Light Fantasy Adventure Stories

Try these books if you're looking for:

• light reading
• fantasy stories
• adventure stories

Peter and the Starcatchers 
by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
YA F BARRY
In this terrific story—a “prequel” to Peter Pan—Peter is an orphan who sails from England on the ship Never Land. On board he meets Molly, a young Starcatcher, whose mission is to guard a trunk of magical stardust from a greedy pirate and the native inhabitants of a remote island. A fast, fun read.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore 
By Robin Sloan
F SLOAN
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco web-design drone and landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after just a few days on the job, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything. Soon he embarks on a complex analysis of the customers' behavior and ropes his friends into helping him figure out just what's going on.

Inkheart 
By Cornelia Caroline Funke
YA F FUNKE
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life. The fun begins when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

The Graveyard Book 
By Neil Gaiman
YA F GAIMAN
Nobody Owens is a very small boy who wanders out of the house just before his entire family is murdered. He wanders down the street to the local graveyard where he is adopted by the ghosts who reside there. Nobody has quite an unusual upbringing and of course, there’s some unfinished business.

Fast-Paced, Compelling Paranormal Romance

Try these books if you're looking for:

• fast-pace
• compelling story
• paranormal romance

Unearthly 
By Cynthia Hand
YA HAND Unearthl #1
Sixteen-year-old Clara Gardner's purpose as an angel-blood begins to manifest itself, forcing her family to pull up stakes and move to Jackson, Wyoming, where she learns that danger and heartbreak come with her powers.

Sisters Red 
By Jackson Pearce
YA PEARCE
After a Fenris, or werewolf, killed their grandmother and almost killed them, sisters Scarlett and Rosie March devote themselves to hunting and killing the beasts that prey on teenaged girls, learning how to lure them with red cloaks and occasionally using the help of their old friend, Silas, the woodsman's son.

Evermore 
By Alyson Noel
YA NOEL Immortal #1
Since the car accident that claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras and hear people's thoughts, and she goes out of her way to hide from other people until she meets Damen, another psychic teenager who is hiding even more mysteries.

Once Dead, Twice Shy 
By Kim Harrison
YA HARRISON Madison #1
Spunky teen Madison, though technically dead, uses a stolen amulet to retain the illusion of a body and help her in the struggle between Light and Dark reapers.

Character-Driven, Heartwarming Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• character-driven
• inspirational
• general fiction
• clean read
• between 200-250 pages

The Wednesday Letters 
By Jason F. Wright
F WRIGHT
After the death of their parents, three siblings return home and find a box of letters written by their father to their mother that uncovers the shocking truth about the past. 280 pages.

The Quilter’s Apprentice 
By Jennifer Chiaverini
F CHIAVERI Elm Cree #1
Sarah, struggling to find a job and a sense of place in her new town, finds herself learning how to quilt from a cantankerous old woman who also teaches her about the deep love that can exist between friends. 271 pages.

Sarah: Women of Genesis 
By Orson Scott Card
F CARD Women #1
Fictionally explores the life of Sarah, daughter of a king, wife of a prophet, faithful follower of the God of Abraham, recipient of a miracle, and mother of nations. 390 pages.

The Dressmaker 
By Kate Alcott
F ALCOTT
Tenacious Tess Collins, a maid determined to use her seamstress skills to transcend her class, meets world-renowned fashion designer Lucile Duff Gordon just moments before boarding the majestic and doomed ship. Lucile’s hesitant agreement to hire Tess as her personal maid sends both women on a life-altering trajectory of volatile friendship, convoluted mentoring, loyalty, and conflict, all of which comes to a head in the wake of their survival. 306 pages.

Adventure and Action Thrillers

Try these books if you're looking for:

• adventure books
• action thrillers

The Reluctant Assassin 
By Eoin Colfer
YA COLFER W.A.R.P. #1
In Victorian London, Albert Garrick, an assassin-for-hire, and his reluctant young apprentice, Riley, are transported via wormhole to modern London, where Riley teams up with a young FBI agent to stop Garrick from returning to his own time and using his newly acquired scientific knowledge and power to change the world forever. This book has nonstop adventure like the Brandon Mull books.

The Will of the Empress 
By Tamora Pierce
YA PIERCE Circle Reforged #1
On visit to Namorn to visit her vast landholdings and her devious cousin, Empress Berenene, eighteen-year-old Sandry must rely on her childhood friends and fellow mages, Daja, Tris, and Briar, despite the distance that has grown between them. All of Peirce’s books have magical elements of adventure and action.

