Here are 85 books that The Carriage House fans have personally recommended if you like
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I adore all things ghostly, from TV shows to books to movies. I immerse myself. For me, I think it began as a young girl with poems from my grandmother’s favorite book and films or programs we’d watch together. The what-if factor and the vast unknown is addicting. It chronically makes us think or sit at the edge of our seats. I’ve even visited haunted locations before and had a couple of experiences. Romance ties into that for me. We all strive for it and hope to find it. It can be as elusive as fog. By combining the two genres, readers like me get the best of all worlds.
Though a romantic suspense, this book’s setting in my home state of South Carolina is hauntingly chilling and pays homage to the sins of our past. There’s just something innately real about a small-town story that could be right next door. The heroine has visions, adding the psychic factor, plus the bump-in-the-night brushes bring an almost gothic ghostly quality. Nora has been a dominating force in the romance world for decades, and with good reason. Whether suspense, paranormal, or contemporary, no one writes a story like she can.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents a novel of redemption and suspense, as a woman haunted by the unsolved murder of her childhood friend returns to her small South Carolina hometown...
Tory Bodeen grew up in a run-down house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt-and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. Her one escape was her neighbor Hope, whose friendship allowed Tory to be the child she wasn't allowed to be at home. Then Hope was brutally murdered, and everything fell apart.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I adore all things ghostly, from TV shows to books to movies. I immerse myself. For me, I think it began as a young girl with poems from my grandmother’s favorite book and films or programs we’d watch together. The what-if factor and the vast unknown is addicting. It chronically makes us think or sit at the edge of our seats. I’ve even visited haunted locations before and had a couple of experiences. Romance ties into that for me. We all strive for it and hope to find it. It can be as elusive as fog. By combining the two genres, readers like me get the best of all worlds.
So, I watch paranormal investigation programs. Religiously. The boo factor, the unknown? Yes, please! I devoured this book because it was the first of its kind to have a team of investigators like those shows with the added bonus of characters falling in love. Not to mention, it takes place in New Orleans! So much history, legend, and folklore there. It inspired me to write my own series like it. Also, Heather is one of the nicest, friendliest, down-to-earth authors I’ve ever had the chance to meet. We’ve done a few events together. The whole series is a must-read.
Return to where it all started: New Orleans, the birthplace of the Krewe of Hunters, the FBI’s elite paranormal investigation unit. Rediscover the first case in book 1 of the New York Times bestselling series, only from Heather Graham.
Though haunted by the recent deaths of two teammates, Jackson Crow knows that it’s the living who commit the most heinous crimes. As a police officer using her sometimes-otherworldly intuition, Angela Hawkins already has her hands full of mystery and bloodshed.
Under the oversight of Adam Harrison, Jackson and Angela will join a newly formed unit of the FBI, with the…
I adore all things ghostly, from TV shows to books to movies. I immerse myself. For me, I think it began as a young girl with poems from my grandmother’s favorite book and films or programs we’d watch together. The what-if factor and the vast unknown is addicting. It chronically makes us think or sit at the edge of our seats. I’ve even visited haunted locations before and had a couple of experiences. Romance ties into that for me. We all strive for it and hope to find it. It can be as elusive as fog. By combining the two genres, readers like me get the best of all worlds.
This book didn’t necessarily have a grinding spooky element so much as mysterious unknown indicators, but it’s haunting just the same. And romantic. I believe in second sight or psychic ability, that there are those out there with the true gift. Frankly, I’ve had a few “premonition” dreams myself that led me to an avid interest in the subject. The topic was well-written, relatable, and gave me many story ideas. The setting is an old ancestral home in the Louisiana Bayou, so it hit all the history and boo feels, plus it has a suspense angle. Sharon is an amazing soul with an open mind, who I met at a couple events, and I loved chatting with her.
A woman’s second sight leads her to a missing girl, and the mystery man of her dreams in this romantic thriller from the New York Times–bestselling author.
Like her mother and grandmother, Laurel Scanlon has the gift of second sight. Though by day she is unfulfilled in life and romance, she welcomes the nightly dreams that show her the image of her true love . . .
When her grandmother dies, Laurel is drawn back to Mimosa Grove—her ancestral home in the heart of Louisiana bayou country. When the community asks Laurel to help in the search for…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I adore all things ghostly, from TV shows to books to movies. I immerse myself. For me, I think it began as a young girl with poems from my grandmother’s favorite book and films or programs we’d watch together. The what-if factor and the vast unknown is addicting. It chronically makes us think or sit at the edge of our seats. I’ve even visited haunted locations before and had a couple of experiences. Romance ties into that for me. We all strive for it and hope to find it. It can be as elusive as fog. By combining the two genres, readers like me get the best of all worlds.
