Here are 100 books that Virgin River fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have a passion for the family story, and I have been blessed with a plethora of them. My mother grew up in Appalachia during the Great Depression and faced shame because her mother left the family to commit a felony. Her accounts of a childhood without and sleeping in an abandoned log cabin have been seared into my soul. My father, one of fourteen children during the Great Depression, worked on neighboring farms from the age of seven. History has two parts, the facts and details, but the telling of the story wrangles the purpose and sacrifice of those involved.
I sat on my mother’s lap as a child to hear stories of her childhood in Appalachia—no running water or electricity, and the shame brought on by her mother’s escape from that hard life. The setting and the characterizations in Book Woman of Troublesome Creek brought back some of the memories of my mother’s stories.
I came to love the character’s adaptation to the harsh environment, their want for a better life, and the difference one person’s influence can make in a community. The spirit of survival, even with the hardest of circumstances, forced me to cherish this story. It was as if my mother had written this book or perhaps read it to me.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER AN OKRA PICK The bestselling historical fiction from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy Mary, a packhorse librarian and her quest to bring books to the Appalachian community she loves, perfect for readers of Lee Smith and Lisa Wingate. The perfect addition to your next book club! The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything-everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only…
She’s hiding from pain. He’s lost everything but his dog. When fresh air and second chances bring them together, can they rediscover true love?
If you enjoy kind-hearted heroes, small towns, and more humor than heat, you’ll adore this contemporary Alaskan romance! A Darling Handyman is the feel-good first book…
My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.
Kaya Clark is the wild child I longed to be growing up. Although her family story is tragic and well-explored, how she inhabits her world of nature and allows it to inhabit her is stunning. Once again, she is a young woman who is an outcast who manages to rise above her limitations and those placed on her by society.
Beyond the incredible storytelling and intriguing plot lines, I was mesmerized by the natural world of the North Carolina marshes, being as much a main character as Kaya herself. The intricate details of the lushness and cruelty of the natural world were incredible. In looking back at my favorite novels, one of the commonalities is the writing’s ability to come alive in my head and to take up a permanent space as much as my own lived memories. This novel is one of those.
OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
I love to see complicated characters rising to the occasion. People in real life generally have a lot going on just handling the day-to-day, and they aren’t waiting around for adventure, romance, or mystery to find them. It feels very human to me to see characters struggling with more mundane things like social situations, worrying about their appearance, or holding down a job, rather than only focusing on the plot arc, and that’s the type of character I also focus on as a writer. My latest protagonist, Simon, definitely has enough problems without a missing-person case to solve, so he may be what got me thinking of this topic.
I have always loved literary thriller queen Daphne Du Maurier's complex and resilient characters, and Mary Yellan is no exception. Everything’s looking pretty miserable for her after her mother’s death forces her to give up the family farm and her hometown to live in a creepy inn with her miserable aunt and aggressive drunk of an uncle.
So I really enjoy how brave and resourceful she is in getting past violence, danger, miserable living conditions, a desolate setting, and bad taste in men to find out whether something more sinister than smuggling is going on at the empty inn.
After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. There she finds Patience a changed woman, downtrodden by her domineering, vicious husband Joss Merlyn. The inn is a front for a lawless gang of criminals, and Mary is unwillingly dragged into their dangerous world of smuggling and murder. Before long she will be forced to cross her own moral line to save herself.
She’s hiding from pain. He’s lost everything but his dog. When fresh air and second chances bring them together, can they rediscover true love?
If you enjoy kind-hearted heroes, small towns, and more humor than heat, you’ll adore this contemporary Alaskan romance! A Darling Handyman is the feel-good first book…
I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because it is another time-slip novel, but mostly because of the characters that Gabaldon has created. Claire is a strong woman both in the present time zone–post-war Britain–and the Scottish Highland time zone of the seventeenth century and the uprising. You sense immediately that she is in danger as the story is told from her point of view.
