Here are 86 books that Though Not Dead fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have loved animals my entire life. I know first-hand the calming influence the unconditional love of a dog can bring to a person. In contentious Teams meetings on the computer, I pet my dog to keep calm. If I am sad or anxious, I grab the squeaky toy, and we play tug-of-war. I volunteered at the Animal Welfare Association, a no-kill New Jersey Animal Shelter. Through my work, I gained an understanding of how to assess the non-verbal cues of a dog. I’ve learned that it is essential to understand an animal’s body language more so than the standards and behaviors associated with breeds of dogs.
Ryder Creed brings his canine handling skills to potential crime scenes and smuggling operations. He works as a team with his Jack Russell Grace. Dog and man communicate in non-verbal ways to assess situations and aid law enforcement in uncovering evidence. The typical crime scene dog is taught for the job they will perform from birth. Ryder’s dogs are rescued from the street, animal shelters, or retrained after their owners are killed during military actions. The characters’ back stories are thoroughly crafted and distributed throughout the plot. As you learn more about each character, you understand their canine companions’ vital role in their lives.
Ryder Creed and his dogs have been making national headlines after intercepting several major drug stashes being smuggled through Atlanta's airport. But their newfound celebrity has also garnered some unwanted attention. When Creed and one of his dogs are called in to search a commercial fishing vessel, they discover a secret compartment. But the Colombian cartels' latest shipment isn't drugs. This time, its cargo is human. To make matters worse, Creed helps one of the cartel's drug mules escape - a fourteen-year-old girl who reminds him of his younger sister who disappeared fifteen years ago. Meanwhile, FBI agent Maggie O'Dell…
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…
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
I found this book to be an excellent, well-crafted mystery, but what put it on my best books list was Chet, the four-legged narrator. He’s not an entirely reliable narrator, but the reader can count on his doggy behaviors to be consistently reliable as he serves as his owner’s faithful sleuthing sidekick.
Just as Chet has a nose for sniffing out trouble, he also has a nose for Slim Jims, burgers, and the other dogs (his tribe members) in the neighborhood, and can be easily distracted. This keeps the story light and delightfully entertaining. I was charmed from page one.
The first book of the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, an “enchanting one-of-a-kind novel” (Stephen King) that is “nothing short of masterful” (Los Angeles Times).
Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, and Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator, are quick to take a new case involving a frantic mother searching for her teenage daughter. This well-behaved and gifted student may or may not have been kidnapped, but she has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. With Chet’s highly trained nose leading the way, their hunt for clues takes them…
I have loved animals my entire life. I know first-hand the calming influence the unconditional love of a dog can bring to a person. In contentious Teams meetings on the computer, I pet my dog to keep calm. If I am sad or anxious, I grab the squeaky toy, and we play tug-of-war. I volunteered at the Animal Welfare Association, a no-kill New Jersey Animal Shelter. Through my work, I gained an understanding of how to assess the non-verbal cues of a dog. I’ve learned that it is essential to understand an animal’s body language more so than the standards and behaviors associated with breeds of dogs.
Lily Echosby’s two-timing ex-husband is murdered, and she is a natural suspect. She investigates the murder with her best friend Dixie and their canines. This book is similar to my book in that the human characters are diverse. They come from varying backgrounds, merging their collective experiences to provide a story with many perspectives. Lily Echosby’s CPA training will aid her deductions in the same way that Lily Dreyfus’ canine training helps her solve the murder of Pete Russo. Both women gain strength from their challenges and are determined to sniff out the perpetrators.
Her new canine companion is a lot more loyal than her ex-husband—but that doesn’t mean she wanted him dead….
Lilly may be losing a husband but she's gaining a toy poodle. That could be seen as a win-win, since her new adopted pooch Aggie (named after Agatha Christie) is cute and adorable, and Lilly's dirty dog of a spouse is cheating on her with a blond bimbo—except for one problem: Albert Echosby’s just been murdered, and Lilly is the number-one suspect.
With the cops barking up the wrong tree, it's a good thing her best friend Scarlett "Dixie" Jefferson from…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I have loved animals my entire life. I know first-hand the calming influence the unconditional love of a dog can bring to a person. In contentious Teams meetings on the computer, I pet my dog to keep calm. If I am sad or anxious, I grab the squeaky toy, and we play tug-of-war. I volunteered at the Animal Welfare Association, a no-kill New Jersey Animal Shelter. Through my work, I gained an understanding of how to assess the non-verbal cues of a dog. I’ve learned that it is essential to understand an animal’s body language more so than the standards and behaviors associated with breeds of dogs.