Redwall 
By Brian Jacques
YA JACQUES Redwall #1
When the peaceful life of ancient Redwall Abbey is shattered by the arrival of the evil rat Cluny and his villainous hordes, Matthias, a young mouse, determines to find the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior which, he is convinced, will help Redwall's inhabitants destroy the enemy. The Redwall series is action packed and fast paced with worlds being built.

Southern Historical Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Southern historical fiction
• Focus on Gone with the Wind

The March 
By E. L Doctorow
F DOCTOROW
Doctorow is known for his lyrical language and ability to mesh accurate historical events with the most imaginative of historical fiction. In The March, Union General William Sherman marches through Georgia and the Carolinas during the final years of the civil war. Doctorow depicts all of the death and destruction that come from this march, but also the love and care that spring up in its wake. 

The Wind Done Gone 
By Alice Randall
F RANDALL
Randall tells the tale of Cindy, the beautiful, illegitimate half-sister of Scarlett O'Hara. The book focuses on describing the seedy underbelly of the genteel south and un-romanticizing the south Margaret Mitchell illustrates.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 
By Carson McCullers
F MCCULLER
Set in a Georgia Mill town in the 1930’s, John Singer, a deaf-mute, becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia. Each person’s goal is to escape their doomed small town. Generally considered a masterpiece of southern historical fiction, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is also a part of Oprah’s Bookclub.

The Help 
By Kathryn Stockett
F STOCKETT
In Jackson Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the Civil Rights Movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women – black and white, mothers and daughters – view one another.

Some other YA authors you might want to try are John Green, Ellen Hopkins, or Ann Brashares.

Hard-to-Put-Down Books

Try these books if you're looking for:

• books that are hard to put down
• clean reads
• read like Lisa T. Bergen, Shannon Hale, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, Gerald Lund

The Little Lady Agency 
By Hester Browne
F BROWNE
Reviled by her snobby family but adored by her friends, unemployed etiquette expert Melissa Romney-Jones reinvents herself as Honey, and goes into business as a matchmaker for inept bachelors.

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 
By Richard Paul Evans
YA EVANS Michael Vey #1
Michael Vey, a fourteen-year old who has Tourette's syndrome and special electric powers, finds there are others like him, and must rely on his powers to save himself and the others from a diabolical group seeking to control them.

The Testing 
by Joelle Charbonneau
YA CHARBONN
Sixteen-year-old Malencia (Cia) Vale is chosen to participate in The Testing to attend the University; however, Cia is fearful when she figures out her friends who do not pass The Testing are disappearing.

Paranormalcy 
By Kiersten White
YA WHITE Paranorm #1
Evie, the only known human with the ability to see through supernatural "glamours," works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA) tracking down dangerous creatures. (Really, she finds the work dull and would rather be shopping, watching TV, or at the very least at home painting her weapons pink.) But when a mysterious shape-shifter invades the IPCA and brings news of a string of paranormal murders, things start to heat up. -- Description by Ellen Foreman.

Fun Fiction with Clean Language and Little Violence

Try these books if you're looking for:

• cleaner language
• little violence
• like authors Agatha Christie, Jessica Day George, & Jane Austen

Maisie Dobbs 
By Jacqueline Winspear
MYSTERY WINSPEAR Maisie #1
Maisie Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at thirteen, working for Lady Rowan Compton. When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, following an apprenticeship with Blanche, Maisie hangs out her shingle: M. Dobbs, Trade and Personal Investigations.

The Corinthian 
By Georgette Heyer
ROMANCE HEYER
When a man comes across a beautiful young woman climbing out of a window in a bid to escape, he finds the ideal opportunity to realize his own escape in this sparkling Regency romance with a decidedly Shakespearean twist.

The Star of Kazan 
By Eva Ibbotson
YA IBBOTSON
After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

Thrilling Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Military Non-Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• fiction with a factual basis
• engrossing non-fiction with a lot of action
• thought-provoking science fiction

Snow Crash 
By Neal Stephenson
SCI-FI STEPHENS
In twenty-first century America, a teenaged computer hacker finds himself fighting a computer that battles virtual reality technology and a deadly drug that turns humans into zombies.

The Templar Legacy 
By Steve Berry
F BERRY 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.

