Here are 100 books that The Secret Life of Violet Grant fans have personally recommended if you like
The Secret Life of Violet Grant.
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As the author of a historical/mystery/romance series that has won over sixty international awards in multiple categories, I’m attracted to books that cannot be pinned to one genre. I love sweeping sagas with elements of all three, perhaps because I was so immersed in classic literature as a kid and fascinated by stories of the past. I suspect I may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, I have resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting myself back there. I am, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.
I came upon this 3-part series almost by accident and quickly gobbled it up, surprised that it is not more well known. It is a fabulous upstairs/downstairs type of saga in which both the aristocracy and the servants who wait upon them are upended by the outbreak of WW1. Excellent writing; hard to put down.
Before Downton Abbey, there was Abingdon Pryory, the elegant country home of the Grevilles - a titled English family who, along with their servants, see their world turned upside down when England goes to war - and their well-kept lawns and whirling social seasons give way to the horrors of battle leaving no one, upstairs or downstairs, untouched.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
As the author of a historical/mystery/romance series that has won over sixty international awards in multiple categories, I’m attracted to books that cannot be pinned to one genre. I love sweeping sagas with elements of all three, perhaps because I was so immersed in classic literature as a kid and fascinated by stories of the past. I suspect I may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, I have resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting myself back there. I am, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.
While walking through a Barnes and Noble some thirty years ago, I stumbled upon Anthony Trollope—probably because he took up about three whole shelves. Curious, I chose one of his fifty novels and then another and another until I concluded that he is undoubtedly one of the most underrated authors in the English language. Both of his series—The Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Pallisers—make Downton Abbey look like upstairs/downstairs-lite. Highly recommended!
As the author of a historical/mystery/romance series that has won over sixty international awards in multiple categories, I’m attracted to books that cannot be pinned to one genre. I love sweeping sagas with elements of all three, perhaps because I was so immersed in classic literature as a kid and fascinated by stories of the past. I suspect I may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, I have resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting myself back there. I am, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.
I read all of Catherine Cookson’s novels at a much too-young age, having “borrowed” them from my mom’s bookshelf when she wasn’t looking. I was immediately hooked. So many of Cookson’s books, not just The Girl, pit the wealthy, landed class against their poorer servants, and this theme made a deep impression on me. In fact, I think that Cookson, along with Dickens, probably had the most influence on my personal writing style.
She appeared in Ned Riley's stable yard like some wraith of the morning mist to seek Ned's help. Her name was Hannah Boyle, she was eight years old, and she had walked many miles from Newcastle with her mother, who was seriously ill.
AcClaim is a dark, high-society romance about Beatrix Winslow-Hale, a successful romance author who believes desire can be negotiated and controlled—until enigmatic billionaire Dorian Wolker crosses the line between consensual surrender and violation. Publicly humiliated and emotionally shattered, Beatrix turns to Manon de Rochemaure, her fiercely loyal best friend and…
As the author of a historical/mystery/romance series that has won over sixty international awards in multiple categories, I’m attracted to books that cannot be pinned to one genre. I love sweeping sagas with elements of all three, perhaps because I was so immersed in classic literature as a kid and fascinated by stories of the past. I suspect I may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, I have resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting myself back there. I am, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.
Kate Morton is the penultimate professional at combining sweeping historical fiction and a mystery element. Any of her books are a delight, but I chose to showcase The House at Riverton because of its English aristocratic setting and the heavy mystery element. I adore Morton’s almost magical ability to successfully weave two or even three plotlines, all in different eras, into one tight story.
Summer 1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time house-maid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.Set as the war-shattered Edwardian…
I’ve been fascinated by borders since I was a child. I would run my finger along lines on maps in the worn pages of a world atlas, wondering what strange stories the people in those places would tell. As a writer, I look for compelling stories and odd characters at borders. The latest is Bob Boulé, the larger-than-life figure that Greg Boos and I describe in Smuggler. The books on this list were important for me to learn about the reality of the US-Canada border, and I hope you—and Donald Trump—enjoy them as much as I did.
Donald Trump should read Blue Bird, the historical novel about Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, so he can understand how interconnected the two cities, and by extension, the US and Canada, are.
In 2026, Trump tried to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge across the Detroit River, but Canada opened it anyway. I was fascinated by how Blue Bird shows us the ways people evaded past efforts to limit trade between the border cities during the Prohibition era.
The book evokes the period and demonstrates that smuggling and policing are self-reinforcing. Smuggling only exists when there are restrictions at the border that need to be evaded.
A dazzling novel set during the Great War and postwar Prohibition about a young nurse, a soldier, and a family secret that binds them together for generations to come-from USA TODAY and repeat #1 bestselling author Genevieve Graham.
Present day
Cassie Simmons, a museum curator, is enthusiastic about solving mysteries from the past, and she has a personal interest in the history of the rumrunners who ferried illegal booze across the Detroit River during Prohibition. So when a cache of whisky labeled Bailey Brothers' Best is unearthed during a local home renovation, Cassie hopes to find the answers she's…
Although I’m neither a healthcare professional nor a historian, my passions are reading great fiction and continually striving to write it. Degrees in literature led to college teaching and then full-time writing. And that, to the publication of six works of fiction, including four historical novels. So, add to the mix, then, the years spent studying and teaching literature as well as those spent writing and rewriting—and, too, being an inveterate reader—and you have, in brief, the sum of my expertise. Each of the works listed below, I feel, has super qualities. I certainly enjoyed reading such masterful work and hope you will as well.
