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| How to Walk Away by Katherine CenterWhat it's about: A devastating injury forces Maggie Jacobsen to reevaluate everything about her life and begin anew, with help from her estranged sister and her gruff physical therapist.
Why you might like it: Full of well-developed characters, How to Walk Away offers quietly inspiring moments (and humor) as Maggie's healing process unfolds along a realistic trajectory.
For fans of: Jojo Moyes' Me Before You. |
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Before the war
by Fay Weldon
An unfashionable and intelligent spinster in the 1920s gets married to a charismatic gentleman while hiding the secret that she will die in childbirth after bearing another man's baby. By the award-winning author of Wicked Women.
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Southernmost
by Silas House
"When an evangelical preacher in Tennessee offers shelter to two gay men after a catastrophic flood, he's met with resistance by his wife and congregation, and eventually loses custody of his son. He decides to kidnap his son and flee to Key West, where he suspects his estranged gay brother is living"
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The patchwork bride
by Sandra Dallas
Ellen is putting the finishing touches on a wedding quilt made from scraps of old dresses when the bride-to-be―her granddaughter June―unexpectedly arrives and announces she’s calling off the marriage. With the tending of June’s uncertain heart in mind, Ellen tells her the story of Nell, a Kansas-born woman who goes to the High Plains of New Mexico Territory in 1898 in search of a husband. Working as a biscuit-shooter, Nell falls for a cowboy named Buddy. She sees a future together, but she can’t help wondering if his feelings for her are true. When Buddy breaks her heart, she runs away. In her search for a soul mate, Nell will run away from marriage twice more before finding the love of her life. It’s a tale filled with excitement, heartbreak, disappointment, and self-discovery―as well as with hard-earned life lessons about love.
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| The Mars Room by Rachel KushnerWhat it's about: After an altercation with a stalker turns fatal, stripper Romy Hall is sent to a women's prison for life. Inside, mind-numbing routine and casual violence is the norm, which Romy narrates with heartbreaking insight.
Reviewers say: A moving and unsettling portrayal of the failures of the American justice system, this novel "deserves to be read with the same level of pathos, love, and humanity with which it clearly was written" (Publishers Weekly).
You might also like: the short story collection The Graybar Hotel, by Curtis Dawkins, which also compassionately depicts life behind bars. |
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| Life After Life by Kate AtkinsonStarring: Ursula Todd, born on a winter's night in 1910 England -- again and again, as each death brings her back to the same point in time and space. Does Ursula choose her paths in life, or do they choose her?
You might also like: Jo Walton's My Real Children, which also offers a haunting meditation on fate and free will by recounting an ordinary 20th-century British woman's alternate lives. Or try Laura Barnett's The Versions of Us, which considers the consequences of certain choices by sharing three different versions of a couple's lives, told in parallel. |
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| After the Crash by Michel BussiWhat it's about: After a plane crashes in the Swiss Alps, a three-month-old baby is the only survivor. But is she Lyse-Rose de Carville, or Emilie Vitral? When a judge releases her to the impoverished Vitrals, the wealthy de Carvilles refuse to accept it.
Why you might like it: Told both in 1980, when the crash occurred, and 18 years later, as the private investigator hired by the de Carvilles finally determines the girl's identity, this novel by bestselling French writer Michel Bussi offers surprising twists, intrigue...and murder. |
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Before the war
by Fay Weldon
An unfashionable and intelligent spinster in the 1920s gets married to a charismatic gentleman while hiding the secret that she will die in childbirth after bearing another man's baby. By the award-winning author of Wicked Women.
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| After You by Jojo MoyesWhat it's about: Eighteen months after the end of Me Before You, Louisa Clark is living in London, still deep in mourning and struggling to move on.
Is it for you? Did you love reading about Lou and her family in Me Before You? If so, you'll enjoy all the family dynamics at play in this sequel, which offers the same humor and well-developed characters that fans have come to love.
Series alert: The 3rd in the series, Still Me, published this past January. |
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| Before I Go by Colleen OakleyStarring: Daisy Richmond, who the day before her third cancer-free anniversary learns that it's back -- and she has only months to live.
What happens: Though stricken by her diagnosis, Daisy is equally worried about how her husband will handle her death, and sets about finding a new wife for him.
Why you might like it: Though an incredibly emotional read (you'll want to have tissues handy), author Colleen Oakley includes plenty of humor in this tale of the different ways that humans handle grief. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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