Literary Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Literary fiction
  

State of Wonder
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years – a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

The Forgotten Garden
By Kate Morton
F MORTON
Abandoned on a 1913 voyage to Australia, Nell is raised by a dock master and his wife who do not tell her until she is an adult that she is not their child, leading Nell to return to England and eventually hand down her quest for answers to her granddaughter.

Women of the Silk
By Gail Tsukiyama
F TSUKIYAMA
Spanning the years between the world wars, this tale of a young Chinese girl forced to work in a silk factory describes the sisterhood of workers she discovers there.

Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind
By Suzanne Fisher Staples
YA F STAPLES
When eleven-year old Shabany, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father’s wishes.

Great Books for Guys with Interesting Plot Twists

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Books for guys
• Adventure
• Plot twists
• Books published in the past 10 years

The Rule of Four
By Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
F CALDWELL
Trying to decipher an ancient text that weaves a mathematical labyrinth within a love story, two researchers obtain a diary that may contain the key to the code, but when a fellow researcher is killed, they realize that the book contains a dangerous secret.

The Thief
By Megan Whalen Turner
YA F TURNER Attolia #1
Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone. (This one was not published within the past 10 years, but later books in the series were published in the past ten years.)

Spartan Gold
By Clive Cussler
F CUSSLER Fargo Ad #1
Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are shocked to discover a bottle of a rare wine taken from Napoleon's lost cellar. However, someone else is also searching for this treasure.

Templar Legacy
By Steve Barry
F BARRY Cotton #1
Former secret agent Cotton Malone and Stephanie Nelle, a U.S. Justice Department prosecutor, must solve the mystery of fourteenth-century Templar riches and secrets before Raymond de Roquefort and his murderous allies prevail.

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Teen books
• Mystery
• Action

Dark Life
By Kat Falls
YA F FALLS
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.

Death Cloud
By Andy Lane
YA F LANE Young Sh #1
In 1868, with his army officer father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously "unwell," fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire, where he uncovers his first murder and a diabolical villain.

A Spy in the House
By Y.S. Lee
YA F LEE Agency #1
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.

Hero
By Mike Lupica
YA F LUPICA
Fourteen-year-old Zach learns he has the same special abilities as his father, who was the President's globe-trotting troubleshooter until "the Bads" killed him, and now Zach must decide whether to use his powers in the same way at the risk of his own life.

Princess Ben
By Catherine Gilbert Murdock
YA F Murdock
Benevolence is not your typical princess. With her parents lost to assassins, Princess Ben ends up under the thumb of the conniving Queen Sophia. Starved and miserable, locked in the castle’s highest tower, Ben stumbles upon a mysterious enchanted room. So begins her secret education in the magical arts.

Plot-Driven Suspenseful Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Plot-driven books
• Action
• Suspenseful fiction
• Read-alikes for to Brandon Sanderson

The City of Golden Shadow
By Tad Williams
SCI-FI Williams Otherlan #1
In a strange world of the near future, where virtual reality encompasses all aspects of society and boundaries are limited only by the power of the imagination, a dark conspiracy involving the world's most powerful individuals threatens to destroy everything.

The Thief
By Megan Whalen Turner
YA F Turner Attolia #1
Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone.

Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta
YA F Marchett
Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who was a child when the royal family of Lumatere was brutally murdered and replaced by an imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a surviving royal child and a way to regain the throne of Lumatere.

I Am Not a Serial Killer
By Dan Wells
F Wells John Cle #1
John Wayne Cleaver keeps his obsession with serial killers in check by a set of rigid rules that he lives by, hoping to the prevent himself from committing murder; but when a body turns up behind a laundromat, John must confront a danger outside himself. (This is not fantasy like the other three books on the list, but it has a surprising twist in the middle and an action-packed plot.)

Adventurous, Interesting Books for Teen Guys

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Teen books
• Books for guys
• Adventure

The Wednesday Wars
By Gary Schmidt
YA F SCHMIDT
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

Downriver
By Will Hobbs
YA F HOBBS
Fifteen-year-old Jessie and the other rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team abandon their adult leader, hijack his boats, and try to run the dangerous white water at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

The Wreckers
By Iain Lawrence
YA F LAWRENCE High Sea #1
Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer attempts to save his father and himself while also dealing with an evil secret about the English coastal town where they are stranded.

Bucking the Sarge
By Christopher Paul Curtis
YA F CURTIS
Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.

Ender’s Game
By Orson Scott Card
YA F CARD Ender Sa #1
A veteran of years of simulated war games, Ender believes he is engaged in one more computer war game when in truth he is commanding the last fleet of Earth against an alien race seeking the complete destruction of Earth.