselling author of The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie.
American chef Georgia May Jackson has one goal—to run her own restaurant in Paris. After a grueling decade working in Parisian kitchens,…
I’ve been an avid reader and a professional writer my entire life—from writing for newspapers, magazines, and television to developing, producing, and writing award-winning projects for TV and film and writing best-selling fiction and nonfiction. My experience as a journalist, author, screenwriter, and producer has always interested me in headline news, historical subjects, and modern-day topics and issues that resonate with humanity. In doing so, I’ve consciously decided to create projects and share stories that entertain, inspire, educate, and uplift with themes that revolve around faith, family, hope, healing, forgiveness, timeless friendships, enduring romances, and the wondrous mysteries of life.
When Maggie returns to her family’s grand but decaying English estate, Cloudesley, to care for her ailing grandmother, Maggie uncovers hidden truths about her family’s history. Having left Cloudesley due to unresolved, painful issues, Maggie returns to assist her grandmother out of a sense of duty.
However, this particular visit divulges secrets, including the truth behind her once beautiful grandmother’s seemingly happy, although secretly unhappy, marriage and the consequences of a forbidden love affair her grandmother had during her youth. Faced with this truth and upending all she has previously believed, Maggie is led not only to a deeper understanding of her family but, by confronting past mistakes, gains a deeper understanding of herself.
A compelling story of hidden secrets and forbidden love, from the bestselling author of The Secrets of the Tides
'Completely captivating' Kate Riordan
'Atmospheric and moving' Katherine Webb
Hidden deep in the dusty wing of an old manor house stands a locked room, forgotten by all - except one. Sixty years ago Lillian Oberon was mistress of Cloudesley, until one glittering summer, when a doomed love affair changed her life forever.
Now frail and muddled, Lillian is the sole guardian of Cloudesley, and of its dark secrets. Only when Maggie, her devoted granddaughter, returns to nurse her - and her…
My mom handed me one of those little girl diaries with a lock and key when I was in third grade. I wrote my heart into those diaries until I needed more space and shifted to regular-sized notebooks. Writing is my way to know myself and make sense of my life. The journal I kept in the last months of my husband’s life helped me reassemble the trauma-blurred memories of his dying, and then, it supported my emotional rebirth during the year of intense grieving. It is with surprise and delight that I hear from readers who say I articulate their innermost emotions related to love and loss.
Even though the marriage in Oh William!ends in divorce while my marriage ended (without my consent) in my husband’s untimely death, the book brought me back to the unconventional nature of my marriage. Elizabeth Strout’s uncanny ability to say much in a single sentence had me traveling back in time and heart to the many moments that made our marriage. The tendernesses and fears, the deep trust and insecurities that quietly but forcefully bound us together made up the subtle mysteries of our uncommon relationship. What makes people move apart yet remain forever close, as in Lucy Barton and her ex-husband, William, or what holds two people together when there are many factors that might drive them apart, as in my marriage? These questions made reading this book a thought-provoking and enriching experience.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker-longlisted, bestselling author returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life
Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband - and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of…
