Here are 41 books that The Dark Wives fans have personally recommended if you like
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Ever since I read the work of Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and Georgette Heyer at an impressionable age, nineteenth-century England has fascinated me. My mother, a lifelong reader, is responsible for sparking this obsession. She never cared that I wanted to read “grown-up books” or later tried to discourage me from majoring in English. After college, I went on to teach British literature to high school students and to write two mystery series, one set during the Regency period, the other taking place half a century later. This new Victorian series introduces a bored spinster who finds her purpose in life as a detective.
Every so often, I meet a charming, humane fictional character who seems like someone I would very much like to have a long conversation with. The gentlemanly amateur detective Charles Lenox is just such a man. And, in fact, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time having tea with his friends in this novel, set in 1865 London.
But that doesn’t stop Mr. Lenox from using his impressive wits to solve the murder of a housemaid, who is dead in an apparent suicide. I love this series by author Charles Finch and eagerly await each new installment.
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…
The first half of the book was absolutely enthralling, packed with tense drama and emotional depictions of front-line medical care during the Vietnam War. The second half, after the main character returns home from war, drags a bit in places and fixates on some toxic relationships. Despite those rough patches, I picked it as a favorite this year for its unique take on the nurses' story, an often-overlooked part of history.
From master storyteller Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds, comes the story of a turbulent, transformative era in America: the 1960s. The Women is that rarest of novels—at once an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics, of a generation both fueled by dreams and lost on the battlefield.
“Women can be heroes, too.”
When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these unexpected…
This is the latest instalment in the utterly addictive Wild Isle series, set on the remote island of St Kilda, off the coast of Scotland. The Lost Lover is epic, sweeping historical fiction at its most enthralling. If you read this, you will immediately want to devour the others in the series, The Last Summer and The Stolen Hours. The characters are compelling, the plot page-turning and atmospheric.
'One of our most prolific and talented writers' - Santa Montefiore
Young Flora MacQueen has always dreamt of more than life on the small Scottish island of St Kilda. So, when she catches the eye of visiting adventurer and wealthy businessman James Callaghan, her future seems brighter.
Winter seas separate the lovers but the island's evacuation the following summer promises to reunite them - until tragedy strikes.
Heartbroken and needing to support her family on the mainland, a chance meeting offers hope. Soon Flora is the toast of glamorous Paris;…
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…
Clare Pooley's comedy chops are astounding. How to Age Disgracefully had me laughing aloud, right from the opening prologue in which a van full of senior citizens has been stopped by the police. The driver, community center leader Lydia, explains that she initially thought she was getting a police escort, since her old (and young) passengers desperately needed a bathroom. The unruly crowd begins to pipe up, one woman complaining that Lydia shouldn't be giving out medical information without a warrant. Then each passenger begins to bemoan being caught for sundry crimes. The cacophony rises until law enforcement shouts "Stop confessing!" and reveals the photo of the woman she's actually seeking.
Except that woman has surreptitiously disembarked and can be seen crossing the highway, walking stick clearing her way.
This scene makes the perfect button ending because throughout this novel, we learn what each character wants and is hiding.
“Pooley weaves together the most cleverly flawed and lovable characters and then sets them free to prove that we are limitless at any age.” —Annabel Monaghan, bestselling author of Summer Romance
A senior citizens’ center and a daycare collide with hilarious results in the new ensemble comedy from New York Times-bestselling author Clare Pooley
When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards.
The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what…
I’ve loved mysteries since I was a kid and became hooked on the Fear Street books by RL Stine. In college, I took a class on suspense and mystery and was introduced to the greats: Chandler, Hammett, Collins, Christie, Doyle… I could go on and on. As I consumed more, I became enamored with mysteries that were more than just stories about victims but also used crime as a vehicle to comment on the region’s social and economic issues. My favorite mysteries are more than the sum of its body parts. They also scrutinize the worlds where these heinous crimes were allowed to occur.
I loved visiting the Shetland isles with world-weary police inspector Jimmy Perez. The islands, the unique culture, weather, and the remoteness were such compelling components of the story. I loved how Ms. Cleeves used Scotland as one of her characters. She created this lush and detailed world that’s eerie and uncomfortable, the perfect setting for a murder mystery.
I’m also a sucker for a grumpy detective, and Jimmy Perez is such an understandably jaded character, but he still has a kind, warm heart under his crusty exterior that comes out when he’s interacting with his more novice colleagues and members of the community.
Introducing Inspector Jimmy Perez. Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' bestselling Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshal.
A remote community with a killer in their midst . . .
On New Year's Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . .
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'
Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…
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 have long had an interest in government conspiracies and have spent hundreds of hours researching the many experiments our government has foisted upon an unsuspecting populous. When the Church Committee released info on Projects MK Ultra, Bluebird, Artichoke, and others, people were stunned to realize what had been going on. Movies such as The Matrix dealt with mind control and the attempt to create the perfect soldier, and I am convinced such research and experimentation continues today.
This novel has so many reasons to recommend it. It incorporates radical experimentation and horrifying surgeries being done in a bizarre hospital. To make it even more mysterious, there is a hurricane threatening the island which complicates the investigation of US Marshall Teddy Daniels searching for a patient who has disappeared.
I loved the creepy island hospital and the use of weather as a character.
The basis for the blockbuster motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane is a gripping and atmospheric psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems. The New York Times calls Shutter Island, “Startlingly original.” The Washington Post raves, “Brilliantly conceived and executed.” A masterwork of suspense and surprise from the author of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, Shutter Island carries the reader into a nightmare world of madness, mind control, and CIA Cold War paranoia andis unlike anything you’ve ever read before.
I’ve always been deeply moved by how people of substantiative faith translate it into literature. After all, an important difference exists between Christian fiction and fiction by Christian authors. The author, who understands that this life is not everything, is able to infuse so much more depth, emotion, and truth into the narrative than his counterpart. Shortly after watching the movie The Song of Bernadettein Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son in the RAF to say, “My mind and heart are still filled with Bernadette Soubirous, and long may they be so. Every quality of a ‘fairy story,’ plus truth and sanctity, is an overwhelming mixture.”
This may be one of my favorite mysteries; I could barely put the book down. Granted, this title is not full of examples of faith precisely, but Agatha Christy was a devout Anglican (like C.S. Lewis). If one is going to write mysteries, one must appreciate Agatha Christy. She was an incredibly prolific author of some truly high-quality fiction.
This was the first title I read of hers, and it set me on a path to begin collecting her books. This tale has so many elements that build tension and create a great mystery—from the isolation of the setting to suspicion and general confusion. It is a masterpiece of a whodunit.
Agatha Christie's world-famous mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.
Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide.
The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but…
I’ve been drawn to islands ever since I was a child spending summer holidays ferry-hopping around the Inner Hebrides in Scotland. In 2017 I was lucky enough to be able to live for several months in a remote settlement called Cliff on the Atlantic coast of the Outer Hebrides. It was such a life-changing experience: the isolation, storms, abandoned villages, standing stones, and shipwreck memorials; the beauty and wonder and peace, but also the fear, how vulnerable living somewhere like that can make you feel. How vulnerable you are. My latest novel, The Blackhouse, is a gothic thriller inspired by all the wonderful and eerie islands that I have ever known or read about!
I have read and loved all of Ann Cleeves’ books about Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, set on the Scottish Shetland Islands. Red Bones is about two feuding families with generations of secrets between them, who are somehow involved in at least two murders. Islands, particularly those that are small and/or remote, foster communities that are incredibly tight-knit by necessity – often your survival entirely depends on one another. That has always made me wonder what lengths such communities might go to in order to survive; what secrets they might have to keep, what lies they might have to tell if something terrible happens that could jeopardise their whole existence. My time living on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides very much inspiredThe Blackhouse, but it was in no small part also inspired by the wild Shetland Islands as described in Cleeves’ wonderful stories.
The third Shetland novel featuring detective Jimmy Perez.
Sometimes the dead won't stay buried . . .
When a young archaeologist uncovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find - or a more contemporary mystery?
Then an elderly woman is shot in what appears to be a tragic accident in the middle of the night, Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called to investigate.
The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding…
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…
I love a story filled with interesting characters and a plot that reels me in. I know how challenging it is to construct a plotline and create breadcrumbs (not too many, so the solution isn’t obvious)–all driven by intriguing characters. I am also a sucker for the “good guys” winning but with no guarantees. The characters must have depth, and I want to learn something new about a situation I am unfamiliar with or how a great story is told.
As a reader of mysteries and thrillers, I always look for intriguing characters, a great storyline, and something special. Not all books in the genre have these. This one does. The secret element is that it’s extremely charming. I love the relationship between the protagonist, Myron, and his best friend, the wealthy Win. For instance, they are both TV trivia nuts of classic TV shows from the ‘60s and forward.
Additionally, Win is very much not what he seems. This other side is intriguing and adds depth to the character. In Coban’s book, I rooted for Myron (I didn’t always agree with his choices) but was on his side the whole time.
The truth can get you killed... A stunning thriller from the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author of SIX YEARS.
Investigator and sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big-time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour.
Suddenly Myron is plunged into a baffling mystery of sex and blackmail. Trying to unravel the truth about a family's tragedy, a woman's secret and a man's lies, Myron is…