This book takes place at a farmhouse in Massachusetts and the setting is phenomenal. It carries that haunted house vibe and mixes it with the psychic ability element, which hits all my “must-read” feels. The hero and heroine are at odds as a believer/non-believer, laying a realistic backdrop I admire. Kathryn is one of the few romantic suspense/paranormal authors who has a genuine ability to fit in the ghostly niche while still creating a HEA. Her descriptive details put you right there amidst the haunting while rooting for the couple.
After tragedy strikes, Callie Sinclair is left with a gift she never wanted—the ability to communicate with ghosts. But when a desperate widow begs for her help, she reluctantly agrees to investigate the strange occurrences at Hillwood Farm. She quickly realizes she’s dealing with a dangerous presence beyond anything she’s ever experienced, and something else becomes equally clear—the only other living person in the house, Mrs. Turner’s handsome grandson, thinks she’s a scam artist. While she’d prefer to just ignore him, her heart beats a little faster every time he’s nearby.
Luke Turner doesn’t believe in spirits. He’s moved back…
Having lived in China for three decades, I am naturally interested in the expat writing scene, from the nineteenth century up through the present. One constant in this country is change, and that requires keeping up with the latest publications by writers who have lived here and know it well. As an author of four novels, one short story collection, and three essay collections on China, I believe I have something of my own to contribute, although I tend to hew to gritty, offbeat themes to capture a contemporary China unknown to the West.
I adored this partly fictionalized, richly realized novel, which fleshes out the life of China’s greatest female painter, Pan Yuliang (1895–1977).
Rescued from a brothel by a wealthy government official, she fled to where the action was—1920s Paris—after graduating from art school in Shanghai. Boldly specializing in paintings of female nudes, including of herself, Pan was invited by high-profile artists to return to Shanghai and display her art, only to become embroiled in a series of widely publicized scandals over her nudes, leading her to quit China for good and resettle in Paris.
Her uncompromising devotion to her independence and her art marginalized her into a life of poverty and posthumous fame. It’s precisely these noble qualities that endeared me to Epstein’s treatment of the artist.
Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of "The Hall of Eternal Splendor," through the raucous glamour of prewar Shanghai and the bohemian splendor of 1920s Paris, and back to a China ripped apart by civil war and teetering on the brink of revolution: this novel tells the story of Pan Yuliang, one of the most talented-and provocative-Chinese artists of the twentieth century.Jennifer Cody Epstein's epic brings to life the woman behind the lush, Cezannesque nude self-portraits, capturing with lavish detail her life in the brothel and then as a concubine to a Republican…
I have always loved reading biographies: we only get one life, but through stories of others’ lives we get to absorb into our own imagination their experiences and what they learned, or didn’t, from them. Having written poetry since childhood, I have long been an observer of myself and those around me, with a great curiosity about how people live and what motivates them. I’ve come to see that, no matter what genre I’m writing in, I’m driven to understand the connection between identity and place–for me, in particular, women in the southern U.S., and how each of us makes meaning out of the materials at hand.
This book was on the bedside table at a friend’s house where I was staying. I picked it up, started it, and stayed up much later than I had planned!
I was so engaged with the idea of an eighteenth-century woman who began making these botanical paper cut-outs and achieved attention for her work in late life, and I was drawn along by Peacock’s clear, lyrical prose and how she wove in aspects of her own life as a poet.
I loved Mary Delaney’s creativity, spirit, and grit, and she now feels to me like a friend from 250 years ago.
Mary Delany was seventy-two years old when she noticed a petal drop from a geranium. In a flash of inspiration, she picked up her scissors and cut out a paper replica of the petal, inventing the art of collage. It was the summer of 1772, in England. During the next ten years she completed nearly a thousand cut-paper botanicals (which she called mosaicks) so accurate that botanists still refer to them. Poet-biographer Molly Peacock uses close-ups of these brilliant collages in The Paper Garden to track the extraordinary life of Delany, friend of Swift, Handel, Hogarth, and even Queen Charlotte…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
As a teenager, I found the layered poetry of Sylvia Plath as riveting as an impasto-layered canvas by Vincent Van Gogh. A love for the rhythm of words and paint, as well as the power of art to tell stories and critique history led me to study art history. Influential college professors opened my eyes to the systematic exclusion of women from art and history. Today, I’m a professor at the University of San Francisco, where I specialize in modern, contemporary, and African art, with an emphasis upon issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. I’m particularly interested in women artists and artists who cross cultural boundaries.
