Here are 100 books that What Feasts at Night fans have personally recommended if you like
What Feasts at Night.
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Moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and the dark night of the soul are human conditions I understand well. See, over the course of a lengthy military career, I deployed overseas many times, including to Afghanistan. In my last two deployments, I served as the legal advisor to a joint special operations task force. In this role, I advised on more than 500 “strikes”: air attacks intended to kill humans. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2018, I noticed a change in me, and I’ve been living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress since. This list helped me, particularly with the lesser-known “moral injury,” and I sincerely hope it helps you too.
A beautiful story written beautifully. I was enamored with Miller’s deft use of lyrical prose set within an epistolary framework to tell the story of one man’s struggle against the demons of his past, and the consequences that followed, all in search of redemption.
Though fictional, Miller manages to avoid the usual veteran tropes in creating his character. It’s an intimate account—and one with which I’m intimately familiar—that feels truer than nonfiction. I’ve found few more realistic accounts of living with the moral injury that comes from our errors in judgment, how those errors cause unintended, though no less harmful, secondary effects on those we love, and how life remains yet salvageable.
I found it to be, at once, an inspiring, endearing, and threatening read.
By the Costa Award-winning author of Pure, a profound and tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving.
'The writing is near perfect. But the novel's excellence goes far beyond this . . . You read [it] . . . with your pulse racing, all your senses awake' Guardian
'A beautiful, lambent, timely novel' Sarah Hall
An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during…
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;…
I have always been drawn to the ocean. When I decided to start writing novels, I knew that I wanted to set them in coastal locations. I live in the Boston suburbs and spend time whenever I can at the beach. I have written books centered in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Cape Cod. I am working on a story set on the north shore of Massachusetts. I am a high school social studies teacher of twenty-four years and a parent of two teenagers. All of my writing includes cooking and the enjoyment of good food as a major focus. I hope my books make you hungry!
I was a huge fan of the original The Parent Trap movie as a kid, and this adult book version is absolutely addicting.
With a coastal Florida setting, it was perfect to read on a beach vacation. The main characters are loads of fun, and the two book boyfriends are charming in very different ways.
Two best friends torn apart by a life-altering secret. One summer to set the record straight.
When twelve-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O’Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they’re not just best friends—they’re also half sisters. Confused and betrayed, the girls break off all contact.
Fifteen years later, when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he’s left them a joint inheritance: the family beach house in Destin, Florida. The two sisters are immediately at odds. Blake, who has recently been demoted from regular nanny to dog nanny,…
I’ve always been fascinated by the influence technology and science on culture and our lives, especially women’s lives. The history of women’s rights, in many ways, is a story of science and technology’s influence on women’s evolution towards having more freedom (and now less) to control our bodies. As a science writer, these themes influence many of the stories that I choose to read and tell, including both my books, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment and Motherhood and Reconceptions: Modern Relationships, Reproductive Science and the Unfolding Future of Family. I also love to read both fictional and non-fiction stories about the nuances of personal identity.
This novel tells the story of Maise, a devoted wife and mother of four children.
It takes place over the course of a single day in October that begins with Maise nursing her infant and leads to a family outing to an orchard the following afternoon. It beautifully captures the daily emotions that a mother feels, ranging from anxiety to grief to deep love, and explores the feelings around the unpaid labor of motherhood and the financial anxiety that being a parent brings to us all.
A novel about womanhood, modern family, and the interior landscape of maternal life, as seen through the life of a young wife and mother on a single day.
At night, Maisie Moore dreams that her life is perfect: the looming mortgages and credit card debt have magically vanished, and she can raise her four children, including newborn Esme, on an undulating current of maternal bliss, by turns oceanic and overwhelming, but awash in awe and wonder. Then she jolts awake and, after checking that her husband and baby are asleep beside her, remembers the real-world money problems to be resolved…
Before the Wizard. Before Glinda. Before Dorothy and her broken companions.
Oz was a land of darkness.
Spun into a world she doesn’t understand, Dolly is trapped in a twisted Oz—where skies are ashen, lands barren, and shadows whisper of horrors. No golden roads, only a path of crimson bricks,…
I’m a firm believer in Jesus Christ, and I’ve spent the majority of my life reading Christian fiction, but one day, I felt Jesus drop a story onto my heart. And I wrote it. And He gave me more inspiration, and I kept writing. I always say Jesus gives me my stories. I must obey. The world needs more Jesus, and not every Christian book has to fall under “Christian romance.” The Christian fiction space needs warm, Christian family stories, and I pray God continues to let me write them. I hope you enjoy the Christian family books on this list as much as I did!
