Here are 94 books that A Bad Day for Sunshine fans have personally recommended if you like
A Bad Day for Sunshine.
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I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
I found this book to be an excellent, well-crafted mystery, but what put it on my best books list was Chet, the four-legged narrator. He’s not an entirely reliable narrator, but the reader can count on his doggy behaviors to be consistently reliable as he serves as his owner’s faithful sleuthing sidekick.
Just as Chet has a nose for sniffing out trouble, he also has a nose for Slim Jims, burgers, and the other dogs (his tribe members) in the neighborhood, and can be easily distracted. This keeps the story light and delightfully entertaining. I was charmed from page one.
The first book of the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, an “enchanting one-of-a-kind novel” (Stephen King) that is “nothing short of masterful” (Los Angeles Times).
Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, and Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator, are quick to take a new case involving a frantic mother searching for her teenage daughter. This well-behaved and gifted student may or may not have been kidnapped, but she has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. With Chet’s highly trained nose leading the way, their hunt for clues takes them…
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
Years ago, a fellow writer recommended the Stephanie Plum series to me as a must-read because the writing was so laugh-out-loud funny. She wasn’t kidding. Not only did I find this incredibly entertaining, I laughed all the way through the book and became a huge fan of the series.
Hanging out in the Jersey “burg” with Stephanie and her family, for me, is just plain fun. Is it improbable that an unemployed lingerie buyer could become a successful bail-bond recovery agent and apprehend a savvy cop on the run? Especially when she has some personal history with the guy? You bet, but thanks to Janet Evanovich’s deft comic touch with all the characters populating Stephanie’s world, this is a thoroughly enjoyable and funny page-turner.
Stephanie Plum is down on her luck. She's lost her job, her car's on the brink of repossession, and her apartment is fast becoming furniture-free.
Enter Cousin Vinnie, a low-life who runs a bail-bond company. If Stephanie can bring in vice cop turned outlaw Joe Morelli, she stands to pick up $10,000. But tracking down a cop wanted for murder isn't easy . . .
And when Benito Ramirez, a prize-fighter with more menace than mentality, wants to be her friend Stephanie soon knows what it's like to be pursued. Unfortunately the best person to protect her just happens to…
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
A CIA assassin who is forced to go undercover as a girly girl in the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana? From that premise alone, I knew this would be a fun read, and wow, does Jana DeLeon ever deliver in book one of her Miss Fortune Mystery series.
It’s a fabulous fish-out-of-water story filled with quirky characters of all ages, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and wrongs to be made right. There’s a splash of romance and plenty of laughs in this well-paced, sassy whodunit. My favorite kind of lighthearted mystery!
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever-in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out…
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
I’ve been a fan of Jennifer Crusie’s writing for a long time. She’s a master at populating her stories with quirky, relatable characters. Add Bob Mayer’s talent for providing Crusie’s protagonist with a worthy and possibly dangerous ally, sprinkle in a dead body (or two!), and a fun romantic mystery to kick off their Liz Danger series is born.
I’m a sucker for stories with small-town charm and family complications, and this book has that in spades, along with a couple of mysteries to solve. As a bonus, the developing relationship between Liz and Vince is sizzling good fun with top-notch banter. Loved it!
From the NY Times Bestselling duo that wrote Agnes and the Hitman, the first book in a new series.
Liz Danger has come home after fifteen years to deliver a giant teddy bear for her mother’s birthday (color: Guilt Red) when a cop with a great ass picks her up for speeding, fixes the missing lug nuts in her back wheel, pulls her out of a ditch, doesn’t give her a ticket, and helps her avoid her family. This is a man with real potential.
Vince Cooper picks up Liz for speeding and his life gets a lot more interesting.…
I have been a fan of romantic suspense since I was a teen (many decades ago) and started writing my DAG Team Series in 2016. I adore everything about this genre – the puzzles, the intrigue and how they affect the budding relationship between the main characters. Dating is difficult when you are trying to catch a killer or on the run! Despite the central mystery, the focus is on the romance between the couple. The issues serve to add a layer of non-sexual tension.
