Here are 100 books that The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year fans have personally recommended if you like
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year.
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I spent years only reading the old, great classics because I couldn’t find any general market books without spicy scenes I didn’t care to read and couldn’t recommend. It was horrible to think, as an avid, eclectic reader, that I was running out of books to read. I thought wholesome romance books didn’t exist in today’s world (and that my own books wouldn’t have a space to belong), but they do. Now that I know where to look, these love stories give me joy in a dark world. I hope this list gives you some new favorites to brighten your days as they have mine.
From the first page, I knew I wasn’t going to put down Cindy Steel’s rom-com to eat or sleep until the ride was over.
The characters shine vividly, the plot set-up of being with the wrong blind date at a basketball game while a quiet, thoughtful guy takes her attention is so much fun, and the witty banter is unreal. Steel’s writing is easy to devour, and I don’t think I stopped grinning until way after the last page.
This is a yearly reread for me and the measuring stick for all banter-and-swoon books I read.
My friend told me I needed more fun in my life, so I reluctantly said yes. Fun wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. After watching my own mother’s love life implode time and time again it’s only natural that I have a few rules to protect myself.
Actually, it’s just one rule…
Avoid relationships with men so I don’t get attached.
I wasn’t worried. Getting attached has never been a problem for me. This guy was just a warm body in a chair. I was here for the basketball game. I was absolutely NOT here for…
A dead top agent, an assassinated politician, and one dangerously hot Swedish spy who knows something about her past that might end up jeopardizing her future.
What has American Division agent Katrina Foster gotten herself into this time?
Katrina knows she’s talented, but once she becomes a target, she soon…
I spent years only reading the old, great classics because I couldn’t find any general market books without spicy scenes I didn’t care to read and couldn’t recommend. It was horrible to think, as an avid, eclectic reader, that I was running out of books to read. I thought wholesome romance books didn’t exist in today’s world (and that my own books wouldn’t have a space to belong), but they do. Now that I know where to look, these love stories give me joy in a dark world. I hope this list gives you some new favorites to brighten your days as they have mine.
I read this book in less than twenty hours—not that I had time for it, but this book demanded it.
The main characters’ emotional and tangible goals are set up so well, I felt drawn in immediately. There was so much push and pull between the two as they learned to open up and work together to write a rom-com, so much (clashing) personality and voice (I always love Center’s voicy characters).
I loved the romantic sizzle on every page, the perfectly paced plot of her helping her idol fix his writing, and the incredible banter. *While the book contains some language, there wasn’t a hint or even an implied spicy scene.
'A big hit of dopamine' EMILY GIFFIN *The instant New York Times bestseller!*
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She's rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?
Emma has big dreams, though she hasn't let herself think about them in years. Until her big break comes along: she's offered the chance to write a screenplay with none other than her hero, Charlie-freaking-Yates! And it's a rom-com! It's the dream... Until reality sets in.
Charlie is a bonafide Hollywood movie-writing legend. He's also, as it turns out, kind of a jerk. He's only writing this movie to get a Mafia movie that he…
I spent years only reading the old, great classics because I couldn’t find any general market books without spicy scenes I didn’t care to read and couldn’t recommend. It was horrible to think, as an avid, eclectic reader, that I was running out of books to read. I thought wholesome romance books didn’t exist in today’s world (and that my own books wouldn’t have a space to belong), but they do. Now that I know where to look, these love stories give me joy in a dark world. I hope this list gives you some new favorites to brighten your days as they have mine.
I read this whole book in one sitting on a plane across the ocean (even with all the movies on demand!)
I loved the plot of a ghost-writer for a difficult-to-please author and friendship-to-romance with her literary agent, who is put in the middle of the tension. The slow burn and subtext in this one made me love every minute.
And when I find a He-Falls-First book with so much fun banter? Sign. Me. Up. Ferguson is a master at swoony character tension in a tight plot with lots of clever humor. I wished it hadn’t been over so soon.
"Another sparkling, laugh-out-loud romance!" --RaeAnne Thayne, New York Times bestselling author
She's written dozens of smash hit romance novels. Too bad no one knows it.
Aspiring author Bryony Page attends her first writers conference bursting with optimism and ready to sell her manuscript with long-shot dreams of raising awareness for her grandmother's financially struggling organization where she teaches ESL full-time. What she doesn't expect is to get tangled up with Jack Sterling, a jaded literary agent who will change everything. Their partnership begins with a devil's bargain: Bryony will ghostwrite for his talentless bestselling client if Jack will represent her…
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
I spent years only reading the old, great classics because I couldn’t find any general market books without spicy scenes I didn’t care to read and couldn’t recommend. It was horrible to think, as an avid, eclectic reader, that I was running out of books to read. I thought wholesome romance books didn’t exist in today’s world (and that my own books wouldn’t have a space to belong), but they do. Now that I know where to look, these love stories give me joy in a dark world. I hope this list gives you some new favorites to brighten your days as they have mine.