The first book in the Pampered Pets series features Caro Lamont, who trains humans how to interact with their pets, even if the humans believe her to be training the pets. One of Caro’s clients is murdered, and she becomes a suspect. The story is creative and witty, with a lot of information on why our four-legged friends behave as they do. Caro and my protagonist Lily Dreyfus are self-sufficient and determined women. They will ferret out the killer, no matter the risks to themselves. At the end of the day, their four-legged friends help them deal with grief and fear by providing love and companionship.
When Caro Lamont, former psychologist turned pet therapist makes a house call to help Kevin Blackstone with his two misbehaving German Shepherd dogs, she expects frantic dogs, she expects a frantic dog owner, she even expects frantic neighbors. What she doesn’t expect is that two hours later the police will find Kevin dead, his dogs impounded; and that as the last person to see Kevin alive (well, except for the killer) she is suddenly a person of interest, at least according to Homicide Detective Judd Malone. Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita…
I wanted to visit Alaska since high school. It took me a couple of decades to make good on the urge, but I have made numerous trips. Alaska has everything I have always loved about Colorado, but in superlatives. From a historical standpoint, Alaska means mountains, mining, and railroads, exactly what I have written about in the lower forty-eight. Outdoors, there has never been any place that makes me happier than climbing mountains or rafting rivers. Spend two weeks in the Brooks Range with just one buddy without seeing another human and one comes to understand the land—and appreciate stories from people who do, too!
Before “Mardie” Murie became the guardian of America’s conservation conscience, she was a young bride traveling halfway across Alaska to marry a man she barely knew. Together Olaus and Mardie Murie lived a wilderness life always awed by the landscape and its wild inhabitants. Did things “change with children?” she was once asked. “No," Mardie smiled sweetly, “we just took them with us.”
This is the Muries’ story from those early years through their travels in the Arctic National Wildlife Area (ANWR) and support for the Wilderness Act. I first read this book long before I battled mosquitoes on the Koyukuk River, as they had on their honeymoon, and hiked up Double Mountain above their 1956 camp on the Sheenjak. Hosting Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas that summer, their joint efforts led to the creation of ANWR.
A Northern classic and beloved favorite, Two in the Far North chronicles the incredible story of Margaret "Mardy" Murie, called the Grandmother of the Conservation Movement, and how she became one of the first women to embrace and champion wilderness conservation in America.
At the age of nine, Margaret Murie moved from Seattle to Fairbanks, not realizing the trajectory life would take her from there. This moving testimonial to the preservation of the Arctic wilderness comes straight from her heart as she writes about growing up in Fairbanks, becoming the first woman graduate…
I grow bored reading the same thing over and over, so I don’t. My favorite books challenge me, teach me, blow the walls out, and expand my horizons. I want books to take me to unexpected places and show me worlds existing and otherwise that I never dreamed could be out there. I’ve never been a fan of genre literature that strictly “follows the rules” for that reason. Some of the books on this list are from genres, but they still differ from the predictable. I want to be surprised, and then you’ll hold my attention for the entire novel, and I’ll refer back to it for years.
James Michener is my favorite author. What can I say? I’m a sucker for epics: narratives that fully explore characters, families, historical eras, and locations, both exotic and ordinary. Michener chooses a location and fully explores its history and people; those people don’t always behave as expected.
They interact in unexpected ways, making decisions that are not always what they “should” and marrying (or otherwise) lovers (and otherwise) across cultures and ages. We see how history truly is, humankind ravaging the unknown in discovery and survival.
I chose this book because it was the first one of his I read, and I lost myself in a world of wilderness, a gold rush, and a fight for statehood. It taught me most of what I know about the 49th state, as well as looking beyond the history books to see the human aspect of the past.
In this sweeping epic of the northernmost American frontier, James A. Michener guides us through Alaska’s fierce terrain and history, from the long-forgotten past to the bustling present. As his characters struggle for survival, Michener weaves together the exciting high points of Alaska’s story: its brutal origins; the American acquisition; the gold rush; the tremendous growth and exploitation of the salmon industry; the arduous construction of the Alcan Highway, undertaken to defend the territory during World War II. A spellbinding portrait of a human community fighting to establish its place in the world, Alaska traces a bold and majestic saga…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I grew up in a wilderness cabin in Alaska, surrounded by more wild animals than humans. For many years, I worked in the heavily male-dominated Alaskan fishing industry. I still work as a scientist in rural Alaska. I care passionately about the place, and the truthful stories written about it by people with deep roots and diverse backgrounds here.
This book tells of Indigenous resistance to white colonizers in northern Alaska and the fierceness of a mother’s love as she fights to save her daughter from kidnapping.
Lily Tuzroyluk’s voice is fresh and utterly compelling. She writes of a place she knows. This book both broke my heart and thrilled me.
