Here are 7 books that The Child Finder fans have personally recommended if you like The Child Finder. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Victorian Psycho

David Grassé Author Of Red Light Districts of Tucson

From David's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Author Historian Arizonian Epicurian Iconoclast

David's 3 favorite reads in 2025

David Grassé Why David loves this book

This is a wonderfully dark satirical and sardonic novel which eviscerates (literally) high Victorian culture. Having an abiding interest in Victorian and Edwardian culture and the horror genre, this had great appeal. Virginia Feito has a sly sense of humor.

By Virginia Feito ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Victorian Psycho as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Virginia Feito's Mrs. March was hailed as "a brilliant debut . . . [by] a writer who keeps pace with the grandees she invokes" (Sarah Ditum, Guardian)-from Daphne Du Maurier and Shirley Jackson to Patricia Highsmith. Now, Feito returns with her "silver-polish sentences and her eerie psychological acumen" (Constance Grady, Vox) to unleash an entirely new antihero on us all.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess-she'll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate's…


If you love The Child Finder...

Ad

Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

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…

Book cover of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

Unknown Author

By Clay McLeod Chapman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wake Up and Open Your Eyes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Clay McLeod Chapman is one of my favorite horror storytellers working today."-Jordan Peele

"If talking politics with family has become a horror show, this book's for you."-New York Times Book Review

From master of horror Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media.

Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the "Great Reawakening" is here, he assumes it's related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But…


Book cover of Beloved

Judith Teitelman Author Of Guesthouse for Ganesha

From Judith's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Traveler Seeker Educator Insightful

Judith's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Judith Teitelman Why Judith loves this book

Decades had passed since I last read Beloved and I felt compelled to revisit this rich, powerful, provocative masterpiece. Morrison's writing is exquisite.

By Toni Morrison ,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked Beloved as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times

Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved

It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…


If you love Rene Denfeld...

Ad

Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

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…

Book cover of The Round House

Stephen L. Pevar Author Of The Rights of Indians and Tribes

From my list on rights of Indian tribes and their members.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 1971, when I graduated from law school, I received a fellowship to help staff a Legal Aid office on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I lived there for nearly four years, representing tribal members in tribal, state, and federal courts. I then worked for 45 years on the National Legal Staff of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). One of my major responsibilities was helping Indian tribes and their members protect and enforce their rights, and I filed numerous cases on their behalf. During that time, I taught Federal Indian Law for more than 20 years and also published The Rights of Indians and Tribes. 

Stephen's book list on rights of Indian tribes and their members

Stephen L. Pevar Why Stephen loves this book

This novel won the National Book Award and it’s easy to see why. Written by a Native author about reservation life, it discusses a crime that occurred that—like many reservation crimes—went unsolved for a long time.

The book is informative and compelling, and it weaves Native practices and culture into the story. I found it particularly interesting because it includes characters and themes that resonated with my experiences.

By Louise Erdrich ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Round House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the National Book Award • Washington Post Best Book of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book

From one of the most revered novelists of our time, an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal…


Book cover of Native Son

Clyde Edgerton Author Of Lunch at the Piccadilly

From my list on religion humor violence love racism co-exist in US.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian in the rural South of the United States. Gradually, I began to see the good and the bad in the church community and social community I loved as a child (and still love). My realizations led to tension in my heart, and that led to the creation of stories, both fiction and non-fiction. My list of five books is a kind of cornerstone (or touchstone?) of some of my present notions about our lives on earth before we each join the Majority.

Clyde's book list on religion humor violence love racism co-exist in US

Clyde Edgerton Why Clyde loves this book

This book, about racism, among other matters, helped open my eyes to the humanity of all people and showed me, in particular, the ways that cruelty and racism exist in our cultures and subcultures. When I read this book, I was fresh out of five years in the Air Force (1971) and had just experienced the caste system of military life.

Prior to that, I'd lived, as a child and teenager, in a community in which racism and fundamentalist religion were taken for granted as givens of the universe. When I read this book, I realized the power of literature to open a person to meanings previously absent in their life.

By Richard Wright ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Native Son as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reissued to mark the 80th anniversary of Native Son's publication - discover Richard Wright's brutal and gripping masterpiece this black history month.

