Books like The Secret Lives of Dresses — picked by fans

I adored the alternative history post-apocalyptic/post-WWII, dark setting that had a subtle steampunk edge. The coming-of-age romance aspect was delightful and just the right amount of steam for young adults (though this adult wanted more). I fell in love with Rene and Amandine and the compelling, loveable, vivid unique supporting characters as well in Threadbare. DeMers knowledge of fabric, sewing, and fashion was evident in the writing. Threadbare, had great suspense and tension building with several wonderful twists, one I saw coming, the other surprised me in a delightful way. Overall, Threadbare had wonderful, creative, original characters and names like Tall-me, Glorious Halloway, Thatch, and Nieuwestad, plus the fun use of slang like cooking with gas, ducky shin-crackers, and more.

The characters really stand out. Trey is easy to love and you root for him right away with plenty of dance scenes that put swing dance center stage. Backen makes use of era music, citing big bands with a good amount of vintage fashion description, shoes, too! Although I guessed at most of the plot points, I love having my suspicions confirmed. Still, there were some nice twists along the way. I loved the soda shop setting and the barn, both exuding their own romance. Last but not least, I loved that the MC wasn’t the stereotypical hunk (short guys are the best to dance with–trust me).

Set in post-WWII with wartime flashbacks to an earlier time, Blundell uses music, dance, and fashion to capture the mood and atmosphere of the era. Her descriptions of the fashions had me drooling and wanting to run to the nearest vintage shop to buy a new dress. Blundell’s use of language, imagery, and metaphor worked well and often flirted with brilliance. She captured the dichotomy of having one foot in childhood and the other in adulthood with compelling plot twists, intertwining the complex mother and the daughter relationship from the perspective of a young woman. The romance aspect was realistic and dangerous with the character of Peter exactly what every parent fears for their budding daughter and what so many naive girls think they want.

I was fascinated with the depiction of the 1930s Malaysian dance halls steeped in music, fashion, and dance. As a writer who dabbles in the paranormal, the cultural spirits and supernatural elements were intriguing. The split narrative appealed to me since my Jitterbug Dress series is a dual narrative set in the 1940s and 1990s. The author also set the narrative apart by telling the story in different tenses and POVs (Ren and William’s story is in third person past, while Ji Lin’s story is first person, present). Choo did a great job of juxtaposing the beast or wild animal inside each person, where the line of who we are inside and what we present to society is drawn all while creating tension and suspense, keeping me guessing on how all these narratives intertwine. 

From the first chapter, I was bewitched by the effortless overlay of the fantastical with the everyday.

This delightful sugary read showcases a heroine who craves sweets, connection, and acceptance—I can relate to all of that!

When she succeeds, I feel I do too. I love how this book creates a feeling of hope in a new day within me. 

Sarah Addison Allen novels enchant readers with lovely prose, multi-layered, engaging characters, and a tone balancing gentle humor against melancholy. In The Peach Keeper, Paxton and Willa are forced to face and overcome their pasts, revealing frailties and strengths as they reluctantly link to solve a decades-old, magic-tinged mystery involving their grandmothers. I loved the unusual mystical quirks in the story, like two dozen snooty women unwillingly shouting out their secrets at a society club meeting. Allen further captures us with heart-rending romance as she builds the allure of the small town, Walls of Water, NC. I’ve been equally compelled by her books The Sugar Queen and Other Birds, a recent release. 

If you’re a North Carolinian of a certain age and background, reading To Hate Like This is like looking into one of those magnifying mirrors: You’ll see yourself, but with every pore and blemish blown up to comic proportions.

If you’re not a North Carolinian of that age and background, you’ll learn much about why we are the way we are. Though ostensibly about the fierce basketball rivalry between the University of North Carolina and Duke, it’s really about the pulls (and repulsions) of home, of family, of history, of language.

Even if you don’t like basketball, even if you hate both Carolina and Duke as much as I do, if you’ve ever felt deep ambivalence about your place of birth, you’ll love this book.

“Nine robed figures dressed all in white,” begins this haunting story of the Ku Klux Klan arriving in the small town of Bumblebee, North Carolina. The year is 1932 and the town is, of course, segregated. Black and White. A line in the soil―just like the neighborhood street of my childhood in Springfield, Virginia that divided my Korean family from the white family who fought and failed to keep us from moving into our home. The reader will step into eleven-year-old Stella Mills' shoes and feel all her fear and anger over the injustices of her world that highlights voting rights. But young Stella harnesses her anger through words (much the way I did as a child) by creating a fantasy newspaper column called Stella Star’s Sentinel. Why didn’t I think of that? I only had my blue diary with a gold clasp. In Stella’s ‘newspaper’ she expresses how… show more.

This is the granddaddy of all EMP stories—the one that arguably kicked off the entire genre and the one that got me interested in EMP disaster books. So grounded that it has been cited as a cautionary tale in Congress, the story doesn’t shy away from the grim realities of a world where technology suddenly stops working.

Retired army officer John Matherson suffered his share of hardships, but I liked the way he never lost hope or stopped fighting for his family and community. 

Wilmington’s Lie, winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, documents one of the darkest episodes in North Carolina’s history – the violent overthrow of an elected government in the Black-majority city of Wilmington. It was a massacre that left at least 60 Black men dead. I lived in North Carolina for decades before I heard about this history. And I’m hardly alone. Until recently, this coup had been described as a “race riot” and largely omitted from textbooks, while its White supremacist organizers had been revered as great North Carolinians. If you want to understand what people mean when they talk about the “whitewashing” of American history, this book is the ultimate case study.