Here are 100 books that Under the Whispering Door fans have personally recommended if you like
Under the Whispering Door.
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When I learned, at seventeen, of my father’s Jewish heritage, I flung myself headlong into reading about Judaism. Naturally, this led me to the Holocaust and World War II, and my novels are inspired by family stories from this harrowing time. While doing research, I traveled to Germany and London, interviewed WWII veterans, and read countless memoirs, academic nonfiction tomes, and historical fiction books about this era. I now speak at libraries and to community organizations about the Ritchie Boys, Secret Heros of WWII. People sometimes tell me concentration camp stories are too disturbing, so I recommend books about Jewish survival, heroism, and everyday life during the Third Reich.
I was immediately hooked by this brilliant novel because of its unusual omniscient narrator, the Grim Reaper. Death, stressed out by the surfeit of “clients” he must deal with during World War II, reveals himself to be a sensitive narrator who sees everything. He especially keeps his eye on a young German girl, her loving foster parents, and the Jewish man they hide and protect.
I fell in love with these characters as they struggled with moral decisions, wartime hardship, danger, and tragedy. Despite the realistic portrayal of German life during WWII, I found this book to be an uplifting read.
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
The 14th century had it all: the 100 Years' War, near-constant famines, and, of course, the Black Plague. As a medievalist studying the art of the time, I was struck by the representations of Death that emerged from this near-perfect storm of misery. Yes, Death was often portrayed accompanied by demons and devils, lumped willy-nilly with evil. But it was more often portrayed in the Danse Macabre as a skeletal partner, leading everyone—Pope and Emperor, Lord and Laborer—on a merry dance. I know it was meant as a warning, but I found the Danse Macabre to be oddly comforting, a vision of an ultimate democracy, with Death the final partner and companion to us all.
Leavitt’s story is a fairytale and like all good fairytales, there is a handsome prince except this one is played by Lord Death himself.
I love Keturah. She is brave enough not to be afraid and big-hearted enough to see beyond Death’s terrifying purpose to the underlying sadness of the feared and hated outsider. Through the course of the book, she also comes to appreciate the meaning he brings to life.
“It was Death who…made her see the sun in the blue sky and hear the trees in a spring wind. He made her see how much she loved her friends…Made her love the breath in her lungs. She knew she had never been truly alive as when she met him. Never so happy and content with her lot until she was touched by the sorrow of him.”
A young woman makes a bargain with Death himself-and only true love can set her free-in this spellbinding YA fantasy romance for fans of Robin McKinley.
For most of her sixteen years, beautiful Keturah Reeves has mesmerized the villagers with her gift for storytelling. But when she becomes hopelessly lost in the king's forest, her strength all but diminished, she must spin the most important of tale of life. With her fate hanging in the balance, she charms Death himself-a handsome, melancholy, and stern lord-with a story of a love so true that he agrees to…
The 14th century had it all: the 100 Years' War, near-constant famines, and, of course, the Black Plague. As a medievalist studying the art of the time, I was struck by the representations of Death that emerged from this near-perfect storm of misery. Yes, Death was often portrayed accompanied by demons and devils, lumped willy-nilly with evil. But it was more often portrayed in the Danse Macabre as a skeletal partner, leading everyone—Pope and Emperor, Lord and Laborer—on a merry dance. I know it was meant as a warning, but I found the Danse Macabre to be oddly comforting, a vision of an ultimate democracy, with Death the final partner and companion to us all.
We all know what happens when Death takes a holiday, but what happens when Death is given notice?
Dismissed from the only job he’s ever known, Death must decide how to spend the time he has left. Taking on the random name “Bill Door,” he offers his talents scything hay, “one blade at a time, one time, one blade.” Death is a recurring character in Discworld and has the casually brutal forbearance of someone who has seen it all.
Seen, but not experienced and it is the dawning comprehension that I love most about Reaper Man: “[Death] wondered if he’d ever felt wind and sunlight before. Yes, he’d felt them, he must have done. But he’d never experienced them like this; the way wind pushed at you, the way the sun made you hot. The way you could feel Time passing. Carrying you with it.”
