Here are 89 books that The Invisible Hour fans have personally recommended if you like
The Invisible Hour.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I never read a book like this before. The two central characters are a father-daughter team who own a humble diner in Kyoto, Japan. People come to them for their "food detective" services. For example, someone who wants to taste fried rice the way their mother made it, but she's been dead for a long time. Nagare reverse-engineers the recipes based on where the clients were living, what food resources they would have had, and by talking to anyone who may be alive to get more information from.
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the second book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and follows on from The Kamogawa Food Detectives.
Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner. Running this unique establishment are a father-daughter duo who serve more than just mouth-watering feasts.
The pair have reinvented themselves as 'food detectives', offering a service that goes beyond traditional dining. Through their culinary sleuthing, they reconstruct beloved dishes from the memories of their customers, creating a connection to cherished moments…
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…
This is a non-fiction memoir about Ann Wolpert Burgess' contributions to science, law enforcement, and overcoming the patriarchy. As an expert nurse of the doctoral level, Burgess changed the entire way the FBI, victims, and other legal parties view victims of sexual violence. She invented the the FBI's way to comparatively analyze serial killers and repeat offenders by focusing on the victims, which to that point in time had been ignored.
'I think you have something here' I said, 'This could lead to a whole new way of understanding criminal behaviour. As far as I know no one's ever tried to figure out why serial killers kill. The implications are profound.'
Haunting, heartfelt, and deeply human, Dr Ann Burgess's remarkable memoir combines a riveting personal narrative of fearless feminism and ambition, bone-chilling encounters with real-life monsters, and a revealing portrait of the ever-evolving US criminal justice system. A Killer By Design will inspire, terrify, and enlighten you in equal measure.
It forces us to confront the age-old question 'What drives someone…
I worked as a paralegal for many years and know how little justice there is in this world. Passion is a requirement if you toil in that legal arena of wit and woe. Even if you lose your case, you must go on. That’s when I had the epiphany that there are other forms of justice. I also realized that the occult does not necessarily mean bad or evil. If I’m losing faith, I pick up a novel about the delicious and refreshing possibilities of justice with a twist. This is a kind of justice where there is not necessarily a courtroom; there are no judges, no lawyers, and no jury.
Seldom do battered women get true justice. In this book, justice is served on a very cold plate.
Two sisters, Sally and Gillian, are witches by heritage. After their parent’s deaths, they grew up with their two aunts, also witches.
Sally was a happily married woman until her husband suddenly died. Gillian has lived a life of independence or what some might consider a wild life style. When Gillian’s boyfriend becomes a mortal threat, she gives him a potion, accidentally killing him. He comes back to haunt her from the grave. That’s when everyone in their family comes together to banish his evil spirit.
*25th Anniversary Edition*-with an Introduction by the Author!
The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic, Magic Lessons, and The Book of Magic.
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and…
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…
Talk about the perfect escape! Vampire novels aren't usually my thing, but when the witchy main character is a medieval manuscript scholar who falls in love with a vampire hundreds of years old in a cross-species Romeo and Juliet scenario, written by an author who's both a historian and fantastic writer of sex scenes, and the plot hinges on a lost book, what's there not to like?
In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.
I have always loved the Golem story. This one is hauntingly mythic and still almost frighteningly contemporary. That the creator is a rabbi's daughter, not a son, opens a door into a wider exploration of the power of this ancient tale.
'Oh, what a book this is! Hoffman's exploration of the world of good and evil, and the constant contest between them, is unflinching; and the humanity she brings to us - it is a glorious experience. The book builds and builds, as she weaves together, seamlessly, the stories of people in the most desperate of circumstances - and then it delivers with a tremendous punch. It opens up the world ... in a way that is absolutely unique. By the end you may be weeping' Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive…
I’ve always believed in magic, the kind that’s just around the corner, out of view. I loved books and libraries. So, it was no surprise that I became a teacher, and later, a poet and novelist. Now, as the author of four novels, I want my books to capture what I love best from poetry and teaching: beautiful, unexpected language, a touch of wonder, and themes that probe the big questions of life. A library shows up in most of my novels along with a bit of the fantastic.
