Here are 100 books that The Connellys of County Down fans have personally recommended if you like
The Connellys of County Down.
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At a conference hosted by Maria Shriver, I met Sister Terry Dodge, who works with women exiting prison with nothing but $200, with no job and no place to live. She showed a video, and that video has stuck with me. So much so that it wrote itself into The Breaks. Meanwhile, I was volunteering with a therapy program, taking pets into Juvenile Hall. I learned a lot from the kids and counselors there. Then You Got Nothing Coming came my way, and later Orange is the New Black (the book, not the television show). In both fiction and nonfiction, the mix of pathos, hilarity, and horror is astounding.
First of all, this book is hilarious. Second of all, it made me cry.
A trans woman leaving a men’s prison? After twenty years inside? With nowhere to go that will meet the requirements of her parole? Never mind meeting her requirements in the way of wardrobe. So this novel was quite a ride for me, right from page one. Although I have nothing in common with Carlotta, I somehow found myself identifying with her, and I was hooked. I can’t explain it.
I’m fussy about grammar and punctuation—until this book, which had my head spinning with mid-sentence switch-ups between first person and third person, between prison-speak and whatever I speak, between using and not using punctuation and sentence structure. I loved every minute, every sentence.
In this “dangerously hilarious” novel (Los Angeles Times), a trans woman reenters life on the outside after more than twenty years in a men’s prison, over one consequential Fourth of July weekend—from the author of the PEN/Faulkner Award winner Delicious Foods.
Carlotta Mercedes has been misunderstood her entire life. When she was pulled into a robbery gone wrong, she still went by the name she’d grown up with in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—before it gentrified. But not long after her conviction, she took the name Carlotta and began to live as a woman, an embrace of selfhood that prison authorities rejected,…
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…
Like many readers, I am drawn to stories of vengeance. Stories of someone seeking revenge have a built-in tension and narrative drive. But as the saying goes, when you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. Yes, these tales seldom go smoothly. The consequences of this and the violence that ensues are what I wanted to explore in my latest novel, but several books on my shelf make fascinating stories out of this desire for revenge.
The first of a trilogy about backwoods Florida criminals and the man who wants to leave his life behind, this book shows Post’s talent for real emotion and pathos in the middle of the chaos of a full-on thriller.
Judah Cannon is a man with morals and a will to do the right thing, but he also comes with skills and experience to bring the fight to those who have wronged him. And, of course, any great protagonist needs a great antagonist, and Post writes them as well as anyone. Sister Tulah is a villain for ages.
Judah Cannon is the middle son of the notorious Cannon clan led by Sherwood, its unflinching and uncompromising patriarch. When Judah returns to his rural hometown of Silas, Florida after a stint in prison, he is determined to move forward and live it clean with his childhood best friend and newly discovered love, Ramey Barrow. Everything soon spirals out of control, though, when a phone call from Sherwood ensnares Judah and Ramey in a complicated web of thievery, brutality and betrayal.
Pressured by the unrelenting bonds of blood ties, Judah takes part in robbing the Scorpions, a group of…
Thrillers with female leads and complex relationships are crammed into my bookshelves. As an only child whose school was an hour’s bus ride away with many friends living further away than that, I would have killed to have had a tight group of friends to hang out with. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have gone that far but it has left me fascinated by groups of friends who’ve known each other since the first day of school, ones who have each other’s backs through thick and thin. And I’m even more interested in what happens when they turn on each other.
I can’t list thrillers that shine the spotlight on female relationships without featuring siblings. In this book, four sisters go to spend the summer with their aunt and uncle who haven’t recovered from their daughter’s disappearance five years previously. The main driver of the story is to uncover what really happened to Audrey Wilde but I was drawn in by the special relationship between the four sisters. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have any siblings that the bond intrigues me.
Discover the spellbinding mystery from the Richard & Judy bestselling author of The Glass House
'An enthralling story of secrets, sisters and an unsolved mystery' KATE MORTON 'One of the most enthralling novelists of the moment' LISA JEWELL ______
When four sisters arrive at Applecote Manor to spend the summer, all is clearly not well.
They find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their only daughter, five years before. No one seems any closer to finding out the truth.
Why did Audrey vanish? Who is keeping her fate secret?