One of the "Discworld" humorous fantasy series. Death is missing. Dead Rights activist Reg Shoe suddenly has more work than he'd ever dreamed of, and newly-deceased wizard Windle Poons wakes up in his coffin to find that he has come back as a corpse.
We are all surrounded by darkness. And we are all drawn to the light.
The Orkney Islands north of Scotland are steeped in stories of selkies, seal folk who swim in cold ocean waters and shed their skins to sing and dance on land.
I’ve never been a fan of polemics or schmaltz. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn or see new perspectives or feel deep feelings; I just think humor is the best way to get past people’s defenses. (All the better to sucker punch them in the feels.) I also think the world can be a pretty dark and scary place. I love books that give us hope, enough hope to have the courage to change what we can to make the world a little brighter.
I loved this book because it combines three of my favorite things—humor, fantasy, and baking. What’s not to like about a wizard whose familiar is a sourdough starter?
There’s a small army of hilarious gingerbread men, to boot. T. Kingfisher manages a weird balance between humor, horror, and heart. Her world, like ours, has some really dark stuff in it, but she has such a deft touch that I felt cozy even during murder, political scapegoating, and siege.
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.
But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of…
Every time I write a romance novel, I find myself returning to the same themes: seeing people for who they are beneath the surface, respecting others despite differences, and choosing to love those who might seem a little odd. Whether they’re angels, mermaids, or plain old humans, my characters lead lives where, despite marginalization and alienation, love and a sense of belonging are possible. My Christmas novella, Mistletoe Mishap, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
I love romance novels with characters who care about others who are different than themselves. In this one, an extraterrestrial crash-lands on Earth and is rescued by a human man. They’re both emotionally lost, devastated by the deaths of their respective spouses, but as the man nurses the alien back to health, they both regain the will to live. The way they protect each other, despite barely being able to communicate, is heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
Flee. Scatter. Take your mates and your offspring and run.
A new Science Fiction Romance from Angel Martinez
The escape pods fall to Earth one by one over the course of weeks, a mysterious and diverse alien diaspora, each pod containing a different alien race and leaving the world's governments scrambling to deal with this unexpected immigration. Serge Kosygin, still grieving and isolated after his husband's death, watches events with gray disinterest until one day he witnesses a pod crash for himself while driving home. Two of the alien visitors have died, but one survives, badly injured, and Serge is…
Every time I write a romance novel, I find myself returning to the same themes: seeing people for who they are beneath the surface, respecting others despite differences, and choosing to love those who might seem a little odd. Whether they’re angels, mermaids, or plain old humans, my characters lead lives where, despite marginalization and alienation, love and a sense of belonging are possible. My Christmas novella, Mistletoe Mishap, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
I typically don’t read YA, but I’d just finished writing a book about searching for an ancient shipwreck, so I thought, why not see what someone else did with this idea? And I’m so glad I did. Otherwise I would have missed out on this compelling inner journey of a teenager who tries on adult responsibility and explores who she wants to be: someone who flees, breaks down, acts out, steps up, reaches for meaningful connection, or (and) loves.
The Larkin family isn't just lucky -- they persevere. At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family: Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.
A heartfelt romantic fantasy set in a whimsical traveling theatre troupe—where the newest member is fleeing home, and the lead actor is hiding a dangerous fae curse.
Vai Delvecchio, escaping a family scandal, joins the eccentric Quicksand Theatre Company, where magic fuels both stage tricks and real-world consequences. As they…
Every time I write a romance novel, I find myself returning to the same themes: seeing people for who they are beneath the surface, respecting others despite differences, and choosing to love those who might seem a little odd. Whether they’re angels, mermaids, or plain old humans, my characters lead lives where, despite marginalization and alienation, love and a sense of belonging are possible. My Christmas novella, Mistletoe Mishap, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Escape often gets a bad rap—staying and fighting or enduring your circumstances are seen as more noble—but there are times when choosing to leave a demoralizing, unhealthy environment to make a fresh start is what you need to do to save your soul. In this book, a woman tries to disappear—and finds herself. If you appreciate books where unassuming sentences land like devastating little bombs, read this.