Another author who always hits the mark! This is one of her newest books and I was blown away by all the twists that came out of nowhere. The couple must team up to find out who the killer was from a decades-old robbery that affected them both.
In this tantalizing thriller from a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a woman uncovers lifelong secrets as she searches for the truth behind her father's involvement in a heist gone wrong.
Twenty years ago in the dead of night, four seemingly random individuals pulled the ultimate heist and almost walked away with half a million dollars. But by daybreak, their plan had been shot to hell. One of them was in the hospital. One was in jail. One was dead. And one got away with it.
Arden Maxwell, the daughter of the man who disappeared all those years ago—presumably…
I have seen Degas’ astonishing paintings in the Quai d’Orsy in Paris and his wonderful sculptures of ballerinas. So I was immediately drawn to this book. Like most people who admire his incredible work, I had no idea of the pain suffered by the girls who saw the ballet as a way to rise above their pitiful lives. Nor did I know the stories behind the abuse of Degas’ models. It is difficult when we have to try to separate the works of genius from the horrible things geniuses did.
As a student of history I am impressed with the research that underpins this series, and especially the life of ordinary people in Ireland following the Easter 1916 uprising. The whole Bess Crawford series tells the story of Bess, a strong-willed, independent woman who serves as a battlefield nurse in World War One. She needs all her courage and intelligence to survive then and in all of her ventures. Society’s expectations of women and how they should behave were dramatically changed during and following the Great War. How was it possible to expect a woman who had nursed on battlefields or driven an ambulance through enemy territory to return to a life of ‘proper’ behaviour, of tea and cucumber sandwiches, and absolute obedience to her husband?
An Irish Hostage finds Bess in Ireland at the wedding of a friend, only to become embroiled in the trouble and treachery following the…
"[Readers] are bound to be caught up in the adventures of Bess Crawford . . . While her sensibility is as crisp as her narrative voice, Bess is a compassionate nurse who responds with feeling."- The New York Times Book Review
In the uneasy peace following World War I, nurse Bess Crawford runs into trouble and treachery in Ireland-in this twelfth book in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.
The Great War is over-but in Ireland, in the wake of the bloody 1916 Easter Rising, anyone who served in France is now considered a traitor, including nurse Eileen Flynn…
Since I began reading, two things have fascinated me the most, that is, history and mystery. My voracious appetite for mystery began with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. History has always been my best subject in school. To me, history isn’t about people, achievements, and dates. It’s about lives lived through the tragedies and triumphs that we all face and can relate to. It is the origin of stories. History doesn’t have to be boring. It can be the greatest and most intriguing story that you have ever read. Mystery is history’s great friend—to convert a huge range of readers into history lovers.
Jane Austen meets Agatha Christie in Julie Klassen’s Shadows of Swanford Abbey. Rebecca is bidden by her recluse brother to get his manuscript published by an author residing at the abbey. A mysterious death occurs for which Rebecca is a suspect. Even worse, the man she used to care for is the presiding magistrate. Klassen is always faithful in detailing Regency elements in every single area of her work from the clothing, jury procedures, customs, architecture, etc. The mystery was seamlessly woven into the history.
Agatha Christie meets Jane Austen in this atmospheric Regency tale brimming with mystery, intrigue, and romance.
When Miss Rebecca Lane returns to her home village after a few years away, her brother begs for a favor: go to nearby Swanford Abbey and deliver his manuscript to an author staying there who could help him get published. Feeling responsible for her brother's desperate state, she reluctantly agrees.
The medieval monastery turned grand hotel is rumored to be haunted. Once there, Rebecca begins noticing strange things, including a figure in a hooded black gown gliding silently through the abbey's cloisters. For all…
Though I live in the foothills of the Ozarks, I’m an Anglophile at heart, loving all things Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. I spent much of my angsty adolescence tucked away in Regency and Victorian England with my nose stuck in a book. As a result, I now jump at every chance I get to skip across the pond and roam the English countryside, listening hard to hear all the voices from the past—which is why my stories are always tied to British history. So whether you love ballrooms or shadowy tales set in gothic manors, here’s a great list for you.
