Here are 100 books that The Forgotten Room fans have personally recommended if you like
The Forgotten Room.
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I live in a 200+ year old house and have always been drawn to stories with dual timelines where the past and present intersect. Living in an old house where people lived and died, and exploring historic sites for my blog Past Lane Travels, I’m constantly aware of the lives that came before mine. I love the idea that something hidden in the past can still shape the present – and sometimes it seems like it’s just waiting to be uncovered by the right person. When stories are set in real places, it adds even more intrigue—I can visit, walk the same ground, and experience it for myself.
I think I am probably the last person in the world to read this book!
I know it’s received a lot of attention, but somehow it never appealed to me when it first came out. After reading it, I love the way the author blends art history and cryptography within a complex (and believable) conspiracy. It was such a unique plotline when it came out, and now it’s almost its own genre.
I’m drawn to books that have a real setting that you can visit today, and this one takes place at The Louvre.
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the…
Actress Katherine Parr narrates the audiobook of Only Charlotte, speaking as Lenore James and a whole cast of eccentric characters, her voice rich with mystery and menace, ardor and innuendo.
In post-Civil War New Orleans, Lenore suspects her brother, Dr. Gilbert Crew, has been beguiled by the lovely and…
I live in a 200+ year old house and have always been drawn to stories with dual timelines where the past and present intersect. Living in an old house where people lived and died, and exploring historic sites for my blog Past Lane Travels, I’m constantly aware of the lives that came before mine. I love the idea that something hidden in the past can still shape the present – and sometimes it seems like it’s just waiting to be uncovered by the right person. When stories are set in real places, it adds even more intrigue—I can visit, walk the same ground, and experience it for myself.
This book hits my sweet spot because of its dual timeline (I just love those) and strong sense of place in the setting.
I love reading about how something in the past haunts the present. This book highlights how forgotten lives can live on through art and memory. (I don’t know why, but I’m very drawn to this topic)
As an author, I also appreciate the complexity of the plot and the great writing, which is lyrical and a delight to read.
'A truly hypnotic tale that is bound to please both fans and newcomers, The Clockmaker's Daughter is another wonderful read from one of Australia's most beloved authors.' - Booktopia
'Morton explores the tangled history of people and place in her outstanding, bittersweet sixth novel.' - US Publisher's Weekly
'The Clockmaker's Daughter is an ambitious, complex, compelling historical mystery with a fabulous cast of characters. This is Kate Morton at her very best.' - Kristin Hannah, bestselling author of The Nightingale
In the depths of a nineteenth-century winter, a little girl is abandoned in the narrow streets of London. Adopted by…
I live in a 200+ year old house and have always been drawn to stories with dual timelines where the past and present intersect. Living in an old house where people lived and died, and exploring historic sites for my blog Past Lane Travels, I’m constantly aware of the lives that came before mine. I love the idea that something hidden in the past can still shape the present – and sometimes it seems like it’s just waiting to be uncovered by the right person. When stories are set in real places, it adds even more intrigue—I can visit, walk the same ground, and experience it for myself.
What I loved the most about this book was setting and time-period of colonial America.
Since I’ve written some historical fiction, I know how much research it takes to create a plot in a different era, and this book not only entertains, but educates! It’s chock-full of history and mystery – and kept me guessing until the end.
The author also has a very distinct writing style that is a joy to read.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.
"Fans of Outlander’s Claire Fraser will enjoy Lawhon’s Martha, who is brave and outspoken when it comes to protecting the innocent. . . impressive."—The Washington Post
"Once again, Lawhon works storytelling magic with a real-life heroine." —People Magazine
Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and…
I live in a 200+ year old house and have always been drawn to stories with dual timelines where the past and present intersect. Living in an old house where people lived and died, and exploring historic sites for my blog Past Lane Travels, I’m constantly aware of the lives that came before mine. I love the idea that something hidden in the past can still shape the present – and sometimes it seems like it’s just waiting to be uncovered by the right person. When stories are set in real places, it adds even more intrigue—I can visit, walk the same ground, and experience it for myself.
This novel is a little outside of my usual genre, but Steve Berry never disappoints.
The reason I like this one is because Berry weaves so much factual detail about the real Amber Room’s creation and theft into his fictional suspense plot. Overall, he is really good at blending authentic history with his fictional adventure plots – making it hard for a reader to know what is fact and what if fiction.
This book kept me turning pages (long after I should have stopped).
