The most recommended books about betrayal

If you enjoy a long novel, gossip, and the dark side of life, then look no further. 

Based on the true story of the women whom Truman Capote called ‘his swans,’ and who deserted him after he had published an indiscreet short story about their lives in Esquire, Swan Song is filled with socialite glitters and cocktails. From meals eaten on planes to the high-end restaurants of New York City, food and drinks are key to the novel’s development. 

My personal highlight is the account of Babe Paley’s last meal, which was served after her funeral and which she had organised herself while being ill with lung cancer. ‘The luncheon to end all luncheons,’ as writes Greenberg-Jephcott, is a wonderful example of how the description of a meal can portray a character brilliantly.

They Come at Knight is the second book in Yasmin Angloe’s Nena Knight trilogy. It continues the story of an intrepid assassin who will stop at nothing to protect her family. 

Having enjoyed the first book in the series, I was particularly interested in how the story built and expanded the character of Nena. The sequel is well-paced. There is both a new tale to engage the reader and the character development of the protagonist goes well beyond the first book.

I’m a big fan of Jules Verne and have been trying to read through his body of work. It’s difficult because they keep adding new, previously unpublished, or untranslated works. Verne wrote well over 60 novels, and not all of them were what would be classified as science fiction. Many were travelogues.

This one was Verne’s homage to Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. He dedicated it to Dumas, and it has an introduction by Dumas’ son, with whom Verne was a close friend.

Even though it’s not science fiction, it has a secret code, an elliptical whispering gallery, and submarine-like electrically powered boats (which were really popular when Verne wrote this). There’s the wronged hero, who escapes and is apparently killed but returns to take revenge upon his oppressors, as in Dumas’ story. Well worth a read. It's another Verne book and a well-written and satisfying adventure.

This World War II story with a mystical twist had me fascinated and invested the whole way through.

Yona lives as a girl of the wilderness and finds herself fighting to protect Jewish refugees who have escaped the ghettos. With her knowledge of the forest, she vows to protect her found family, though surviving the German winter proves very dangerous.

The lengths Yona goes for people she just met tugged at my heartstrings, and the unique setting felt almost otherworldly. With a touch of folklore, this story keeps your head in the stars, but your heart grounded to Earth.

I was turned onto The Powder Mage books by my friend, and anytime a book can bring people together, that’s a special thing. Full of explosive action, swashbuckling adventure, it was the first time I’d read a “gunsmoke” or “napoleonic” fantasy, for that’s precisely what McLellan has constructed. The wartorn, politicized world of The Powder Mage echoes our own recent past, yet amplifies it, bringing to the surface larger-than-life heroes to contend with the likes of Napoleon, Washington, and Cromwell. As a reader, it was another game-changing moment of “I’ve never seen fantasy do that,” and it gave me a glimpse into a whole new domain of what fantasy can be, and what it can teach us about our past.

The Diary of Anne Frank may be the most well-known story of the Holocaust. Millions have read or seen the movie about the young girl and her family hiding in an attic room in Amsterdam until they were betrayed and taken to Auschwitz. Having visited the hiding place in Amsterdam that still holds the memory of that time, I found Sullivan’s work fascinating. She takes a familiar tale to the next level as she explores the cold case re-opened after decades by Vincent Pankoke, a retired FBI agent who painstakingly follows the trail to a startling conclusion.

This book really hooked me because mass hysteria is such a rare and bizarre psychological phenomenon, and Abbott portrays the creepiness and weirdness of it perfectly!

Perhaps also because my own teenage years were so turbulent and I still feel so connected to my younger self, I love to read and write about teenage friendships—in all their dark, obsessive intensity.

The Fever takes you there perfectly, and my fourth novel, A Guilty Secret (which is set in a remote Scottish boarding school), took special inspiration from Abbott’s brilliant tale.

I was gripped from the first page of this propulsive psychologic thriller set on a windswept Scottish island.

Just thinking about it, I can feel myself being transported back to the dreary, rain-lashed shores of Angus. I can feel the claustrophobia and desperation of Sarah’s dilemma. I found myself chained to the story, my understanding of the characters and their situation yanked to and fro with every new twist and turn. I couldn’t stop reading.

But like the best fiction, The Ice Twins stayed with me long after I closed the book. It encapsulates some of my favorite literary elements—a dark brooding atmosphere, characters at odds with their own perceptions of reality, and a suggestion of the supernatural.

A Ragged Magic hooked me from the opening when Rhiannon watches while her family is falsely accused and then publicly executed.  Rhiannon herself is captured and undergoes a torturous ritual against her will – one which infuses and amplifies her burgeoning magical aptitude. The magic in The Runebound series is unique and fascinating. This book and its vulnerable main character drew me into her world.

Tarisai was born with a wish in her heart, but not her wish. Her mother wants to use her to harm an old enemy, and Tarisai has no choice but to go along with it.

But as she finds her own found-family out in the world, she learns that there are some things more powerful than wishes. Her mother’s wish can only have so much power over her when she fights against her mother’s desires for her life. And Tarisai is stronger than she’s ever believed, which was an incredible twist to the plot.

I loved seeing Tarisai come into her own, while figuring out that she can control the shape of her future.