Here are 100 books that The Islanders fans have personally recommended if you like
The Islanders.
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After thirty years in corporate America, I retired to learn the craft of writing literary fiction—publishing my first novel at sixty-two. I write about characters faced with seemingly impossible situations whose choices ultimately reveal who they truly are. Through mindful self-awareness, I want readers to search within themselves to think about what they would do in a similar situation. These are five books that shaped my understanding of what literary fiction can do through deep characterization.
The heroine in this story struggles with cruel prejudices, rejection, heartbreak, and loneliness, leaving her unsure of who she can trust.
But she perseveres and becomes resilient to adversity, growing stronger with each situation. The personal truths she realizes in the process through self-discovery have the potential to provide universal wisdom for many of us.
OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I grew up in a confusing, chaotic household, and magic was always an escape for me. Books were my place to dream about other worlds and bigger choices. Stories of forgotten, invisible, or odd people who found their way to each other, found courage and talents they didn’t know they had, and then banded together to fight some larger foe even though they were scared. Was it possible that dragons and witches and gnomes were real and very clever at hiding in plain sight? What if I had hidden talents and courage and could draw on them with others just like me?
I’m a big fan of a story with quirky details that really add to getting to know the characters. It's even better when magic is thrown in the background in a way that makes it seem ordinary and acceptable—not strange at all.
This story does all of that and then some by taking outcasts and explaining their stories one by one while weaving them all together into one quiet redemption.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not…
As a sailor and 2004 Olympian I am happiest on salt water, so that’s where most of my characters live their best lives. I write coastal fiction; stories with a happy ending that could only take place on or near the water. Boat rides are a bonus! As both a reader and an author, my tastes span across several traditional genres: from young adult time travel to literary fiction, with stops along the way for a light touch of romance. This list reflects that range. If you want to learn more about all the books (and boats) I enjoy, please subscribe to my Thursday blog, Where Books Meet Boats. Meanwhile, enjoy these five fantastic examples of coastal fiction!
The first time I read this book I was sailing through the Frisian Islands, where it takes place—though unlike its two main characters, I didn’t have to worry about German patrols or being arrested as a spy. A classic thriller, the remote and shifting islands of the area help to drive the plot. It could, quite simply, take place nowhere else. Great sailing scenes as well!
In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, sardonic civil servant, Carruthers, is finding it hard to endure the emptiness and boredom of his life in London. He accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic, where they discover a German plot to invade England.
The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall
by
Paul Wilborn,
It’s 1985, and Ronald Armstrong, known in the magic mushroom trade as “Trip,” takes a “sober” job as a driver for a retired Tampa mobster. His boss, Charlie Wall, has survived four attempts on his life, the last one in 1955. When Charlie falls into depression, Trip rebuilds his boss’…
I’m a writer with two sisters very different from me in lifestyle. For example, one went into nursing (I hate blood!), and one was a bookkeeper (I also hate numbers!) I first wrote about loving but dissimilar sisters in a cozy series called The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries, under the pen name Maggie Pill. The books are fun, and readers often tell me which of the sisters they most identify with. “I’m Barb,” or “I’m the nice one.” Seven books later, I found I wanted to examine the darker side of sisterhood. What if things your sister does (or sisters do) make you uncomfortable? What wins: family loyalty or personal integrity?
I liked the premise of this one: Kit’s sister Josie was supposedly killed in a terrorist attack, but one night she sees her on a TV news report in faraway New Zealand.
We might all wonder what we would do if the chance to find and reunite with a lost loved one arose. Questions must be asked and answered: Why did she leave? How could she let us grieve all this time? What happens if I find her?
An Amazon Charts, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller.
From the author of The Art of Inheriting Secrets comes an emotional new tale of two sisters, an ocean of lies, and a search for the truth.
Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news...
Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It's what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit's world. Live coverage of…
I was born and bred on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida, so I am passionate about beach reads. There is nothing I love more than to get lost in a great book with themes of summer, the beach, love, and loss. Spending the whole day on a lounge chair by the shore, devouring a book, is my idea of heaven.
As a teacher of creative writing, I enjoy books with deep and complex human relationships. I also love books with a strong sense of place, where the setting is almost a character in its own right. Beach reads are great at giving the reader both!
I love this book for its unconventional love story. I have always been drawn to uncommon people and both characters in this story have their unique traits and eccentricities.
I relished the slow-burn of this romance while lounging on the beach. I truly enjoyed the dialogue in this book. It was fresh, witty, and I laughed out loud many times.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers and Beach Read comes a sparkling novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.
Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of…
I was born and bred on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida, so I am passionate about beach reads. There is nothing I love more than to get lost in a great book with themes of summer, the beach, love, and loss. Spending the whole day on a lounge chair by the shore, devouring a book, is my idea of heaven.
As a teacher of creative writing, I enjoy books with deep and complex human relationships. I also love books with a strong sense of place, where the setting is almost a character in its own right. Beach reads are great at giving the reader both!
I love this book because of Judy Blume’s gift for rendering deeply truthful portrayals of coming-of-age stories.
Judy Blume does not shy away from the gritty aspects of growing up and portraying sex in all its awkward and, sometimes, embarrassing glory. I love that the characters do not get a “happy ever after” just to end the book on a positive note. The characters have complex lives and there is no line between love and hate, only a grey, messy soup of emotions that feels so real, your skin will prickle with goosebumps as you follow along.