Rachel Cutler loves her job and her kids, and remains civil to her ex-husband, Paul. But everything changes when her father dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving behind clues to a treasure called the Amber Room, one of the most intriguing mysteries of the last century.
Desperate for the truth, Rachel takes off for Germany, with Paul close behind. Before long, they're in over their heads. Locked into a treacherous game with professional killers, Rachel and Paul find themselves on a collision course with the forces of greed, power and history itself...
Sam Dagher is a Lebanese-American journalist and author with more than 15 years of experience reporting on the Middle East and its people. He has lived in Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus and worked throughout the region. Sam has been committed to telling the region’s stories from the ground up and in the process shedding new light on the root causes of war, extremism, and migration.
In a 2019 interview with NPR, Etaf Rum—the daughter of Palestinian immigrants who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York—said one of her struggles in writing the book was the fear that she was in a way confirming stereotypes about Arabs and Middle Easterners, including “oppression, domestic abuse, and terrorism.” Thankfully Rum overcame these struggles to deliver a courageous, beautiful, and incredibly authentic debut novel that follows the lives of three generations of Palestinian-American women trying to find their voices and identities within the confines of patriarchal and conservative milieus. In a way, the struggles of Rum and her characters mirror the battles that young people throughout the Middle East have been waging against tyranny and oppression since the start of the Arab Spring in 2010.
"Sometimes heroism is loud and dramatic. Other times, it is daring to listen to that quiet voice within and having the courage to follow it. In this story, we see inside the lives of three generations of Palestinian women living in America, struggling and suffering to hear that voice. Etaf Rum has done a great service by sharing these voices with us." -Shilpi Somaya Gowda, New York Times Bestselling Author of SECRET DAUGHTER and THE GOLDEN SON
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the…
I’ve always been fascinated by people’s motives whether that be in real life or written on the page. That’s what drew me to write in the thriller genre to begin with because at the core, it's about finding out why people do things. But sometimes this genre portrays female characters as either innocent damsels or evil femme fatales, neither of which captures that women are a mix of good and bad like all other people. That’s why I try to write my female protagonists in my novels, short stories, and fictional podcasts, in a way that makes them conflicted humans and causes them to experience both downfalls and triumphs.
This novel is exactly what I look for in a thriller.
It’s fast-paced, filled with twists, and full of complex female characters.
The Howell Family is forced to move from California to Brooklyn for the husband’s job. Wife and mother, Nora is tasked with setting up their new home and getting her two teen daughters settled into their new schools.
However, she discovers their new Brownstone was the site of a grisly murder of an entire family in the 1990s. Soon one of the daughters notices someone stalking her and their house causing the family to fear the killer has returned.
But Nora isn’t the helpless stay-at-home mother everyone thinks she is as she goes through great lengths including hiding a dark past to keep her family safe.
One of Bibliofile's Most Anticipated Mystery/Thriller Books!
“Great psychological suspense with a wallop of a twist.” —Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author
New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub makes her trade paperback debut with a fast-paced thriller in the vein of Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs and Megan Collins’ The Winter Sister. Here, a family making a fresh start moves into a house which was the site of an unsolved triple homicide—and are watched by an unknown person...
The watcher sees who you are...and knows what you did.
I come by my love of legal thrillers honestly – when I’m not writing them, I’m living them as a full-time practicing lawyer. The cases in my real-life legal practice are far less exciting than those experienced by the lawyers in my books (or the books I’ve recommended here), but the throughline that connects them is that in reality and in fiction, the stakes are very high, the people involved have a motivation for what they’ve done, and the outcome is always in doubt until that last page.
I first met Alafair Burke after my first book was accepted for publication (at a book reading she was giving) and she was extremely generous with her time and advice about being a crime-fiction writer. I’ve read most of her books, but this is my favorite, combining first-rate knowledge of the legal system with long-hidden family secrets and resentments.
Bestselling author of The Ex and The Wife *The Girl She Was, available to pre-order now* 'Highly addictive' KARIN SLAUGHTER 'A major talent' HARLAN COBEN
Keep your enemies close and your sister closer...
For a while, it seemed like both Taylor sisters had found happiness. Chloe landed a coveted publishing job in New York City. Nicky got married to a promising young attorney named Adam McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ethan.