I’m a sucker for enemies-to-lovers and marriage-of-convenience tropes, and this one plays them both off each other perfectly.
It’s hard to find a logical marriage of convenience plot line for the 21st century, but Mitchell managed it well with a grandmother’s will and a scam that wiped out a bank account. The pranks and banter are an incredibly fun facade for the fraught, emotional subtext running beneath because of their painful history and backstories.
I love that combo - top-notch banter with emotional, romantic tension behind every word and look. I laughed through their antics, and my toes curled with the romance.
Phoenix Park is the man I fantasize about...hitting with my car, that is.He's rich. He's sexy. He's the absolute worst. But after I fall prey to an internet scam and lose every last penny in my account (please don’t ask), it’s Phoenix who swoops in with an offer I can’t refuse. I’ll marry him for the summer so he can inherit the family company from his dying grandmother, and in return, he’ll drop a hefty sum of money into my bank account.Buy me a pair of sweatpants with GOLD DIGGER across the butt, because I’m just desperate enough to agree.Our…
Before fan fiction was popular, I would often daydream about the lives of my favorite book characters. Did Jane Eyre gain more confidence from her inheritance? Did Ponyboy find a way to survive his tragic childhood? Decades later, I gravitate toward retellings, often picking them up simply because I like the source material. Still, when I started working on this list, I realized what a daunting task I’d set myself. There are so many! And I haven’t even read two recently lauded titles: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Percival Everett’s James. So hat in my hand, I present these favorites ranging from serious to light-hearted.
Jane Eyre but she’s a serial killer? That’s a must-read book for me. And this one lives up to its creative premise. Like her namesake, this Jane lives in Victorian England, but she takes a decidedly more direct approach to dealing with her oppressors.
As the body count rises, so do her qualms. I enjoyed the parallels of this romp to the original, including the inevitable love story, and appreciated the unexpected twists and turns. With many retellings, it’s easy to guess how the plot will unfold—not so with this dagger of a book.
'Reader, I murdered him.' JANE STEELE is a brilliant Gothic retelling of JANE EYRE from Edgar-nominated Lyndsay Faye, for fans of LONGBOURN and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES.'I loved it' - Elly Griffiths
** JANE STEELE HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR AN EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2017 **
Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors. A fugitive…
I grew up in New York City, the only child of a busy editor/publisher and a classical musician. We lived in a two-hundred-year-old brownstone that was full of history and books. Often, my fictional and real worlds overlapped. I explored the dark spaces in our old house and imagined the ghosts that might still dwell there. I sat in eight-foot-high windows in the summer and near fireplaces with Victorian marble mantels in winter and read Nancy Drew, Alice in Wonderland, Tolkien, Poe, Shakespeare, and more. Those stories dropped like seeds into my psyche and eventually bloomed into the thrillers and mysteries I write today.
The first locked room mystery I ever read was Agatha Christy’s, And Then There Were None. I fell in love with the trope. I’m a complete patsy for any story that holds a group of unsuspecting characters captive and starts killing them off individually.
Shari Lapena uses a ski resort and a snowstorm to do just that. This book is a fabulously creepy and claustrophobic read for a winter night.
AS FEATURED ON BBC RADIO 2: 'Properly gripping' Romesh Ranganathan
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER from the number one bestselling author of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR.
'Crafted like a vintage Christie and just as tense, this will be a smash hit.' Heat 'Tense. Unpredictable. Unputdownable. Shari Lapena's novels are domestic noir at its finest.' Simon Kernick
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We can't choose the strangers we meet.
As the guests arrive at beautiful, remote Mitchell's Inn, they're all looking forward to a relaxing weekend deep in the forest, miles from anywhere. They watch their fellow guests with interest, from a polite distance.
I’m a romance writer who moved around often as a child. Whenever I started a new school, I’d bring a book with me. Even now, I always run errands with a print book and my Kindle as I’m a writer, wife, and mother of four. Two of my children have medical conditions, and I’ve spent time in various doctor and hospital waiting rooms. I’ve taken books into MRI booths where I’d read while my daughter underwent an MRI. I gravitate toward emotional romances that keep me entertained while possessing a thread of humor or something unique about them so I can lose myself in their world anytime, anywhere.
I love books that cross romance genres, and Lovely Digits qualifies as it’s a historical romantic suspense. I was hooked from the first page where the heroine, Lucy, deals with a particularly unruly case. I read this book while waiting to pick up my twins from school and at all times of day.
The book revolves around two murders committed in the sleepy Victorian town of Clun, England, where an unlikely partnership forms between the new constable and the quirky heroine. Can they combine forces and prevent a third murder?