This Christian fiction novel holds a special place in my heart because I didn’t really know who Melody Carlson wrote this book for.
Christy Miller was written for teens and young adults. Where Yesterday Lives was written for Young Adults. But what Christian family drama has characters that are 16, 37, and 72?! Okay, maybe grandma is 71, but the point of the matter is that it’s told from multiple POVs across three different generations.
As of writing this, I’m 28 and I loved it. Why? It’s about a family. A true-to-life family, with true-to-life problems. Girls get taken out of school and pulled away from their boyfriends in real life. Sometimes moms and dads get divorced. And sadly, sometimes grandma or grandpa may start forgetting things they should remember.
This story made me laugh, cry, and feel so grateful that even in our mess, God still loves us. If…
When life feels like it's closing in around you, sometimes the solution is to open the doors wide and invite others in . . .
Jewel McKerry is on the brink of unraveling as she heads home to Oregon to help care for her father who has early-onset dementia. Her thirteen-year-old daughter is upset about the move. Her beekeeper dad is a humorous handful. Her mom is overworked and overwhelmed. Finances are stretched tight. And, according to her father, the neighbors are nothing but trouble.
Despite all of these challenges, Jewel takes on one more when she convinces her parents…
My daughter and I have a love affair with travel. It's not just visiting places as tourists but as travelers, aiming to understand the lives and cultures of different people. We have learned that not everyone approaches travel like we do, and we strive to grasp this. Our adventures have taken us to 88 countries, 50 states, and seven continents. Now, at 90, I’ve visited 88 countries, and my goal is to reach 100 before I turn 100. That’s a passion of mine. The five books I’ve included help us understand our inner drive to travel, enhancing our overall love for it and providing an exhilarating experience.
Before traveling to Vietnam, I read this historical novel that profoundly shaped my experience. Trekking through jungle paths, I felt the emotional horror the author described. I empathized with her isolation upon returning home, rejected as a pariah.
Today’s Vietnam is vastly different, leaving me with complex emotions—understanding both the veterans who served there and the resilient people I met. The book deepened my appreciation for Vietnam’s modern philosophy: always looking forward, never backward- a good philosophy for everyone.
From master storyteller Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds, comes the story of a turbulent, transformative era in America: the 1960s. The Women is that rarest of novels—at once an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics, of a generation both fueled by dreams and lost on the battlefield.
“Women can be heroes, too.”
When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these unexpected…
As a teenager, I began to question the myths my parents told about our family, but when saying so caused trouble, I confided my stories to paper instead. That’s how I became a writer. My first love has always been fiction, but I broke into print writing history—about quirky subjects in which I find deep meaning, like the potato’s revolutionary influence on the Western world, or how the invasion and occupation of Belgium in 1914 foretold Nazi Europe. My fascination with subversion shapes my novels too—my quiet, lonely protagonists would never storm the barricades yet appear radical because of how they live, a circumstance I know well.
I love stories about iconoclasts, and Joan of Arc fits that description, if anyone ever has.
The hard reality of this retelling draws me in: Joan’s a secular military leader who grew up toughened from her father’s blows rather than a pious young woman who hears voices. That skeptical take may offend some readers, but the history, politics, and personalities come vividly to life and seem real to me.
Chen’s seductive prose makes me wish I could write like her, and her novel lets me feel the tragedy and uplift of a great historical figure.
A stunning feminist reimagining of the life of Joan of Arc - perfect for fans of Cecily, Ariadne and Matrix
'It is as if the author has crept inside a statue and breathed a soul into it, re-creating Joan of Arc as a woman for our time' Hilary Mantel, twice Booker Prize-winning author of The Mirror & the Light
'A glorious, sweeping novel . . . Richly imagined, poignant and inspiring' Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne
'Chen earns the comparison [to Mantel] thanks to her vivid, visceral and boldly immediate storytelling . . . a hypnotic heroine for our time'…
Wishes are dangerous. They can bring you a night out, a gown, even a pair of slippers. Or something you never should have wished for in the first place.
