Clean Reads that Have It All

Try these books if you're looking for:

• clean reads
• good story/plot
• strong female characters
• some action
• some romance

The Woman in White 
Wilkie Collins
MYSTERY COLLINS
One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Dickens, Collins's friend and mentor. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall readers today. The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems desperate to share a dark secret. The next day Hartright, engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, tells his pupils about the strange events of the previous evening. Determined to learn all they can about the mysterious woman in white, the three soon find themselves drawn into a chilling vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. Masterfully constructed, The Woman in White is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction: Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant Napoleon of Crime. This is one of my all-time favorite classic books.

A Duty to the Dead 
Charles Todd
MYSTERY TODD Bess Cr #1
Bess Crawford, a nurse in World War I, promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his request to his dying brother, a request that is treated with skepticism, leading Bess to carry it out herself, putting her own life at risk for Arthur’s sake and thrusting her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder. I also really loved his The Walnut Tree, which is not a mystery but is set in the same period and has some really great characters.
 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society 
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
F SHAFFER
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey-a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island. Another book with great characters and a new look at World War II.

The Forgotten Garden 
Kate Morton
F MORTON
“Nell,” abandoned as a child, leaves her adoptive parents in Australia and travels to England to trace her story, to find her real identity – a quest that ultimately leads her to Blackhurst manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Montrachet family. Kate Morton writes beautifully and her plots are so complex - without taking anything away from her compelling characters - that you have to read to the last page to really solve the mystery.