As a writer, I found so much to admire in The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally. Simply put, it’s epic. I was blown away by Kenneally’s Tolstoian precision of narrative and by the drama of two sisters who leave their confined lives in Australia and serve as nurses in WWI, first on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean and then on the Western Front. Keneally recreates a full sense of the times, showing how individuals can become enmeshed and shaped by huge historical events. The sisters confront not only the terrible effects of war but also a secret that haunts them. This is a stunning, multi-layered novel by a master, The Daughters of Mars has earned numerous accolades—and no wonder. It’s beautifully written and deeply affecting.
In 1915, two spirited Australian sisters join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father's dairy farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Used to tending the sick as they are, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first in the Dardanelles, then on the Western Front. Yet they find courage in the face of extreme danger and become the friends they never were before. And eventually they meet the kind of men worth giving up their precious independence for - if only they all survive.
At once epic in scope and extraordinarily intimate,…
Having spent my youth watching dramasCrown Court andL.A. Lawon TV and reading Rumpole of the Bailey, it’s not surprising I became a lawyer and then went on to write legal thrillers myself. The courtroom is an inherently theatrical place, where emotions and tensions run high. It’s a place where egos collide, theories are propounded and punctured and the liberty (and sometimes the life) of the accused is at stake. It follows, then, that lawyers operate in a totally even-handed system, where they’ll always achieve a fair and just result and uncover the truth. All the books I’ve recommended challenge this notion in different (but equally brilliant) ways.
A young man accused of murder stands before the jury in court. Fed up with his barrister’s advice to ‘only tell the jury what they can believe’ he makes his own closing speech. He tells ‘the whole truth’ in his own words.
In setting out the details of his chaotic life, he aims to provide an innocent explanation for the eight pieces of circumstantial evidence against him. It’s only if the jury can understand what it’s like to be him (echoes here of Atticus Finch’s famous line, "You never really understand a person until you… climb into his skin and walk around in it.") that he will receive a fair trial.
A highly original angle for the modern, courtroom drama, executed to perfection. Clearly (as is only right) there’s a subtly-woven, social commentary agenda too.
2013 Christy Award winner! 2013 Carol Award finalist (ACFW) To everyone who knows her, Annalise Decker is a model wife and mother. She’s a permanent member of the PTA, never misses her kids’ sporting events, and is constantly campaigning for her husband’s mayoral race.
No one knows that Annalise was once Deidre O’Reilly, a troubled young woman whose testimony put a dangerous criminal behind bars. Relocated through the Witness Security Program to the sleepy town of Deep Haven, Deidre got a new identity and a fresh start, which began when she fell in love with local real estate agent Nathan…
As a bullied teenager I wanted to escape and fantasy was my drug of choice. (My parents may have grounded me from the library, which by the way—not cool.) I love working within fantasy worlds and magic systems but my true passion lies in the story itself. I write character based books focusing on the inner workings of all of us. Occasionally when writing a battle scene in a gladiator arena with three levels, multiple characters with magical abilitiesm and a secondary magical system in the background, I wonder why I can’t just tell a story in freaking Chicago for goodness sake! But fantasy is where it's at for this girl!
This book took me by surprise. I thought I might like it—thus why I bought it—but from the first sentence I was hooked and in awe of the writing. Revelator is rich and dark and feels so real you can almost taste the food they're eating. But then, just when you’re feeling comfortable, you realize what this story is actually about. Revelator will blow your mind in the best way possible.
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • The dark, gripping tale of a 1930’s family in the remote hills of the Smoky Mountains, their secret religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their mysterious god—from the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders.
“Gods and moonshine in the Great Depression, written with a tenderness and brutality … this is as good as novels get.” —Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians
In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee. The mountains are home to…
As an immigrant in the United States, I have been fascinated by the dynamics between races and cultures—both in the country and globally. As I travel extensively (63 countries so far), I experience some of the biases firsthand—sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I have come to realize that despite the difference in the color of our skin—and the clothes we wear—we are more alike than different.
I loved the book because of my deep interest in its theme: the radicalization of Muslim youth in Europe. It’s a convincing account of a young Londoner getting drawn to ISIS, which upends a family already mired in tragedy.
The key characters shine in their own narrative, and their respective truths speak to me. I also loved that the writer gives us a snapshot of the lives of the ISIS recruits living in Syria.
_______________ WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDAND AND NEW YORK TIMES _______________ 'The book for our times' - Judges of the Women's Prize 'Elegant and evocative ... A powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world' - Guardian 'Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century' - New York Times _______________ Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of…
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.
Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have…
I started reading crime fiction when I was a very young child. My granny introduced me to mysteries through authors like Tony Hillerman, who wrote books set in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. That early introduction into mysteries set in small towns and rural areas stuck. My books also focus on smaller towns and rural areas, which I love to visit through fiction or in real life. I have often made my home in a small town and work as a crime fiction author and a developmental editor, so I have an eye for both solid mysteries and life in a rural community.
I love the way the author brings protagonist Shana Merchant's past into her present situation.
I always enjoy books that layer in family history and events from a character’s background to show how they were formed by their experiences. I also love a solid police procedural that shows off a talented detective doing what she does best.
The rural environment made the story even tenser for me as Detective Merchant finds herself back in her small hometown. I am a big fan of this series.
Senior Investigator Shana Merchant has spent years running from her past. But she never imagined a murder case would drive her to the most dangerous place of all—home.
After leaving the NYPD following her abduction by serial killer Blake Bram, Shana Merchant hoped for a fresh start in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York. Her former tormentor has other plans. Shana and Bram share more than just a hometown, and he won’t let her forget it. When the decades-old skeleton of Shana's estranged uncle is uncovered, Bram issues a challenge: Return home to Vermont and solve the cold case,…
