82 Books Like The Little Country

I’m not a big romance fan, but Roberts deftly mixes good and evil and witches and demons into a purely solid and real setting which brings the magic to the forefront and relegates the romance part of the plot to a secondary character. Set on Three Sisters Island, an old legend is brought to a conclusion in a wild climax. I loved all three books in this series.

It’s the early 1990s, and a “horse crazy” teenager discovers a fantasy novel with a striking white horse and a handsome, dark-haired young man on the cover at her local K-Mart. Okay, so I’ve dated myself, but I’m not going to lie. A horse and a cute boy got me into reading Mercedes Lackey’s tales of Valdemar, and Magic’s Pawn was the first book I discovered. A fantasy novel with a horse that could talk to you and magic powers was the perfect escape for a teenager, and I’m not alone. Many readers discovered Valdemar, and more importantly, a gay protagonist, through these books, and Mercedes Lackey’s work has touched us all in the decades since.

Keep the tissues handy, but this series remains one of my favorite comfort reads. Reading any Valdemar book is like coming home to old, dear friends, and Vanyel’s story sets the stage for so… show more.

This book was instrumental in my creation of Laurel’s Quest. Hamish and Paul are earth energy dowsers and Laurel follows their path along the Mary/Michael earth energy lines in England. It is a journey of discovery and of confirmation of their theory that ancient man knew about these lines of power and built stone monuments to mark the places where the two lines (male and female) cross to create nodes. Avebury and Glastonbury Tor being two of the most well-known. Pilgrims still walk the ancient Ridgeway and Icknield Ways that cross the English countryside leading from one place of power to another under the watchful gaze of the many white chalk horses scoured into the hillsides. I can’t recommend this book enough, it is brilliant.

Enys Tregarthen’s tales have bought Cornish magic into every home for a hundred years.

I have spent a lot of time with her books and retold many tales in my book. North Cornwall Fairies and Legends is a basket full of piskeys, (the Cornish fairy folk.) One of my favourites is the Piskey’s Revenge, which I retold for Cornish storytelling project Mazed. It is illustrated by Steven Lambert, and used in Cornishibai street storytelling.

It tells how Granfer accidentally digs up the piskey beds, in revenge, the piskeys eat all Granfer’s birthday biscuits. Enys writes about the children of Cornwall and what they encounter: they meet piskey friends up on the moors, little stone figures come alive in towns and aways there is an excuse for piskey mischief.

This is book one of a wonderful series: The Spindrift Trilogy. Because it’s set in Cornwall, where I grew up and where I set most of my books, it naturally drew me in quickly. The series features a rich cast of characters, mainly female at the start, although as male children are born, and grow up, the balance shifts a little. It follows the fortunes of an artistic community that springs from a personal crisis, and the rich mixture of characters keeps the story lively and optimistic while still dealing with the darker side of human nature, and the uncertainty in any new venture where so many almost strangers are brought together. This sense of community is something I myself try to convey in my work, and here it’s done beautifully.

There are so many likable characters in this story, which is set in Cornwall around a family hotel, but surfer Riley Bryant was the most lovable character for me.

A bit of a charmer, but secretly in love with Tula, he won me over from the first time I met him, despite his rather feckless attitude at times!

Okay, so this one is a cheat, because the ghost isn’t actually dead, only wishes he was dead. When I was a teenager I borrowed this one from one of my mother's friends, not long after it was published, and “forgot” to give it back I liked it so much.

Regency romances can be a little overwrought, but I read it again recently, and it holds up to the passage of time. But, it tells us, that no matter how bad things seem, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Life is what you make it, even if it takes all your courage, you have to keep adjusting and moving forwards. 

Zennor is a tiny village perched on the cliffs of Cornwall’s rugged north shore and battered by Atlantic storms. I’ve often visited it, have run my hand over the legendary mermaid chair in its little church and walked the cliff path, which Virginia Woolf reported doing once at night, a dangerous event that inspired Dunmore’s novel. 

Zennor in Darkness is based on a true story. D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda settled in a remote cottage on the cliffs during the First World War. They were regarded with suspicion because Frieda was German and the couple kept an irregular lifestyle – were they in fact enemy spies?  Their story is tenderly told through the eyes of a young local artist, Clare Coyne.

Dunmore writes beautifully, with lucidity and a suspenseful air.

The concept of this book is simple but extremely effective in shedding light on the superstitions the Cornish country folk still held in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The author has collected old newspaper clippings, which reveal a fascinating variety of reports on how people tried to protect their belongings, dwellings, and themselves from illnesses and misfortunes caused by spells or “ill-wishes”. The reports talk of ‘witch bottles’ and pierced animal hearts being used to counter-act spells, and how the practitioners of magic, the cunning folk, were frequently taken to court when the purchased cures did not work.

The reports also shed light on the undoubtedly hard lives of those who were believed to be witches. There are several reports of “witch scratchings” ending up in courts when the supposed witches claimed compensation for the injuries caused by villagers trying to draw their blood to counteract spells.

A great book,… show more.