I loved learning about the lives of the Scottish highlanders, how the story moves from one-time zone to another, and how the characters overlap.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and…
I love drawing gorgeous, interesting settings. Ever since my parents drove my brother and me across America to visit our cousins in Michigan, I have found myself enchanted by everything from sweet small-towns to pit stops with lots of potential for drama. I have always felt that setting can be its own character. With its bright, sunny suburbs and its dark, shadowy back-alleys, the setting is the centerpiece of any great story.
This book was a surprise hit for me. I’d never read Martin before, but my husband knew I appreciated adventure stories. What I got instead, was a little bit of everything. Adventure, romance, excitement, and more—The Mountain Between Us was unputdownable for me. I think, though, that its dangerous, snowy setting was the one thing that upped the stakes the most. When reading this book, I felt trapped in the snowy mountains, myself. I felt cold and hungry, thirsty, and…totally swept away.
Now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. An atmospheric, suspenseful and gripping story of two people finding love while fighting to survive.
When a blizzard strands them in Salt Lake City, two strangers agree to charter a plane together, hoping to return home; Ben Payne is a gifted surgeon returning from a conference, and Ashley Knox, a magazine writer, is en route to her wedding. But when unthinkable tragedy strikes, the pair find themselves stranded in Utah’s most remote wilderness in the dead of winter, badly injured and miles from civilization. Without food or shelter, and…
I love drawing gorgeous, interesting settings. Ever since my parents drove my brother and me across America to visit our cousins in Michigan, I have found myself enchanted by everything from sweet small-towns to pit stops with lots of potential for drama. I have always felt that setting can be its own character. With its bright, sunny suburbs and its dark, shadowy back-alleys, the setting is the centerpiece of any great story.
You might not think about Sparks as a go-to for sweeping countryside settings… and yet his treatment of the North Carolina lends itself so sweetly to this romance, that I bet the story wouldn’t be the same without it. There is something so sexy about a handsome man in blue jeans ambling down a country lane.
A U.S. Marine's brush with death leads him to the love of his life in this New York Times bestseller of destiny, luck, and the redemptive power of romance. After U.S. Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman buried in the dirt during his tour of duty in Iraq, he experiences a sudden streak of luck -- winning poker games and even surviving deadly combat. Only his best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph -- his lucky charm.
Back home in Colorado, Thibault can't seem to get the woman…
I love romance, a true romantic from the day I was born. I also love crime/thriller/twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting to turn the page. As a writer, it was the most natural choice to combine all of these to bring to you as a reader love, passion, danger, shady criminal underworld, and jaw-dropping cliffhangers mixed in with twists you never saw coming. A love story that has you hopelessly entwined with them. A beautiful backdrop of the highlands of Scotland that creates its own unique story –mystical, mighty, and carrying its own hidden dangers.
Eli is a broken man, running from his own demons and past and looking for a safe haven at Whiskey Beach (just like the character from my book, Sophia).
He believes he has nothing to give, certainly not as a writer... until Abra comes into his life. Yet dangers are lurking near and they are both being watched. Love, danger, and a beautiful setting.
Eli Landon seems to have the perfect life. A beautiful wife, a wonderful house, a dazzling legal career. But when his wife is brutally murdered after confessing to an affair, Eli is named prime suspect. After a year-long ordeal the case is dropped for lack of evidence, but Eli's world is in tatters.
Abandoned by his friends, hounded by the media and a detective with a grudge, Eli retreats to the small-town sanctuary of Whiskey Beach. Camping out in his grandmother's atmospheric house by the sea he meets Abra Walsh - compassionate, courageous and hiding secrets of her own.
I love romance, a true romantic from the day I was born. I also love crime/thriller/twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting to turn the page. As a writer, it was the most natural choice to combine all of these to bring to you as a reader love, passion, danger, shady criminal underworld, and jaw-dropping cliffhangers mixed in with twists you never saw coming. A love story that has you hopelessly entwined with them. A beautiful backdrop of the highlands of Scotland that creates its own unique story –mystical, mighty, and carrying its own hidden dangers.