But now, fourteen years later, it is Chloe who is married to Adam. When he is murdered at the couple's beach house, she has…
According to Entertainment Weekly, I’m a “bestselling author who has made a name for [myself] with uncannily insightful takes on the dark side of family institutions.” But really, I’m just a novelist who has always been fascinated by the myriad ways we play out our unresolved issues from childhood, again and again, over the course of our lives. Although my books are very different from each other, they all focus on the interrelationships among family members (traditional families, work families, etc.). In my most recent novel, When We Were Bright and Beautiful, I look at how wealth, privilege, and power can corrupt even the most loving relationships.
From the first scene of The Darlings, Christina Alger plunges you into the lives of the fabulously wealthy. The daughter of a Wall Street financier, Alger grew up in this world, and her experience and insight make the book sing. The Darlings is fast-paced and compulsively readable, and the characters are well-drawn and authentic. This novel includes everything I love: financial crimes, shocking scandals, lots of details, and terrific storytelling.
'Cristina Alger's debut novel offers a fresh and modern glimpse into New York's high society. I was hooked from page one' Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada
From the author of The Banker's Wife and Girls Like Us comes an explosive drama about family, greed and high society scandal.
The Darlings of New York are untouchable. But no one is safe from a scandal this big.
When Carter Darling's business partner commits suicide, it triggers a huge financial investigation.
The allegations are serious. The danger of it exposing their private lives is equally threatening.
I’m the author of the Storybook Valley chick-lit series, which includes Fooling Around With Cinderella and Prancing Around With Sleeping Beauty. I love reading and writing lighthearted novels about young women finding their Prince Charming—and also themselves. Setting is also important to me as a writer. To create my Storybook Valley novels I spied on Cinderellas at amusement parks and discreetly watched employees head off into off-limits areas. I watched hours of YouTube interviews with former Disney World princesses, behind-the-scenes videos with other amusement park employees, and listened to podcast interviews with managers of theme parks. All the novels I chose had well-developed settings that were an integral part of the book.
I had never read the Princess Diaries books but was a fan of the movies. I had also read some of Meg Cabot’s adult novels. When I heard that Meg was releasing an adult installment of her popular princess series, I had to read it. Royal Wedding follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan her fairytale wedding. This book was also unique as it connected to a series of middle grade novels about Mia’s younger half-sister. (From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess) I wound up buying my daughter the whole series for her Easter basket during the first part of the pandemic as I thought it might cheer her up. It did!
From Meg Cabot, the Number One New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first New Adult instalment, featuring the now grown-up Princess Mia! Royal Wedding follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding - but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare. For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community centre, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements,…
The Model Spy is based on the true story of Toto Koopman, who spied for the Allies and Italian Resistance during World War II.
Largely unknown today, Toto was arguably the first woman to spy for the British Intelligence Service. Operating in the hotbed of Mussolini's Italy, she courted danger…
I have been researching and writing about 19th-century American murders since 2009, and my blog, Murder by Gaslight (murderbygaslight.com), includes illustrated stories of more than 500 murder cases. My book, The Bloody Century: True Tales of Murder in 19th Century America, compiled fifty of the most famous murders. In researching these stories, I prefer to use primary sources such as newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books from the time of the murder. They present the attitudes surrounding the crime without modern analysis and preserve details that tend to disappear over time. My latest book, So Far from Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder, draws almost exclusively from newspaper accounts in 1896 and 1897.
Carlyle W. Harris was a promising young medical student in 1891 with an unfortunate obsession with sex. He would constantly regale his friends and associates with tales of his sexual conquests. When he failed to seduce 19-year-old Helen Potts, he convinced her to marry him but keep the marriage a secret. Six Capsules tells the story of Harris’s plot to murder Helen with a poisoned capsule to keep the secret from being revealed. The author, George R. Dekle Sr., a retired law professor and former prosecutor, provides a detailed analysis of Harris’s sensational trial for murder. The book’s vivid account of the murder and its consequences contrasts the moral and legal atmosphere of the 1890s with that of today.
As Ted Bundy was to the 20th century, so Carlyle Harris was to the 19th. Harris was a charismatic, handsome young medical student with an insatiable appetite. His trail of debauched women ended with Helen Potts, a beautiful young woman of wealth and privilege who was determined to keep herself pure for marriage. Unable to conquer her by other means, Harris talked her into a secret marriage under assumed names, and when threatened with exposure, he poisoned her.
The resulting trial garnered national headlines and launched the careers of two of New York's most famous prosecutors, Francis L. Wellman and…