I liked how Lucy was ahead of her time as well as relatable and likeable. She cared for her sister and her cat while still proving her intelligence to the town and the hero while winning his heart.
When two murders strike the sleepy Victorian town of Clun, England, an unlikely partnership forms. But can the killer be found before there is a third?
Lovely Digits is the town oddity . . . Quirky spinster Lucy Wycliffe prefers to ignore gossip and embrace her position as the town’s layer out of the dead, despite how her parents’ deaths thrust her into such unlikely work. Lovely Digits, as she’s known to the local townspeople, no longer dreams of marriage, but takes pride in providing dignity to the dead. Desperate to hold on to her family’s cottage and support her…
When I was a boy, my adoptive father – a star pupil and friend of C.S. Lewis – heard I’d started reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. He bought every Sherlock Holmes book he could find. I remember lifting one to my nose and smelling the pages. I fell in love with books that day. I went on to earn a senior scholarship in English Literature at Cambridge University, and a PhD in storytelling. Since then, I have written over 50 books of my own and ghostwritten over 30 titles. I now host The Christian Storyteller Channel on YouTube, and I run BookLab, dedicated to helping emerging authors. My whole life is books.
I’m recommending this novel because it’s about the way you can sometimes find very special treasures in old bookshops.
I love the idea of writing a story about this because it’s happened to me. A few times during my life I’ve been in a second-hand bookshop and stumbled on a book that I didn’t even know existed – one that was just what I needed for that season of my life or that phase of my pursuit of truth.
I love The Echo of Old Books because it celebrates such book-related serendipities. And obviously I love it because it's my genre too – magical realism.
A novel about the magical lure of books and summoning the courage to rewrite our stories by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Keeper of Happy Endings and The Last of the Moon Girls.
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books' previous owners-an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination,…
I have always had a love for the YA Fantasy genre. Something about the fast pacing and the themes that are explored have a way of resonating with me more than any other. I think it’s because they’re centered around that weird but pivotal time in your life when you’re no longer a child but not quite an adult. It’s what keeps bringing me back, and I love immersing myself in that mindset.
This was the book that I brought on vacation with me, and then it forced me to ignore my entire family.
It’s a dark and gothic medieval murder mystery with Criminal Minds vibes but in a YA Fantasy setting. A rare moon magic gives our protagonist Catrin, the ability to see through the eyes of victims as they’re claimed by a serial killer, and the suspect may be closer to her than she thinks.
This book kept me up late into the night, trying to figure out who the culprit was and leaving me to suspect almost the entire cast. It’s incredibly unique, and I’m not sure I’ve come across another book like it. It was just as riveting the second time through.
Rising above the city of Collis is the holy Sanctum. And watching over its spires is Catrin, an orphan with unique skills-for she alone can spot the building's flaws in construction before they turn deadly.
But when Catrin witnesses a murderer escaping the scene of his crime, she's pulled into the web of a dangerous man who will definitely strike again. Assigned to capture the culprit is the mysterious, brilliant, and enigmatic Simon, whose insights into the mind of a killer are frighteningly accurate.
As the grisly crimes continue, Catrin finds herself caught between murderer and detective while hiding her…
I’m the author of the Countess of Harleigh Mystery series. I’ve been fascinated by the Gilded Age/Victorian Era/Belle Epoque since reading my first Edith Wharton novel, The Buccaneers, which followed the lives of four American heiresses of the late 19th century, who crossed the Atlantic to marry British lords. Love and marriage almost never went together in Wharton’s world, but with all the loveless marriages, the social climbing, and the haves and have-nots, I find it makes an excellent setting for a mystery.
Frances lives in the Victorian Era in London, but in her hometown of New York, it’s the Gilded Age. This is her background in all its glittering and horrifying glory.
Crime novels fit quite naturally in this era. I love a loathsome villain and Rosemary Simpson serves up some of the worst in her Gilded Age series. She uses actual events, like the great blizzard of 1888, as catalysts for some heinous crimes. If you needed to dispose of a body, what better place than a snowdrift?
Prudence MacKenzie, the dead man’s fiancé and our sleuth, doesn’t seem to realize the danger she’s in. I spent the entire read on the edge of my seat wondering if she’d make it to the end of the book alive. This is historical noir in elegant Gilded Age style.
Set amidst the opulent mansions and cobblestone streets of Old New York, this enthralling historical mystery by Rosemary Simpson brings the Gilded Age to life—in a tantalizing tale of old money, new love, and grave suspicion . . .
As the Great Blizzard of 1888 cripples New York City, heiress Prudence MacKenzie sits anxiously within her palatial Fifth Avenue home waiting for her fiancé’s safe return. But the fearsome storm rages through the night. With daylight, more than two hundred people are found to have perished in the icy winds and treacherous snowdrifts. Among them is Prudence’s fiancé—his body frozen,…
