Here are 7 books that The Family Next Door fans have personally recommended if you like
The Family Next Door.
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The author shows us how audism is practiced in most public schools where deaf children are educated. Audism is discrimination against deaf people. It’s expressed in the attitude of hearing people. They don’t try to communicate with the deaf and have the false assumption deaf people can’t do things. Many hearing people consider deafness a tragedy. They reject the use of sign language, expect deaf individuals to rely on their residual hearing or lip-reading. They also assume the Deaf and hard-of-hearing (HOH) are idiots and lower their standards for them in an educational setting.
All of this and more is shown eloquently in The Butterfly Cage where Zemach relates her experience teaching young deaf children in a public elementary school. The woman’s patience is amazing considering the audism and oralism she has to contend with by other teachers, support staff, and administrators.
A tender and perspective-shifting book that offers a rare level of understanding about the subtle and and no-so-subtle layers of internalized oppression and deep feelings and dilemmas of Deaf people, written by former Deaf teacher Rachel Zemach.. This mesmerizing, funny, and disruptive narrative invites you to be a fly on the wall in a Deaf classroom at a hearing school, experiencing the immense frustration, unbridled joy, and indelible humor that arise for Deaf adults and children in a hearing environment.. Rachel struggles with staff, administration, and aides who sabotage her efforts at every turn. The students contend with a principal…
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…
Dan, a recent widower at 40, is barely holding on a year after his beloved wife’s death. He needs to talk to someone about his inner most feelings, and he can’t share that with his teenage daughter, Lindsay, so his floppy eared beagle mix, Anni, takes on the job. Unfortunately, one winter day, while Lindsay grabs the mail, Anni wanders off a bit and is abducted by two nasty men.
Across town, Andrea Keller, the manager of a property development firm, discovers a dog in one of her buildings that doesn’t permit pets. Andrea checks out the problem and discovers an abused dog in that apartment and rescues the animal from the “frat boys”—middle aged men who have never grown up.
Anni has a very positive affect on Andrea. As the months pass the two become inseparable. But Dan and Lindsay spend all their free time searching for their missing…
"An enchanting, impossible-to-put-down novel about big hearts and second chances." --Claire Cook, USA Today bestselling author of Must Love Dogs. A year after the death of his wife, Christine, Dan is barely holding on. But one thing gets him through the long, lonely nights and that is his cherished dog, Anni. When she is stolen from his front yard, Dan and his daughter, Lindsay, are devastated. Meanwhile in another part of town, Andrea Keller is recovering from the heartbreak of a messy divorce. After she rescues a defenseless dog from an abusive tenant, her life changes in ways she never…
Half a century ago (hard to believe!), as a young newspaper reporter, I began every day at a police station, reading the log and talking to the watch commander. Occasionally, I was able to contact the detectives as well. For me, the way crimes and criminal investigations unfolded, and the personalities of the officers involved, were multi-dimensional and touched with surprising, and often unexpected, moments of humor. In my reading as well as my writing, I seek a balance between authenticity and a sense of the absurd, without which the experience of solving murders—real or fictional—could become emotionally crushing.
A mystery narrated by a dog? It sounded like a gimmick to me, until I started reading. Honestly, this dog thinks and reacts like a dog, and he’s hilarious! The tightly woven storyline—Chet “belongs” to a detective who’s investigating a girl’s disappearance—pulled me along nonstop, but mostly I fell in love with the writing. As a rule, I enjoy experiencing the world from a fresh perspective, along with a storyline that turns and twists and makes perfect sense in an unexpected way, as this one does. Trigger warning: Chet the pooch has some scary and even near-death moments en route to his happy ending.
The first book of the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, an “enchanting one-of-a-kind novel” (Stephen King) that is “nothing short of masterful” (Los Angeles Times).
Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, and Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator, are quick to take a new case involving a frantic mother searching for her teenage daughter. This well-behaved and gifted student may or may not have been kidnapped, but she has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. With Chet’s highly trained nose leading the way, their hunt for clues takes them…
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…
In the gentle Shrewsbury spring of 1140 the midnight matins at the Benedictine abbey suddenly reverberates with an unholy sound - a hunt in full cry. Pursued by a drunken mob, the quarry is running for its life. When the frantic creature bursts into the nave to claim sanctuary, Brother Cadfael finds himself fighting off armed townsmen to save a terrified young man. Accused of robbery and murder is Liliwin, a wandering minstrel who performed at the wedding of the local goldsmith's son. But his supposed victim, the miserly craftsman, is still alive, although a strongbox lies empty. Brother Cadfael…
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
A CIA assassin who is forced to go undercover as a girly girl in the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana? From that premise alone, I knew this would be a fun read, and wow, does Jana DeLeon ever deliver in book one of her Miss Fortune Mystery series.
It’s a fabulous fish-out-of-water story filled with quirky characters of all ages, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and wrongs to be made right. There’s a splash of romance and plenty of laughs in this well-paced, sassy whodunit. My favorite kind of lighthearted mystery!
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever-in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out…
Half a century ago (hard to believe!), as a young newspaper reporter, I began every day at a police station, reading the log and talking to the watch commander. Occasionally, I was able to contact the detectives as well. For me, the way crimes and criminal investigations unfolded, and the personalities of the officers involved, were multi-dimensional and touched with surprising, and often unexpected, moments of humor. In my reading as well as my writing, I seek a balance between authenticity and a sense of the absurd, without which the experience of solving murders—real or fictional—could become emotionally crushing.
Although this isn’t the first entry in the Peculiar Crimes Unit series, it’s the first that I read, and it hooked me. What a great idea for an offbeat police series, cleverly handled and featuring two eccentric London detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May. In this mystery, two cases initially appear unrelated, and it takes quite a bit of sleuthing before the links emerge. Bryant and May must unravel encrypted codes and symbols, discover secret rooms and dig through baffling clues as danger mounts. While this series has a darker tone than some of my preferences, it’s engaging and rewarding.
Winner of CrimeFest 2013's 'eDunnit Award' for 'the best crime fiction ebook published in 2012 in both hardcopy and in electronic format'.
Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no-one else has entered.
Unfortunately Bryant & May are refused the case. Instead, there are hired by their greatest enemy to find out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's…
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…
Half a century ago (hard to believe!), as a young newspaper reporter, I began every day at a police station, reading the log and talking to the watch commander. Occasionally, I was able to contact the detectives as well. For me, the way crimes and criminal investigations unfolded, and the personalities of the officers involved, were multi-dimensional and touched with surprising, and often unexpected, moments of humor. In my reading as well as my writing, I seek a balance between authenticity and a sense of the absurd, without which the experience of solving murders—real or fictional—could become emotionally crushing.
In Elizabethan England, Christmas revelries were presided over by a Lord of Misrule. During this season of legitimized misconduct, the brilliant Sir Francis Bacon requires surreptitious help in solving the murder of a fellow barrister in hopes of regaining the queen’s favor, from which he’s been ousted. It falls to his protégé, Thomas Clarady, to probe through disguises and earn the trust of a range of women, from the educated to the bawdy, in order to find the answers in time to prevent catastrophe. I love the Tudor period with all its riches, and this first entry in the Francis Bacon Mystery Series feels emotionally and historically credible.
Brilliant Francis Bacon is at a loss -- and in danger. Bacon must put down his books and investigate the murder of a fellow barrister at Gray's Inn in order to regain the queen's favor. He recruits his unwanted protégé, Thomas Clarady, to do the tiresome legwork. The son of a wealthy privateer, Tom will gladly do anything to climb the Elizabethan social ladder. The first clues point to a Catholic conspirator, but other motives for murder quickly emerge. Rival barristers contend for the victim's legal honors and wealthy clients. Highly-placed courtiers are implicated as the investigation reaches from Whitehall…