Books like The Secrets of the Lake — picked by fans

Have you ever read a book that grabbed you with a character challenged by circumstances you’d never considered? Imagine being blind and trying to survive WWII! I was intrigued by this essentially two-person novel set during World War II, which had a ‘cast’ of millions.

Again, the characters! Marie-Laure LaBlanc is a young blind French woman hiding in her great-uncle’s house in Saint-Malo after the Nazis invade Paris. I found Doerr’s lyrical sensory descriptions of Marie-Laure’s efforts to make her way around town as she’s pulled into the French resistance thrilling. I loved the depth of characterization when I met the second main character, Werner Pfennig, a radio repair savant, and his journey from a Nazi soldier tracking down illicit resistance radio operators to a young man repulsed by the Nazi brutalization of civilians.

The characters and intrigue pulled me through this book; mixed in with the eventual connection of… show more.

The title of this book really intrigued me. That, and the fact that the author had died very shortly after completing the novel, requesting her friend to see it through its journey, meant I felt compelled to read it.

The other hook for me was that the story is set in Guernsey, an island I have visited and where I was aware there had been a great deal of deprivation in WWII. I wasn’t disappointed. I loved the wit, the cast of wonderful characters, and the story that developed from a chance correspondence.

“I must be good; I must be good.” Willie Beech’s mother drummed the mantra into him when he left home as an evacuee. My heart went out to the boy from the first page, where it is clear he had been maltreated, neglected, and indoctrinated with a cruel sense of godliness in the guise of caring.

His curmudgeonly evacuation host, Tom Oakley, is the kind of person whose stern manner I would have feared as a child but who hides a kind heart and a strong sense of fair play. This story is one of my all-time favorites.

As a grandmother myself, I felt the pain of the loss of a baby, fortunately only imagined in my case, and the distress of a bereaved mother. Wartime, by its very nature, brings loss of life, and there is no lack of that in this story.

These losses were, for me, later tempered by a storyline that divided my sympathies. A book that tore at my heartstrings without labouring on detailed violence of war.

Castellani’s warm and beautiful prose takes us on a journey with Maddelana, an innocent young woman in a tiny Italian village where everyone knows everyone. As she embarks on a journey that will change her life, we watch her future unfold across the ocean and through generations of the family she starts, immigrant descendants making a life in America. The best part is there are two more books following this one! 

Not only is this a heartfelt evacuee story, it’s also a brilliant mystery. When Jimmy and his brother, Ronnie, are sent to the Welsh countryside to escape the bombings, Jimmy is angry at the adults responsible – “They think they know everything but all they do is leave or make wars or send their children away.” The boys eventually warm to their kind foster parents, but some of the villagers aren’t so welcoming. When Jimmy finds a skull in a hollow tree, he has no idea how it’s tied to an unsolved mystery, and the reader has no idea how it will figure in this story’s gripping, satisfying, and emotional conclusion. 

Sometimes Fantasy can be dark or even cross into the realm of Horror. The concept of this book certainly would appeal to most Fantasy readers. An old, out-of-use post box in a small English village is reputed to be a conduit for local residents to ask for favours from dead relatives. Cris Lopez from California, mourning the loss of his estranged wife whom he still loves, sees a tabloid story about the box and decides a change of scene would do him good. His desire to have some hope of contact with his deceased wife is something he's not ready to admit to himself.

Rather than terrifying, this one moves into the weird, or I should say wyrd. It has all the earmarks of magical English villages and folklore brought to life.

Much like my own themes, Pastures Nouveaux is not only about starting over in the country, but having the courage to look at your relationship in the eye.

Rosie is engaged to a horrible columnist, Mark. And she keeps making excuses for him; he’s stressed, he’s unhappy, he’s on a deadline, etc. But he never shows her any great amount of genuine affection. It’s like he’s given up on them. And, perhaps, so has Rosie, who has chosen to ‘live with it’.

And when they move to the country village, Eight Mile Bottom, things take a turn for the worst, as nothing could be further from what they had expected from this move. Or is this the best thing that’s ever happened to Rosie?

Maybe not a 'murder mystery' in the typical sense of Agatha Christie, but this is a delightful, cozy read, ideal for an afternoon snuggled before a blazing fire (wine and chocs to hand) or for lazing on a sunny beach (plus wine – maybe not the chocs). As someone living in a small Devonshire village I look forward to our annual summer show (hopefully without a corpse hidden anywhere!) I thoroughly enjoyed the rural background of this delightful little tale. Don't take the murder-to-solve element too seriously, instead, enjoy the lives of charming and quirky English Cotswolds’ characters, and the events that unfold around them in this, the first, of a highly enjoyable series. We need more entertaining cozy mystery novels like this series!

Written in the style of M.C. Beaton, this book is a perfect English murder mystery.

The idea of a village fete itself has always been alluring to me. I put myself in the story and I’m right at home in the village and celebration at Berrywick House. I blame my British DNA. As in any good cozy, the most irritating member of the community ends up dead, and no exception here.

The main character, Julia, is not only concerned with a murder—or two, but she’s also afraid their peaceful village will be forever ruined. Like all great amateur sleuths, she gets involved. Bird paints a picture of a perfect English village. Add a dog, her Labrador, Jake, and well, sign me up.