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
As a cultural anthropologist, I'm like a cultural detective, exploring the intricate and often heart-wrenching world of war, conflict, and population displacement. But before you envision me in a dusty library, let me share that I found my passion for unraveling the everyday, lived experiences of war while living in Ukraine, where I became close to incredible individuals whose lives had been profoundly altered by war. When people shared with me how Russian aggression was tearing apart their cherished friendships and family bonds, I knew I had to delve into the profound effects of war on personal relationships. So, here I am, on a mission to illuminate the hidden stories, and the untold struggles, that are so important.
Taylor’s book about the civil war is unlike any other.
Utilizing personal letters and archival documents, the book illuminates the conflicting loyalties to kin and country in civil war America. Taylor takes readers beyond the battlefield to show them the emotional lives of people who had family members fighting on opposite sides of the war.
I found a direct parallel among the people I lived and worked among during my fieldwork in Ukraine. Instead of archival materials, I use personal interviews to show how the contemporary geopolitical crisis over Ukraine is accompanied by a relational crisis when siblings, friends, parents, and their children can no longer communicate.
This title discusses the crisis of the 'house divided'. The Civil War has long been described as a war pitting 'brother against brother'. The divided family is an enduring metaphor for the divided nation, but it also accurately reflects the reality of America's bloodiest war. Connecting the metaphor to the real experiences of families whose households were split by conflicting opinions about the war, Amy Murrell Taylor provides a social and cultural history of the divided family in Civil War America. She studies letters and diaries to understand how families coped with division between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters,…
As you get to know the characters I create, you'll be imbued with a sense of hope and possibility–with the magic that can happen when someone pokes a toe out of her comfort zone and makes things happen. You'll relate to discrete characters, who like most women, desire and deserve true love, authentic relationships—whether they be friends, mothers, daughters, or lovers–and meaningful work. You'll care about their emotional hurts, the misunderstandings that cause them to stumble, and cheer them on as they make choices that ultimately lead them to create empowered, fulfilling lives. Hooking you from the first sentence, I'll ignite your brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next.
I love this tale of Jess, single mom of young William, who sets off to spend the summer at her ex-boyfriend Adam's hotel—an idyllic, restored castle nestled into the sunlit hills of the French countryside. Her aim? To make Adam fall in love with his son. Jess can't allow Adam to let William down–because she is tormented by a secret, one that nobody–especially her son–must discover. Come for an equal-parts wry comedy and heart-wrenching family drama. Stay for a deliciously tender story about finding love and joy in unexpected places.
*** THE FEEL-GOOD NOVEL OF THE SUMMER AND A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION *** 'Wow. Just wow. If you liked Me Before You, you'll love You Me Everything' Sunday Times bestseller Clare Mackintosh Set in the French countryside over one hot summer, You Me Everything is a tender novel about finding joy and love even in the most unexpected places.
Jess and her ten-year-old son William set off to spend the summer at Chateau de Roussignol, deep in the rich, sunlit hills of the Dordogne. There, Jess's ex-boyfriend and William's father, Adam, runs a beautiful hotel in…
I’m Gen X, through and through. And because I grew up in that (glorious?) time before social media, I didn’t have the worry that my messy-woman missteps would be exposed online. But the trade-off to keeping my mistakes as private as possible was that I often felt like I couldn’t live boldly. So now I’m fascinated by the ways other women handle the messier aspects of their lives: the obsessions and frustrations, the secrets we all keep, the duality we choke down. I want to know what we’re each quietly starving for, what’s driving us when we strip away social expectation and are left to sit with our gnawing hungers.
One of my favorite things about this book is how Chung effortlessly weaves the human experience with the magical, braiding in Korean folklore and science as she goes. The women in these stories are feeling their way through their worlds, both everyday and fantastical, stumbling through love, family, duty, loss, and talking dolls.
Chung’s stories are infused with an emotional numbness that feels so familiar to me, a shadow side I recognize in myself, too. This only made my heart break harder when each story ended, exposing all the different bones of womanhood. I always have that sense of Yes, that’s just it when I read her writing.
From the author of Sea Change comes a short story collection that explores Korean American womanhood, bodies, animals, and transformation as a means of survival.
"The stories hit, each one, and land with such seeming perfection. Chung's book sits next to my all-time favorite story collections by masters of the craft: Karen Russell, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, George Saunders, and Ted Chiang."—Morgan Talty, award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez
Equal parts fantastical—a pair of talking dolls help twins escape a stifling home, a heart boils on the stove as part of an…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
I’m an award-winning biographer and critic. My essays and reviews appear regularly in the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement, and I teach literature and creative writing at King’s College London. I’ve always loved stories about the lives of great writers – stories that seek to illuminate genius, without ever explaining it away.