Devastated after her lesbian lover leaves her, a research scientist clears out her home and moves across the country, where she adopts an alien persona and practices "amnesia exercises" in order to wipe out the memories of her past. A first novel.
Every time I write a romance novel, I find myself returning to the same themes: seeing people for who they are beneath the surface, respecting others despite differences, and choosing to love those who might seem a little odd. Whether they’re angels, mermaids, or plain old humans, my characters lead lives where, despite marginalization and alienation, love and a sense of belonging are possible. My Christmas novella, Mistletoe Mishap, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
In this emotional tour de force, a judge falls in love with the federal marshal who protects him during a terrorism-related trial. He’s kind, caring, and ethical; he’s intelligent, hardworking, and competent; and he knows all too well that in many people’s eyes, none of that matters. That betrayal feels painfully familiar; his spectacular vindication, cathartic.
A federal judge running from the truth. A U.S. marshal running from his past. A trial that can plunge the world into war.
Federal Judge Tom Brewer is finally putting the pieces of his life back together. In the closet for twenty-five long years, he's climbing out slowly, and, with the hope of finding a special relationship with the stunning Mike Lucciano, U.S. Marshal assigned to his D.C. courthouse. He wants to be out and proud, but he can't erase his own past, and the lessons he learned long ago.
But a devastating terrorist attack in the heart of DC,…
The 14th century had it all: the 100 Years' War, near-constant famines, and, of course, the Black Plague. As a medievalist studying the art of the time, I was struck by the representations of Death that emerged from this near-perfect storm of misery. Yes, Death was often portrayed accompanied by demons and devils, lumped willy-nilly with evil. But it was more often portrayed in the Danse Macabre as a skeletal partner, leading everyone—Pope and Emperor, Lord and Laborer—on a merry dance. I know it was meant as a warning, but I found the Danse Macabre to be oddly comforting, a vision of an ultimate democracy, with Death the final partner and companion to us all.
The older sister of Dream, Death of the Endless manifests as a perky goth girl, a fan of Mary Poppins.
The most powerful of the Endless, she is also the warmest and most caring. For one day out of every century, Death consigns herself to take on the form of a mortal fated to die in order to remember the value of the gift she is taking. This is the setting of The High Cost of Living, my favorite of the Sandman comics featuring Death. "It always ends," Death says when her day is over. "That's what gives it meaning."
Written by Neil Gaiman; Art by Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham, and Dave McKean From the pages of Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN comes the young, pale, perky, and genuinely likable Death. One day in every century, Death walks the Earth to better understand those to whom she will be the final visitor. Today is that day. As a young mortal girl named Didi, Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart. What follows is a sincere musing on love, life and (of course) death.
A human child raised by the fae is an uncommon thing. But Rafi was such a child.
Now grown, half-fae but mortal, he lingers on the edge of human society in Miryoku, a nearby town sharing a border with fae territory. He doesn’t want to join the human world properly;…
Thanks to my mother, I grew up immersed in English literature. I was educated in Delhi and co-founded the first nationwide feminist magazine, but same-sex love was never mentioned either in the classroom or in the women’s movement. I educated myself in Indian literature and discovered that same-sex sexuality had been practiced and written about until the British criminalized it. I wrote several books about same-sex unions in Indian literature and history and translated poetry and fiction from Hindi and Urdu to English. My first novel, Memory of Light, is a love story between two courtesans, based in pre-colonial India, where poets freely wrote about same-sex, as well as cross-sex love.
This intricately plotted semi-comic, semi-tragic novel, riffing off Much Ado about Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, keeps the reader guessing to the end.
Simon and Axel are the best gay male couple in fiction, for my money, quirky; adorable; absolutely believable characters whose relationship the villain tries to destroy as he does several other relationships.
I love the story of how they first met, their erotic banter, their clothes, their food and wine, and the way they move towards being more open about their relationship.
An exploration of love and its excesses, missteps, and modest triumphs, from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea
In a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties. As puppet master, Julius artfully plays on the human tendency to embrace drama and intrigue and to prefer the distraction of confrontations to the difficult effort of communicating openly and honestly.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading…