I am especially fond of the story’s two timelines, which allow the reader to feel all the angst of coming-of-age while also experiencing the repercussions in adulthood.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “Summer Sisters is a book to return to again and again.”—Colleen Hoover
“As warm as a summer breeze blowing through your hair, as nostalgic as James Taylor singing ‘How Sweet It Is.’ You remember. So does Judy Blume. How sweet it was.”—Chicago Tribune
In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege,…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
I was born and bred on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida, so I am passionate about beach reads. There is nothing I love more than to get lost in a great book with themes of summer, the beach, love, and loss. Spending the whole day on a lounge chair by the shore, devouring a book, is my idea of heaven.
As a teacher of creative writing, I enjoy books with deep and complex human relationships. I also love books with a strong sense of place, where the setting is almost a character in its own right. Beach reads are great at giving the reader both!
I love this book because it is laser-focused on family relationships. Maine delves into the secrets and simmering emotions of one dysfunctional family during a crossroads summer.
It’s a ruthless yet tender ode to how understanding can bloom even in the most strained family relationships. I loved the quirky cast of family members and the beautifully rendered descriptions of the cottage and the town. I felt like I was along for the ride.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Commencement and The Engagements introduces four unforgettable women and the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.
"Rich and exhilarating ... You don't want the novel to end."—The New York Times Book Review
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of Kelleher women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two…
I was born and bred on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida, so I am passionate about beach reads. There is nothing I love more than to get lost in a great book with themes of summer, the beach, love, and loss. Spending the whole day on a lounge chair by the shore, devouring a book, is my idea of heaven.
As a teacher of creative writing, I enjoy books with deep and complex human relationships. I also love books with a strong sense of place, where the setting is almost a character in its own right. Beach reads are great at giving the reader both!
I love this book because of the sweetness and heartbreak the connected stories capture; all centered around a beloved summer beach house.
The house and the beach it watches over become almost a character, shaping and subtly influencing the intertwined stories of the characters that rent the house over the summer months. I found myself brimming with delight one moment and crying my eyes out the next.
It is a book I love to revisit during the summer, especially while at the beach.
The beach house is a peaceful haven, a place to escape everyday problems. Here, three families find their feelings intensified and their lives transformed each summer.
When thirty-year-old Julia, mourning the death of her husband, decides to sell the Santa Cruz beach house they owned together, she sets in motion a final summer that will change the lives of all the families who rent it year after year. Teenaged Chris discovers the bittersweet joy of first love. Maggie and Joe, married sixty-five years, courageously face a separation that even their devotion cannot prevent. The married woman Peter yearns for suddenly…
I fell deeply in love with books as a child, wrote oodles of stories growing up, majored in English literature, and built a writing career in advertising and TV. But my deep love of children’s books never faded. Somewhere in my 30s, I had an epiphany sitting on the couch one day: I clearly saw that writing children’s books was what I wanted to build my life around. It took a lot of time and effort to accomplish that, but with the aid of a helpful hamster named Humphrey – and his friend Og - I found my happy place, and I hope I never, ever “grow up.”
Another friendly rodent tale with a clever premise! I read this long before there was ever a movie about Stuart. Once again, the author’s imagination amazed me. I was enchanted with all the clever things Stuart could do – his car, his canoe, his friendship with Margalo the bird, and the humans that accepted him as part of their family.
I remember bringing the library book to my grandmother’s house when I spent the weekend. I don’t think the book was out of my grasp except when I was sleeping. And even then, I was dreaming of being a writer and “living” in a world like Stuart’s.
The classic story by E. B. White, author of the Newbery Honor Book Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan, about one small mouse on a very big adventure.
Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a family of humans, he lives in New York City with his parents, his older brother George, and Snowbell the cat. Though he's shy and thoughtful, he's also a true lover of adventure.
Stuart's greatest adventure comes when his best friend, a beautiful little bird named Margalo, disappears from her nest. Determined to track her down, Stuart ventures away from home for…
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
I’ve always been fascinated by the darker corners of the human mind, such as what drives people to commit unspeakable acts and how others find the strength to face them. As both a neuropsychologist and a thriller author, I explore those questions on the page, weaving together my background in psychology with my love of twisty, character-driven stories. Books where the crimes are as twisted as the minds behind them have shaped my own writing, including my latest novel, Heavy Are the Stones. I read them not just for the suspense, but for the unsettling and raw truths they reveal about us all as humans.
Eriq La Salle is best known for his role as Dr. Peter Benton on the hit TV show ER, but Laws of Depravity shows that he’s a magnificent writer as well as a prolific actor.
I have read a lot of crime fiction, yet Laws of Depravity stopped me cold and made me question whether “the killing of devils is a condemnable act.” Growing up a preacher’s kid, I’m fascinated by the ways people use religion as an explanation or shield for both wonderful and terrible acts.
Lasalle doesn’t shy away from looking at the darker side, and that made me brave enough to take a closer look in my own work. La Salle has delivered a highly character-driven book that profiles the detectives and civilians as much as the killer while still maintaining that thrilling pace. Every morally gray twist felt earned, and the surprises kept coming right up…
From actor, director, producer and award-winning author Eriq La Salle comes the first in a heart-pounding crime thriller series that will leave you on the edge of your seat, frantically questioning the blurred lines between good and evil.
30 years. 36 priests butchered. His bloodiest masterpiece is yet to come.
Every ten years, for the past 30 years, a dozen clergymen are killed, brutally murdered in twisted scenes emulating the deaths of Jesus and his disciples. It is the work of a serial killer known as "The Martyr Maker." And in 2011, he set his mark on New York City.