This is a magnificent autobiography, a work of intricate self-portraiture that takes in everything from the author’s dental troubles, through his relationship with his father, to his reaction to his cousin’s murder. Amis’s comic energy and stylistic brio are on sizzling display throughout, but so are qualities that aren’t often associated with his fiction: gentleness, generosity, emotional vulnerability…
In this remarkable work of autobiography, the son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis explores his relationship with his father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life, including the final one of his death. Amis also reflects on the life and legacy of his cousin, Lucy Partington, who disappeared without trace in 1973 and was exhumed twenty years later from the basement of Frederick West, one of Britain's most prolific serial murderers.
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
I am fascinated by the idea of good people, moral people, people you know and like and love, who make terrible choices, wrong decisions, and mistakes that can’t be undone. And when the person who makes the mistake is a mother—my God! How the world turns on them. We live in a society where mothers are judged so harshly, where they are not allowed mistakes, where they are barely allowed to have a life or a want or a desire or a longing not connected to mothering. And so I write about this, and I read about this.
This one I loved for the style as much as the character. I love the use of fragments to weave together a life and it felt true to the life of a mother—that a mother only gets snippets of time to piece together her story and her thoughts. I also loved that Offil was wrestling with such a big issue—how to hold onto oneself while giving so much of your self to a child.
They used to send each other letters. The return address was always the same: Dept. of Speculation.
They used to be young, brave, and giddy with hopes for their future. They got married, had a child, and skated through all the small calamities of family life. But then, slowly, quietly something changes. As the years rush by, fears creep in and doubts accumulate until finally their life as they know it cracks apart and they find themselves forced to reassess what they have lost, what is left, and what they want now.
Written with the dazzling lucidity of poetry, Dept.…
I was raised in middle-class America by a strong woman and an alcoholic. I survived an abuser when I realized that I was the answer to my problems. I write about tough subjects but am an eternal optimist who believes a strong spirit will always ensure a happy ending.
A coming of age story – for a fourteen-year-old who’s discovered she’s gay, her inadequate mother, her severely autistic younger sister, and a reclusive, distant older man and his dog.
The protagonist is the doer of the family who refuses to give in to poverty and give up to allow her sister to be institutionalized. What one determined soul can do when she refuses to give up.
I love stories that resolve in a happy ending, despite facing seemingly hopeless odds.
Fans of Mark Haddon, Mitch Albom and Alice Sebold will love this remarkable, moving story about family and the many forms this can take by Richard & Judy bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.
'A smashing read and left me feeling so positive about human nature' -- ***** Reader review 'An absolute joy to read' -- ***** Reader review 'Beautifully written' -- ***** Reader review 'Fantastic' -- ***** Reader review 'Catherine, you've done it again. Another awesome read that will stay with me' -- ***** Reader review 'A page-turner' -- ***** Reader review ********************************************************************************************************* WHAT IF THE FAMILY YOU NEED ISN'T…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
As a psychologist who writes psychological suspense I love reading similar books where other writers bring their knowledge of psychology to their craft. Aside from writing, I enjoy cryptic puzzles, and I find that reading crime and suspense novels exercises similar lateral thinking as I try to identify the red herrings and work out the twist. And don’t we all love it when we get it right? But if you’re like me, you get an even bigger buzz when you’ve been fooled by a clever misdirection or plot twist. And gosh, are they fun to write!
The author was previously a clinical psychologist, and her knowledge is brought to the fore in this novel of a professional grieving for her missing child. The protagonist and mother of the title is a psychotherapist working in a trauma therapy unit where she struggles to keep boundaries between her private emotions and her work with her clients.
As a psychologist myself, I liked the realistic portrayal of her personal/professional struggles and the dynamic of client/therapist relationships and boundaries. A true glimpse behind the scenes.
The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves...
'Excellent . . . A gripping debut.' Sunday Times 'Taut, absorbing and psychologically astute.' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
Dr Ruth Hartland is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. But she is finding it hard to maintain.
Increasingly preoccupied by her son Tom's disappearance, Ruth is shaken when a new patient arrives at the unit - a young man who looks shockingly like him.
As a therapist, she knows exactly what she should do.…