Gothic stories are some of my favorite, especially when paired with the English countryside. This one entangles relationships that are sometimes tricky to navigate—much like real life, which I really appreciated. Truth is timeless, and I find that I often learn lessons from historical fiction that help me in my contemporary life. Such is the case for The Vanishing at Loxby Manor. I love how misunderstandings are cleared up between the characters for a very satisfying ending.
A story of second chances and secrets, this mysterious Regency romance will transport you to 19th-century England as one young lady reunites with her childhood love to find his missing sister.
Her friend is missing.
After five years abroad, Charity Halliwell finally returns to Loxby Manor, the home of dear friends-and her lost love. No longer a young girl, she is now haunted by a painful secret and the demise of her dreams. Instead of the healing and happiness she hopes to find, she encounters a darkness lurking in the shadows of the once-familiar house. When her friend, Seline, disappears…
I’ve been fascinated by the potential of the Internet ever since I chaired the Metadata subcommittee for the American Library Association. Here was a device capable of benefiting lives or destroying mankind simultaneously. Particularly intriguing was its almost supernatural ability to accomplish these ends as if we were gods beyond the realms of morality or accountability. I’m not a very spiritual person, but such potential calls out for revising our old worldviews and/or exploring new ways of coping with our burgeoning technical prowess and moral responsibilities. Dealing with these conflicts is what I write about and what stories from other authors I recommend to readers.
This book’s narrative zooms from the get-go. When Crouch introduces the controlled and calculating master villain, Michael Jeter, plotting his revenge in the first chapter, the tension never disappears.
Detective Tanner Dempsy’s marriage proposal to computer security expert Bree Daniels takes a back seat to their preventing murders by slow drowning that they witness over the Internet. I was thrilled at how the author filled each page with tension, terror, and repressed longing as his hunters became the hunted.
Deputy Tanner Dempsey and Bree Daniels are tasked with tracking a killer on the loose, and Bree's computer genius is their only hope at solving the crime. Tanner is determined to make sure both solve the crime but what happens when they both become a killer's next target...
Colton on the Run
By Anna J. Stewart
A mysterious woman...
And a killer on the lose
When he finds a half-dead woman stranded in his barn, rancher Leo Slattery feels his blood run cold. Though she can't remember who she is,…
I’m always inspired by nature. I’m sure that’s because my parents always took us to beautiful places on our summer vacations. I enjoyed snorkeling in Florida, hiking in the Rockies, exploring at Yellowstone National Park, to name a few places. I’ve never forgotten how in awe I was at seeing such beauty, and when I started writing romantic suspense novels, it seemed natural to look for a setting that not only inspired me to write but would lend to the suspense and tension aspect of my novels as well as provide an exciting adventure. Even now, when we travel and explore, it’s always setting that inspires me with new story ideas.
This novel is set in a national park and is filled with danger and drug traffickers.
I love the details the author writes of this amazing national park that begins in Natchez, Mississippi, supposedly follows a Native American trail, and then ends in Nashville, Tennessee. What a great setting for a novel, especially when you factor in that drug traffickers are using this trail. In truth, they’re using our national parks because no one lives in the parks. The forest is dark and makes a good cover.
Patricia Bradley pulls the reader in with her park ranger heroine who wants to find the truth about who murdered her father.
The Natchez Trace National Parkway stretches 444 miles from Nashville to Natchez, the oldest town on the Mississippi River. It's the perfect road for a relaxed pleasure drive. Unfortunately for park ranger Luke Fereday, lately it's being used to move drugs. Sent to Natchez to infiltrate the organization at the center of the drug ring, Luke arrives too late to a stakeout and discovers the body of his friend, park ranger John Danvers.
John's daughter Brooke is determined to investigate her father's murder, but things are more complicated than they first appear, and Brooke soon finds herself the target of…