Wow. The voice in this book takes my breath away. I’ve never read anything else quite like it.
There’s a plot full of adventure, tragedy, and healing, but mostly, there is Rueben Land and his sister Swede, two of the most compelling characters in literature. The story begins with a miracle when Rueben’s father commands his newly stillborn son to breathe.
Questions about miracles, hope, faith, and redemption pepper the story with no easy answers, again asking: What does it mean to be human? That’s a question all great literature grapples with.
When Israel Finch and Tommy Basca, the town bullies, break into the home of school caretaker Jeremiah Land, wielding a baseball bat and looking for trouble, they find more of it than even they expected. For seventeen-year-old Davey is sitting up in bed waiting for them with a Winchester rifle. His younger brother Reuben has seen their father perform miracles, but Jeremiah now seems as powerless to prevent Davey from being arrested for manslaughter, as he has always been to ease Reuben's daily spungy struggle to breathe. Nor does brave and brilliant nine-year-old Swede, obsessed as she is with the…
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…
This turned out my favorite so far of Hoffman's books! I actually hugged it to my chest after I was done reading it.
Given it's a prequel to Practical Magic and the rest of that series, you can start with this book whether or not you have knowledge of those others (though I have read two of them). Though it's a historical novel, it never feels overly heavy on the historical detail. It's lively and intriguing and deliciously spooky.
Though it features John Hathorne, real-life magistrate in the Salem witch trials, and also includes bits of those trials, this story feels much less like The Crucible (with its dark, nightmarish mood) and much more like The Scarlet Letter—beautifully melancholy, bittersweet, and sometimes romantic. But this one loads up the genuine magic and witchcraft more than either of those.
Incidentally: Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was a…
The extraordinary novel tracing a centuries-old curse back to its beginning from the author of PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE DOVEKEEPERS
We first met the Owens in the glorious novel Practical Magic. We discovered the tragedy of the Owens siblings in Rules of Magic. Now we learn how it all began... with a baby abandoned in a snowy English field in the 1600s. Under the care of gentle Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the 'Unnamed Arts'. Maria has a gift for them - a gift that may well prove her undoing.
I find myself drawn to stories about second chances and starting over because I find that, as a reader, I feel empowered whenever a character I have come to care about rises above their circumstances. I've always been drawn to characters who overcome, who find their own way in difficult times, and who do so with honor and integrity, especially when faced with adversaries who may be bigoted, self-absorbed, or even dangerous. I am drawn more to historical or exotic settings or even quirky everyday places, but I love writers who create almost an additional character with their sense of setting, giving it its own personality.
This book is a beautiful tale that demonstrates the ugliness of first impressions when it comes to viewing others. When Vivienne is looked down upon by the local mayor for being a single mother and nomadic traveler, he is making assumptions based on his own narrow-minded authority.
I love how, despite his attempts to harm her financially, she continues to show how being an individual who is true to oneself means more than trying to fit the mold of what someone else might think you should be.
Even before it was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, Chocolat entranced readers with its mix of hedonism, whimsy, and, of course, chocolate.
In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows.
Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne's uncanny perception of its buyer's private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch?
Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation,…
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child, and my favorite protagonists are readers and writers. The Kansas tallgrass prairie horizons where I grew up fueled my imagination, and I wanted to write like the girls in my novels. I discovered Anne of Green Gables as a teen, and since then, I’ve researched, published, and presented on the book as a quixotic novel. As a creative writer, my own characters are often readers, writers, librarians, book club members, and anyone who loves a good tale. I hope you enjoy the books on my list as much as I do each time I return to them.
Anne Shirley is a perfectly imperfect heroine, and that’s why I love her. She’s creative and imaginative and gets so lost in her daydreams that she can forget the flour in a cake or to cover leftover pudding, leaving easy access for a peckish mouse. Her temper matches her red hair, and she refuses to let anyone insult her dignity. She dreams of meeting kindred spirits—those individuals you just click with.
Although I first discovered Anne as a teen, I’ve returned to her throughout my life, and at each stage, she’s there like an old friend. The best part of knowing Anne has been meeting kindred spirits from all around the globe who share their own stories of reading and loving Anne.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
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…
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens…