Napoleon’s Pyramids 
By William Dietrich
F DIETRICH Ethan Ga #1
Acquiring an ancient medallion covered in indecipherable symbols, expatriate American Ethan Gage is forced to flee for his life when he is framed for murder and forced to accompany Napoleon Bonaparte on the emperor’s quest to conquer Egypt.

Lone Survivor 
By Marcus Luttrell
958.1047 LUT 2007
The leader, and only survivor, of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs sent to northern Afghanistan to capture a well-known al Qaeda leader chronicles the events of the battle that killed his teammates and offers insight into the training of this elite group of warriors.

American Sniper 
By Chris Kyle
BIO KYLE 2012
A member of the Navy SEAL Team 3 describes his life as a father and a husband, and as the serviceman with the most sniper kills in the history of the United States military while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crime and Culture

Try these books if you're looking for:

• short true crime or action thrillers
• books similar to Homeless Bird discussing culture

Jude 
By Kate Morgenroth
YA F MORGENRO
Still reeling from his drug-dealing father's murder, moving in with the wealthy mother he never knew, and transferring to a private school, fifteen-year-old Jude is tricked into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit.

Nothing to Lose 
By Alex Flinn
YA F FLINN
A year after running away with a traveling carnival to escape his unbearable home life, sixteen-year-old Michael returns to Miami, Florida, to find that his mother is going on trial for the murder of his abusive stepfather.

Kissing the Rain 
By Kevin Brooks
YA F BROOKS
Fifteen-year-old Moo Nelson, shy, overweight, and bullied by his classmates, finds his life spinning out of control after he witnesses a car chase and a fight that results in a murder.

Esperanza Rising 
By Pam Munoz Ryan
J F RYAN
Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Wonder 
By R.J. Palacio
J F PALACIO
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, & Mystery

Try these books if you're looking for:

• action
• mystery
• thriller
• fantasy 
• sci-fi
• similar to: Orson Scott Card, Julia Spencer Fleming, Diana Mott Davidson, Anne McCaffrey, David Baldacci, Michael Palmer
• NOT similar to: Jonathan Kellerman, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sandra Brown

The Expats 
By Chris Pavone
F PAVONE
"An international spy thriller about a former CIA agent who moves with her family to Luxembourg where everything is suspicious and nothing is as it seems"-- Provided by publisher.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder 
By Joanne Fluke
MYSTERY FLUKE Hannah #1
Cookie-baking sleuth Hannah Swenson must protect her reputation when a popular delivery man is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's cookies scattered around him.

Short Adventures and LDS Books

Try these books if you're looking for:

• books like The Hunger Games and Twilight
• adventures
• books with LDS history or messages
• books on CD
• books under 250 pages

Tide Ever Rising 
By Mandi Tucker Slack
MYSTERY Slack
Kadie Reynold loves to explore old ghost towns. When she visits Eureka, Utah, she finds an ancient journal and a beautiful pendant hidden in the depths of a crumbling house. Now strange dreams and premonitions are haunting Kadie as she learns more about the keeper of the journal, Charlotte Clark.

Wanted 
By Kathi Oram Peterson
MYSTERY Peterson
Escaped convict Branson Faulkner and rodeo veterinarian Jo Power team up to find new evidence that will prove Branson's innocence of a murder committed seven years ago. They soon discover an alarming connection between a string of homicides, and one truth is clear: there's a murderer on the loose who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. This title is also available as an audiobook.

Thirteen Reasons Why 
By Jay Asher
YA F Asher
When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death. This title is also available as an audiobook.

Nonfiction that Reads Like Fiction/Intelligent Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• creative non-fiction
• witty fiction
• intelligent writing style
• not cheesy

The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of the Ancient Bible 
By Matti Friedman
221.44 FRI 2012
The Aleppo Codex is a manuscript copy of the Old Testament created during the 10th century. In 1947 the codex was thought to have been destroyed in a fire when Arabs staged anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo. Then the codex turned out not to have been destroyed only damaged—pieces scattered and portions burned. The question of what damage occurred and when is one of the subjects of this book. Friedman is an investigative journalist who has dug thoroughly into the story of codex—especially the part of the story from 1947 until the present day—and it is a fascinating story. A mix of history, mystery, and thriller, Friedman has put together a great read.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories 
By Annie Proulx
F PROULX
Annie Proulx is an award winning author and a journalist. Her "westerns" are not typical at all--nevertheless they are evocative and beautifully written stories of the West featuring compelling characters, bleak landscapes, and interesting storylines.

