Thought-Provoking Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • thought-provoking fiction
  • clean reads
  • focus on characters and relationships
  • strong characterization
The Awakening of Miss Prim 
Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera
F SANMARTI FENOLLER
"Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-loving intellectual, is dashing yet contrarian, always ready with a critique of her cherished Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott. The neighbors, too, are capable of charm and eccentricity in equal measure, determined as they are to preserve their singular little community from the modern world outside."-- Provided by publisher. This book has a feel of British authors from the 1930s that I've really enjoyed.

While Beauty Slept 
Elizabeth Canning Blackwell
F BLACKWELL
A Gothic retelling of the real story behind the legend of Sleeping Beauty. The writing is very lush and it provides an interesting behind-the-scenes look at Sleeping Beauty.

La's Orchestra Saves the World 
Alexander McCall Smith
F MCCALL SMITH
It is 1939. Lavender--La to her friends--decides to flee London, not only to avoid German bombs but also to escape the memories of her shattered marriage. Settling in a small town, she boosts morale by organizing an amateur orchestra from the village and the local RAF base--and falls in love with one of her prized recruits. McCall Smith creates amazing characters. His books are very soothing reads and have a lot more depth than you would expect.

The Buddha in the Attic 
Julie Otsuka
F OTSUKA
The story of a group of women brought from Japan to San Francisco in the 1900s as mail-order brides. I just read this one recently and was captivated. The way she wrote the book is very uniquely beautiful and manages to tell hundreds of stories in a few carefully-placed words.

Cold Comfort Farm 
Stella Gibbons
F GIBBONS
Flora Poste, upon finding herself orphaned, decides to go live with her great aunt Ada Doom on Cold Comfort Farm, where she can exert her exceptional skills to tidy up everyone's lives. This was written as a satire (mocking bucolic literature), so don't take it too seriously. But the writing is phenomenal and the points she's able to make through the satire will get you thinking about what we convey through literature.

Historical Mysteries, with an Emphasis on Science and Medicine

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • historical mystery
  • lesser-known figures in history
  • history of science and medicine
  • problem solving
  • adventure fiction and non-fiction
  • realistic plots
  • strong characterization
Mistress of the Art of Death 
Ariana Franklin
MYSTERY Franklin Mistress #1
In medieval Cambridge, a young Italian doctor named Adelia is called on to investigate the murders of four children and finds herself caught in a web of anti-Semitism and hatred that threatens her own life.

The Anatomy of Deception 
Lawrence Goldstone
MYSTERY Goldston
Nineteenth-century Philadelphia physician Ephraim Carroll draws on the new techniques of forensic medicine to investigate the brutal murder of a beautiful young woman and the horror that led to her death.

Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle 
Thea Cooper
612.34 COO 2010
Written with authentic detail and suspense, and featuring walk-ons by William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Eli Lilly himself, among many others, "Breakthrough" relives the heartwarming true story of the discovery of insulin.

The Plague Tales 
Ann Benson
F Benson
Two parallel stories, one set in the fourteenth century, the other in the twenty-first century, feature two unwitting heroes who confront the release of the bubonic plague on an unsuspecting world.

Teen Audiobooks

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • teen reads
  • audiobooks
  • romance
  • various societies
Cinder 
Marissa Meyer
YA F MEYER Lunar #1
As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.

Anna and the French Kiss 
Stephanie Perkins
YA F PERKINS
When Anna's romance-novelist father sends her to an elite American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes, and meets an amazing boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.

Wicked Lovely 
Melissa Marr
YA F MARR Wicked L #1
Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.

Keturah and Lord Death 
Martine Leavitt
YA F LEAVITT
When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

Along for the Ride 
Sarah Dessen
YA F DESSEN
When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, all the trauma of her parents' divorce is revived, even as she is making new friends and having new experiences such as learning to ride a bike and dating.

YA Fantasy with a Side of Romance and Adventure

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • teen reads
  • fantasy
  • romance
  • adventure
The Kiss of Deception 
Mary Pearson
YA F PEARSON
Princess Lia flees an unwanted marriage and expectations about her supernatural legacy only to be pursued by her jilted fiance and a ruthless assassin.

Winterspell 
Claire Legrand
YA F LEGRAND
To find her abducted father and keep her sister safe from the lecherous politicians of 1899 New York City, seventeen-year-old Clara must journey to the wintry kingdom of Cane, where Anise, queen of the faeries, has ousted the royal family in favor of her own totalitarian, anti-human regime.

Ironskin 
Tina Connolly
SCI-FI CONNOLLY Ironskin #1
Jane Eliot, a woman forced to wear an iron mask to suppress a scarring fey curse, takes a job as governess to a fey-stricken child and falls in love with her employer, an enigmatic artist who transforms unattractive women into beautiful fey.

Contemporary Thrillers

Try these books if you're looking for:
  • contemporary books
  • thrillers/legal thrillers/adventure books
  • a focus on characters and relationships
  • a focus on story and action
  • read like Ann Cleeves and Gillian Flynn
In the Woods 
Tana French
MYSTERY FRENCH Dublin M #1
French writes with a similar tone to Gillian Flynn. In the Woods is the first in a moody, police psychological series where things do not always end up as one would expect. Detective Rob Ryan must investigate a chilling murder which brings back 20 year old memories of the violent murder of 2 companions.

A Share In Death 
Deborah Crombie
MYSTERY CROMBIE Duncan #1
Both Cleeves and Crombie write suspenseful, intricately plotted police novels. A Share in Death is the first in a series. Inspector Kincaid is vacationing incognito until a new acquaintance is found murdered in the hotel. This requires him to resume his true identity.

Still Life 
Louise Penny
MYSTERY PENNY Three #1
Penny like Cleeves writes intricately plotted police procedural novels. In the novel, Still Life (first in a series), a much loved member of a community is found murdered in the woods. Will Inspector Gamache be able to find enough small clues to locate the murderer?

Dark Tide 
Elizabeth Haynes
MYSTERY HAYNES
Haynes writes thrillers with suspenseful plots that are similar to the writing style of Flynn. Genevieve is starting a new life living on a houseboat far away from her secret past. She is horrified when a body washes up by the boat and she recognizes it as someone linked to her life she left behind.