As an undergrad, I was blessed to have two professors who changed the course of my life: Angela Davis and Whitney Chadwick. Both of these professors discussed the intersectionality of gender, race, and class. Women, Art, and Society was published in 1990, and in 2020, the sixth edition was released. Although women artists’ representation in art history pedagogy has improved since 1990, the art world in general still favors men over women, making Chadwick’s book a relevant read. It provides a historical and critical look at women artists from the Middle Ages to the present, covering a range of media and artists from various cultural and geographical backgrounds. It challenges the assumption that great women artists are the exception to the rule and charts the evolution of feminist art history.
Whitney Chadwick's acclaimed study challenges the assumption that great women artists are exceptions to the rule, who 'transcended' their sex to produce major works of art. While acknowledging the many women whose contribution to visual culture since the Middle Ages have often been neglected, Chadwick's survey amounts to much more than an alternative canon of women artists: it re-examines the works themselves and the ways in which they have been perceived as marginal, often in direct reference to gender. In her disussion of feminism and its influence on such a reappraisal, the author also addresses the closely related issues of…
At heart, I believe every one of us is creative. It doesn’t matter if you express your creativity through words, notes, metal, wood, food, fabric, or paint. Personally, I love to sketch, paint, write, and sculpt. There is something magical about bringing your imagination to life and sharing it with the world! Our art allows us to share our emotions, dreams, memories, and culture with the world. As a fantasy author, I wanted to create a place where art can transform the physical world too.
If you haven’t read any of Charles de Lint’s stories, you’re in for a treat!
Each of his stories feels so fresh and original. His characters jump off the page… but will also break your heart. This novel is about a young artist named Isabelle Copley (Izzy) whose whimsical paintings seem so real they could come to life. But is her art just… art? The writing is beautiful and lyrical, but also dark and scary.
Memory and Dream is also a great entry into de Lint’s story world of “Newford”.
From her mentor, Rushkin, Isabell Copley had learned to paint creatures that come to life--literally--and years after these creatures have ruined her life, Isabelle returns to painting, haunted by memories, dreams, and the threat of her mentor's return.
I’m an Australian author and artist who is quite cautious and introverted by nature, but very curious and playful at heart. I make books that help people untangle what’s on their mind today and shift their thinking in creative ways, often using visual metaphors. My latest book, Guidebook to the Unknown, was created during the long lockdowns we had in Melbourne (and all over the world of course) during the pandemic. It was my way of exploring how to calm an anxious mind and find meaning in my daily life, right here and now, without knowing what tomorrow will bring.
As it says on the packet, this is a collection of quick peeks into how 140 brilliant women lived (or are living) their version of a creative life. I loved reading a few pages each morning. It helped to soothe the perfectionist in me, being reminded of the endless ways a life can be lived, in both circumstance and choice. Also to read how the messiness of life is sort of ironed out with hindsight made me feel more welcoming to the current unknown of it all.
'That word, "vacation," makes me sweat.' Coco Chanel on taking a break 'You must do it irregardless, or it will eat its way out of you.' Zora Neale Hurston on writing 'One has to choose between the Life and the Project.' Susan Sontag on choosing art
From Vanessa Bell and Charlotte Bronte to Nina Simone and Jane Campion, here are over one hundred and forty female writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, poets, choreographers, and filmmakers on how they create and work.
Barbara Hepworth sculpted outdoors and Janet Frame wore earmuffs as she worked to block out noise. Kate Chopin wrote with…
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
I love writing picture books. They are the perfect blend of words and art. Long ago, my sister and I would sit at the kitchen table and draw. Since she was nearly three years older than me, her drawings always seemed better than mine. That memory turned into my picture book, Arlo Draws an Octopus, about a boy who struggled to draw an octopus. Years later, it was great fun to write a story that turned a “disaster-piece” into a triumph. While I didn't become an artist, I love to read about artists, their unique view of the world, and their art. These picture books are some of the best.
I love picture books about artists, and Yayoi Kusama is a fascinating contemporary artist that young readers would love to learn more about.
I mean, who covers paintings, dresses, tables, walls, and more—with dots? Readers will enjoy learning more about this clever, quirky artist from Japan and why she does what she does.
A clever, quirky book about one of the world's most beloved contemporary artists - aimed at young readers and written from Kusama's point of view!
Yayoi Kusama covers her paintings in hundreds and hundreds of dots. Her dots come off her canvases to cover dresses, tables, walls, and more!
She creates mirrored rooms and fills them with glittering balls and lights, until there is an infinity of dots - just like in her paintings. Fausto Gilberti brings movement, life, and whimsy to the true life story of one of the most important contemporary Japanese artists of our time…