In the spring of 1893, arctic Alaska is devastated by smallpox. Kayaliruk knows it is time to light the funeral pyres and leave their home. With her surviving children, she packs their dog sled and they set off to find family. Kayaliruk wakes with a bleeding scalp and no memory of the last day. Her daughter was stolen by Yankee whalers, her sons say. They begin chasing the ship, through arctic storms, across immeasurable distances, slipping into the Yankee whalers' town on Herschel Island, and to the enemy shores of Siberia. Ibai, an African American whaler, grew up in New…
During my MFA, I learned to write family dramas and character-driven fiction, but I wanted more comfort, joy, and… romance! I knew the swoony and funny aspects of rom-coms could lift heavier emotional subjects like grief and loss, allowing readers to explore these resonant aspects of life safely, with a guaranteed Happily Ever After. All the books on this list explore a full emotional range of the human experience through extraordinary, utterly magical love stories about otherwise ordinary, flawed people. I hope they make you laugh, swoon, maybe shed a few cathartic tears, and come out the other side feeling better than when you turned the first page.
City girl Calla reunites with the Alaskan bush pilot father she’s never really known following his cancer diagnosis. I love this classic fish-out-of-water story, set in rural Alaska, where Calla falls for the rugged, remote landscape and a gruff, bearded yeti “sky cowboy” named Jonah who flies with her dad.
This book had me kicking my feet, laughing, and then fully sobbing. While it is one of my favorite enemies-to-lovers romances, with incredible banter and sexual tension, the realistic last-chance repair of Calla’s relationship with her father is just as compelling.
The two storylines together create the perfect blend of emotional depth, sizzling chemistry, and significant character growth. This is a deeply cathartic, feel-good romance.
City girl Calla Fletcher attempts to reconnect with her estranged father, and unwittingly finds herself torn between her desire to return to the bustle of Toronto and a budding relationship with a rugged Alaskan pilot in this masterful new romance from acclaimed author K.A. Tucker.
Calla Fletcher was two when her mother took her and fled the Alaskan wild, unable to handle the isolation of the extreme, rural lifestyle, leaving behind Calla's father, Wren Fletcher, in the process. Calla never looked back, and at twenty-six, a busy life in Toronto is all she knows. But when her father reaches out…
When I was a youngster, my parents took me on 6-week journeys across the United States by car. We'd stop in a small town each night, and I would explore on foot and meet other kids at the swimming pool or ice cream shop. That slow mode of travel has become my default, and I've spent years exploring back roads, small towns, and bywaters by car, bicycle, and sailboat. I write about the strangers I've found and the "candy" I've gotten from them: strangers have lessons for all of us and are not as dangerous as we've been told.
Sometimes, when we read history, it seems so dry and different from our own lives that it's hard to comprehend. In the 1920s and 30s, June Burn homesteaded on an island in the San Juans, lived in Alaska, and traveled across the country with a donkey cart. Yet I can envision myself in her adventurous life because her views were so much like my own. She was a feminist and a strong, brave woman who used her writing as an excuse to talk to strangers.
Courage, gaiety, and a fresh approach to life are reflected in this unconventional autobiography. It is a story of twentieth-century pioneers as resourceful as ever they were in the days of the old frontier. June Burn and her husband Farrar determined to go their own sweet way, enjoying first hand living and not surrendering to the routines of a workaday world. Through the years they had some high and glorious adventures, which included homesteading a gumdrop in the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, teaching Eskimos near Siberia, and exploring the United States by donkey cart with a baby…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I’m a huge fan of Alaska—a landscape of unforgiving weather patterns, inaccessible terrain, savage animals, and undeniable pristine beauty. I’m also a nature lover and spend as much time outdoors as possible, often hiking and marveling at spectacular vistas like those found in The Damnable Legacy. But I’m also an avid observer of the human race and am fascinated by all sorts of behaviors: why we pursue our passions, how we love and grieve, and whether we can really change who we are at the core.
The initial hook inStill Points North was, for me, the opening and its description of the 4-seat plane that the author often flew in with her father. I flew in one when I went to Denali for field research for my novel, and it became not just one of those memories I’ll never forget but also experiential data for my book. I also appreciated how the author so eloquently describes the landscape, comparing and contrasting life in the wilderness with life on the East Coast. But what most impressed me was her revelation, which coincides with the experiences of my novel’s protagonist, that relationships can sometimes be more frightening and challenging than Alaska’s natural savagery.
Part adventure story, part love story, part homecoming, Still Points North is a page-turning memoir that explores the extremes of belonging and exile, and the difference between how to survive and knowing how to truly live.
Growing up in the wilds of Alaska, seven-year-old Leigh Newman spent her time landing silver salmon, hiking glaciers, and flying in a single-prop plane. But her life split in two when her parents unexpectedly divorced, requiring her to spend summers on the tundra with her “Great Alaskan” father and the school year in Baltimore with her more urbane mother.
