Here are 2 books that Zeal fans have personally recommended if you like Zeal. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Names

Fran Hawthorne Author Of Her Daughter

From Fran's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Museum guide Foreign language student Runner Community activist Former health-care journalist

Fran's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Fran Hawthorne Why Fran loves this book

This story of domestic abuse was sometimes so painful that I was actually holding my breath. The father's sly psychological manipulation and physical battering; the mother's self-justification; the son's and daughter's changing attitudes as they grewwere all raw and vivid.

On top of that, the book is actually three alternating versions of how the story might have unfolded, depending on what name the mother had chosen for the son at birth, so it was interesting to compare what-ifs. And the end: Perfect!

By Florence Knapp ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Names as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY | AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“Dazzling. . . The Names is startlingly joyful. . . Knapp tirelessly and beautifully replicates not just loss and grief but endless rebirth and delight.” —The Washington Post

“Elegant. . . this is a wholly original work.” —People Magazine "Book of the Week"

“A magnificent novel, thrumming with life in all its pain and precariousness, yet suffused with the glorious possibilities of love and redemption.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse

The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course…


If you love Zeal...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

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…

Book cover of Wild Dark Shore

Yvonne Osborne Author Of Black River

From my list on rural noir tension and environmental conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on a fifth-generation family farm, schooled around the dining table by stories of bootleggers, hoodlums, and environmental shysters. Raised by parents and grandparents who believed in the ancient wisdom of husbandry versus the growing use of chemicals and crop dusters.  Those who believed what was good for all was good enough for one. The common good versus the selfish exploitation of land, animals, and labor. 

Yvonne's book list on rural noir tension and environmental conflict

Yvonne Osborne Why Yvonne loves this book

I loved the setting—wild and beautiful but on-the-brink-of-collapse Antarctica.

And who knew there was a seed bank where all the seeds of the world are collected and saved? Who decides what’s worth saving?

A cliffhanger ending that kept me turning pages. I could never put it down.

By Charlotte McConaghy ,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Wild Dark Shore as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has…


Book cover of The Names
Book cover of Wild Dark Shore

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