'[Native Son] possesses an artistry, penetration of thought, and sheer emotional power that places it into the front rank of American fiction' Ralph Ellison

Reckless, angry and adrift, Bigger Thomas has grown up trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago. But a job with the affluent Dalton family provides the setting for a catastrophic collision between his world and theirs. Hunted by citizen and police alike, and baited by prejudiced officials, Bigger finds himself…


Book cover of Bang

Kia Corthron Author Of The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter

From my list on the intersection of race, class, and justice in America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up as an African American in the Maryland Appalachian valley, a town that was ninety-five percent white. My father worked for the paper mill and would bring home reams of paper, pens, pencils. I began playing with the stuff—making up stories and stapling them into books, the raw beginnings of a future novelist. Separately, I created dialogue, using clothespins as people: a burgeoning playwright. (We were not destitute—my sister and I had toys! But those makeshift playthings worked best for my purposes.) So, given my working-class racial minority origins, it was rather inevitable that I would be drawn to stories addressing class and race. 

Kia's book list on the intersection of race, class, and justice in America

Kia Corthron Why Kia loves this book

I was searching for some good fiction by a Latinx author regarding immigration at the southern border when I discovered this gem. The narrative begins in Texas with an undocumented family—the mother’s constant dread of authorities; the aching memory of the father’s deportation; sickness and abuse engendered by farm work. Some youthful mischief by the two sons accidentally, and in an instant, splinters the household and transforms the mise en scène to Mexico and the nightmare that, as the author eloquently demonstrates, NAFTA and the American drug wars have wrought: routine brutality, lethal superstition, destitution, desperation. Peña’s graceful prose packs into two hundred pages an epic journey of love and sacrifice, of terror and survival, of three people struggling under the most insurmountable circumstances to maintain their humanity. 

By Daniel Peña ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bang as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Uli’s first flight, a late-night joy ride with his brother, changes their lives forever when the engine stops and the boys crash land, with “Texas to the right and Mexico to the left.” Before the accident, Uli juggled his status as both an undocumented immigrant and a high school track star in Harlingen, Texas, desperately hoping to avoid being deported like his father. His mother Araceli spent her time waiting for her husband. His older brother Cuauhtémoc, a former high-school track star turned drop-out, learned to fly a crop duster, spraying pesticide over their home in the citrus grove.

After…


If you love The Child Finder...

Ad

Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

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…

Book cover of The Enchanted

Kia Corthron Author Of The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter

From my list on the intersection of race, class, and justice in America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up as an African American in the Maryland Appalachian valley, a town that was ninety-five percent white. My father worked for the paper mill and would bring home reams of paper, pens, pencils. I began playing with the stuff—making up stories and stapling them into books, the raw beginnings of a future novelist. Separately, I created dialogue, using clothespins as people: a burgeoning playwright. (We were not destitute—my sister and I had toys! But those makeshift playthings worked best for my purposes.) So, given my working-class racial minority origins, it was rather inevitable that I would be drawn to stories addressing class and race. 

Kia's book list on the intersection of race, class, and justice in America

Kia Corthron Why Kia loves this book

A bookseller friend, whose opinions I highly respect, had highly recommended Rene Denfeld’s debut, so The Enchanted very quickly catapulted to the top of my To-Read List. And I was instantly enchanted by the luscious language, the urgent content, the writer’s ability to fuse metaphorical darkness and light. Told from the perspective of a death row inmate, the writing seamlessly flows from gritty reality to breathtaking fantasy. I wasn’t surprised to learn of Rene’s extensive time in prisons (often on death row) as a public defender’s chief investigator, or that her keen understanding of trauma in childhood came from her own firsthand experience, as the text is drenched in arresting truths, in transgression and redemption, and in the complicated and wondrous humanity of us all.

By Rene Denfeld ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Enchanted as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'THE ENCHANTED wrapped its beautiful and terrible fingers around me from the first page and refused to let go after the last. A wondrous book... so dark, yet so exquisite.' Erin Morgentern, author of The Night Circus

A prisoner sits on death row in a maximum security prison. His only escape from his harsh existence is through the words he dreams about, the world he conjures around him using the power of language. For the reality of his world is brutal and stark. He is not named, nor do we know his crime. But he listens. He listens to the…


Book cover of Victorian Psycho
Book cover of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
Book cover of Beloved

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,211

readers submitted
so far, will you?