After the royal wedding, the girl in the glass slippers has everything she ever wanted: an escape from a life of…
I used to get in trouble (nightly) for eating with my book propped against my plate. Yet with all the books I devoured, there was never one about a kid that looked like me with a family like mine. The single anomaly was Blubber, which absolutely thrilled me to see a supporting character named Tracy Wu. And while the YA world has thankfully become more diverse, BIPOC authors and protagonists are still the exception in adult literature. I’m excited to share this list of badass female AAPI authors who write equally strong protagonists because, though we’ve come a long way since Tracy Wu, we still have further to go.
I started this book on a plane, continued to read in my seat after the plane landed, and was seriously annoyed at the flight attendant when forced to deplane. This is one of those books with a simple twist on the fantasy genre I wish I’d thought of—a race of beings who subsist on eating books.
Dean’s world building is superb, the protagonist is a badass, and the portrayal of the fractured relationships among characters—especially with her son—complicated and relatable. I finished it (in a chair at the airport) in one sitting, and it was worth it.
THE NO. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'I devoured this' V.E. Schwab
'A vampire-themed Handmaid's Tale, with effective thrills that are intensified by social commentary' Guardian
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
Hidden across England and Scotland live six old Book Eater families.
The last of their lines, they exist on the fringes of society and subsist on a diet of stories and legends.
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This book has everything I want in a fairy tale novel: an immersive setting, green magic, romance, shape-shifting creatures, and of course, resilience and healing.
Before I read Kell Wood’s debut novel, I had never thought about the long-term consequences Hansel and Gretel surely experienced at the hands of the witch in the gingerbread house, but now I can’t un-see it. Of course, these two people, now young adults, would have some serious (but unique) struggles.
Also, I love it when an author weaves multiple fairy tales and/or folkloric elements into a story, and Woods is fantastic at this!
After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.”
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.
Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.
Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, hidden away and whispering in Greta's…
This recommendation list is a celebration of these authors’ creativity! Like every reader I love a good story, and this list highlights five books that not only weave entertainment within their respective genres—but also tell their stories in unique visual ways by being fearless with formatting. I love being into a story and seeing there’s a journal entry or letter coming up—it’s like an intimate view into the characters’ world and experiences, and I want to eat it up! If you’re interested in finding more authors who do this, Googling “epistolary novels” will help.
I loved Maame not only because it is the perfect concoction of tender and funny, but because the Google searches formatted within the story were like the perfect cherry on top of the perfectly assembled turtle sundae.
I found myself looking forward to every time the main character Google-searched her next new-adulthood obstacle—like friendship, grief, dating, and caregiving.
It was visually stimulating, and hilarious, and a fun edition to the story.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick • A February 2023 Indie Next Pick
"Sparkling." ―The New York Times
"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys―and the guilt―of trying to find your own way in life." ―Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
"Lively, funny, poignant . . . Prepare to fall in love with Maddie. I did!" ―Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman.
The bodies of the People are asleep in the frozen winter ground, while their spirits wander in the dreamlands. But what emerges in the spring from the winter houses is not always human.
Kua, a reluctant shaman, cursed with the other-sight that allows her to see the monstrous powers ruling…
I’ve always been drawn to stories about daughters coming home to complicated mothers and the unfinished versions of themselves they left behind. As an immigrant who moved from India to the U.S. at thirteen, and now as a physician and mother, I live in that in-between space where past and present, duty and desire constantly collide. Reading great novels that explored these tensions was the spark that pushed me to start writing my own. I gravitate toward books where family love is real but messy, home is both refuge and trigger, and women are allowed to be imperfect, angry, tender, and still deeply human.
This novel dives headfirst into the most uncomfortable corners of a mother–daughter relationship.
I love how Doshi refuses to make either woman simply "good" or "bad" and instead sits in the murky space of resentment, obligation, and love. It's a book that made me feel complicit, unsettled, and oddly seen—as both a daughter and a mother.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar is a searing literary debut novel set in India about mothers and daughters, obsession, and betrayal.
NPR Best Book of 2020
A Pen America Literary Award Finalist
“I would be lying if I say my mother's misery has never given me pleasure,” says Antara, Tara's now-adult daughter.
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her marriage to join an ashram, and while Tara is busy as a partner to the ashram's spiritual leader, Baba, little Antara is cared for by an older devotee, Kali Mata, an American who came…