This one gets you by the gut from the get-go with a four-year-old Callie left all alone in a roadside café.
Nobody knows why she is there or where her mother is. Fast forward to present day and Callie arrives in a small town, trying to escape the media of her childhood. Here she meets the rather dashing police officer Nate who soon finds himself falling helplessly in love with her.
Yet her past can’t be forgotten and together they start researching what happened to her mother. But is Callie truly ready for what really happened and is she in danger herself?
*READERS' FAVORITE INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD SILVER MEDAL WINNER.
Three Siblings. One Year. Everything Changes.
Stained glass artist Callie Davis is in desperate need of a vacation. Burnt out and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, she’s taking refuge on Massachusetts’ tiny Carter Island. Callie yearns for long, lazy days and pretty walks on the beach—blessed solitude and an escape from the pressures of her career and complications of her life. Then she bumps into gorgeous Nate Carter, and everything changes.
Sheriff Nathan Carter couldn’t be happier now that the height of the summer season has finally come and gone.…
I have long been fascinated by how personal and singular the experience of grief is. There is something soothing and relatable about reading others’ experiences—the more strange, nonsensical, or even supernatural the better. My own novel, The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, is a retelling of The Secret Garden, but with an adult protagonist moving through grief over the death of her complicated mother, striving to see a bright ray of hope on the other side. Each of the books on my list about unusual manifestations of grief tackles this same concept in new and surprising ways, and I hope they touch you as they have touched me.
Don’t let the YA tag dissuade you if you don’t generally read books for that audience; Watch Over Me has definite appeal for an adult crowd.
The main character is an 18-year-old young woman who has aged out of foster care and is searching for her place in the world. A ghost-story-that-isn’t-a-ghost-story, Watch Over Me is a book about confronting our own ghosts—literally and figuratively.
La Cour’s arresting prose seamlessly inserts the speculative elements into an exploration of recovery from guilt and grief in a way I found breathtaking.
A modern ghost story about trauma and survival, Watch Over Me is the much-anticipated new novel from the Printz Award-winning author of We Are Okay
"Gripping; an emotion-packed must-read." -Kirkus, starred review "A painfully compelling gem from a masterful creator." -Booklist, starred review "Moving, unsettling, and full of atmospheric beauty." -SLJ, starred review
Mila is used to being alone.
Maybe that's why she said yes. Yes to a second chance in this remote place, among the flowers and the fog and the crash of waves far below.
I grew up near the coasts of New York and Connecticut, and since an early age I was fascinated by the natural world, especially the ocean. I have held a variety of jobs, including stints as a fisheries policy analyst at the National Marine Fisheries Service, a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and an environmental consultant stateside and in London. Throughout my career, one thing remained constant: I enjoyed writing and telling stories. I am the author of 14 non-fiction books on American history, including Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, and Leviathan: The History of American Whaling.
St. George Reef Lighthouse is located about six miles off Point St. George on the coast of Northern California, not far from the Oregon border. It is built atop, and partly chiseled into, a massive wave-swept rock. Finished in 1892, St. George Reef took roughly a decade to build, at a cost of $752,000, making it far and away the most expensive lighthouse ever built in the United States. The dramatic history of this iconic lighthouse—replete with engineering feats and tragic deaths—is well-told by Powers, who provides one of the best profiles of a single lighthouse ever written.
Miles off the coast of northern California lies a mariner's nightmare. Concealed by roiling sea and thick fog, the jagged edges of a submerged volcanic mountain chain await approaching vessels like predators in the mist. This is one of the most hazardous reefs off the West Coast. And for over a century, it has been home to the most remote, most expensive, and most dangerous lighthouse ever built in America.
Called "Dragon Rocks" in 1792 by British explorer George Vancouver, the area became known as St. George Reef in the hope that its namesake might slay the dragon. But the…