The Kitchen God’s Wife 
By Amy Tan
F TAN
Although this novel begins and ends in California, the bulk of the story is set in mid-twentieth century China. Winnie tells her life story to her grown daughter—a story of a lonely childhood followed by an arranged marriage to a self-centered, second-rate businessman lacking honor and integrity. By her own wits and sense of values, her friendships, and more than a bit of luck, Winnie not only survives her marriage and Japanese bomb raids, but marries an American soldier, immigrates to the United States and settles in California. This is an inspiring, triumphant story of one woman’s courage.

Action/Thriller Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• action
• thriller
• fiction

The Black Box 
By Michael Connelly
MYSTERY CONNELLY Harry Bo #18
During the Los Angeles riots of 1992, much of South Central L.A. was a crime scene, and in Michael Connelly's latest, Harry Bosch and his team are moving at breakneck speed from homicide to homicide gathering only the most essential information and evidence and then moving on to the next shooting. But one murder stands out for him -- a Danish journalist, shot to death execution style in an alley somewhat removed from the worst rampaging. Harry does as much on the case as he can but then must move on and leave the case to others. Twenty years later when the L.A. cold case division is asked to look into homicides from that era, Harry picks out Anneke Jesperson's file and revisits the crime scene he once so hastily secured.

Adrenaline 
By Jeff Abbott
F ABBOTT Sam Capr #1
Sam Capra’s life is almost perfect. He has a beautiful wife he loves, a new baby on the way, and an exciting job with the CIA. However, in the blink of an eye everything is gone, his wife and child are missing, his coworkers are all dead, and the government he has served faithfully believes he has betrayed them. Desperate to rescue his family and restore his professional reputation, Sam is willing to do almost anything. And while he makes some shocking discoveries about people he has trusted in the past, his greatest shock may be the discovery of his own capacity for violence when the ones he loves are at risk.

Gold of Kings 
By T. Davis Bunn
F BUNN
An art historian unravels the mystery surrounding her grandfather's untimely death and quickly becomes entangled in a web of international intrigue dating back to biblical times.

The Atlantis Code 
By Charles Brokaw
F BROKAW Thomas #1
When the ancient ruins of Atlantis are discovered along the Spanish coast, linguist and archaeologist Thomas Lourds joins a violent competition to be the first of its explorers, an effort marked by a series of puzzles that must be solved in order to gain entry into the lost civilization. 

Books Similar to Classics

Try these books if you're looking for:

• similar to classic books such as Tale of Two Cities, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders
• well-developed characters
• romance

The Rules of Civility 
By Amor Towles
F TOWLES
A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald 
By Therese Fowler
F FOWLER
A tale inspired by the marriage of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald follows their union in defiance of her father's opposition and her scandalous transformation into a Jazz Age celebrity in the literary party scenes of New York, Paris, and the French Riviera.

Jellicoe Road 
By Melina Marchetta
YA F MARCHETTA
Taylor Markham isn't just one of the new student leaders of her boarding school, she's also the heir to the Underground Community, one of three battling school factions in her small Australian community (the others being the Cadets and the Townies). For a generation, these three camps have fought "the territory wars," a deadly serious negotiation of land and property rife with surprise attacks, diplomatic immunities, and physical violence. Only this year, it's complicated: Taylor might just have a thing for Cadet leader Jonah, and Jonah might just be the key to unlocking the secret identity of Taylor's mother, who abandoned her when she was 11.

Paris 
By Edward Rutherford
F RUTHERFO
Taking readers on a journey through Parisian history, this sweeping multigenerational saga, filled with romance, danger and rich detail, beautifully illuminates the City of Lights, from its founding under the Romans to the hotbed of cultural activity during the 1920s and 1930s that included Picasso.



Books similar to Emily Giffin:

Very Valentine 
By Adriana Trigiani
F TRIGIANI
Valentine Roncalli struggles to save her decades-old family business, finding love and the life she wants along the way.

What Alice Forgot 
By Liane Hearn
F HEARN
Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves.

The Finishing Touches 
By Hester Browne
F BROWNE
A fading English finishing school is about to get a twenty-first-century makeover thanks to business-savvy Betsy Phillimore. But Betsy may have bitten off more than she can chew for she must first win over the school's snobby headmistress and its handsome but risk-averse treasurer. Returning to London also means facing her own unfinished business, as she crosses paths with her sexy girlhood crush ... and blowing the dust off clues to a lifelong mystery: who were her parents, and why did they abandon her?