Here are 70 books that A Thousand Heartbeats fans have personally recommended if you like
A Thousand Heartbeats.
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Unlike most authors, who only write one genre, I write mystery/suspense, thriller, fantasy, and dystopian. I love plotting and naming stories. I studied Criminal Justice & Legal Studies in college and absolutely loved it. I've also been reading these genres since I was little. I certainly never thought I’d be a writer, but the ideas kept coming so I guess the writing chose me. As a self-published writer, I get to make every decision concerning my books and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I write my books, design the covers, make the trailers, market the books, and everything else. I enjoy using my writing to point to the things I believe are important.
This is one of my all-time favorite books because I love a good mystery and I love the beach.
Colleen Coble never fails to deliver an edge-of-your-seat story with unbeatable scenery. Her books always have amazing plot twists. In The Inn at Ocean’s Edge was one of her finest stories yet. Claire Delamare just discovered that perhaps her picture-perfect life isn’t what she thought it was.
She apparently went missing for an entire year and has no recollection of that time. Not only that but she keeps having panic attacks now that she’s returned to the hotel she disappeared from. The ending was probably the most exceptional I’ve seen.
In this USA TODAY bestselling romantic suspense, Claire's visit to a luxury hotel in Maine awakens repressed memories that undermine all she holds dear.
In 1989, Claire Dellamare disappeared from her own fourth birthday party at the Hotel Tourmaline on the island of Folly Shoals, Maine. She showed up a year later at the same hotel, with a note pinned to her dress but no explanation. Nobody knows where Claire spent that year-and until now, Claire didn't even know she had ever been missing.
But when Claire returns to the Hotel Tourmaline for a business meeting with her CEO father,…
Unlike most authors, who only write one genre, I write mystery/suspense, thriller, fantasy, and dystopian. I love plotting and naming stories. I studied Criminal Justice & Legal Studies in college and absolutely loved it. I've also been reading these genres since I was little. I certainly never thought I’d be a writer, but the ideas kept coming so I guess the writing chose me. As a self-published writer, I get to make every decision concerning my books and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I write my books, design the covers, make the trailers, market the books, and everything else. I enjoy using my writing to point to the things I believe are important.
This series captured me from the very first page of the first book.
The Bishop isn’t the first book, but it was my favorite one from the series. Finally, my favorite serial killer has returned. (Yes, I pick my favorite killers in novels.) The paramedic is back but this time he’s left his career behind and teamed up with my newest favorite killer.
It quickly became clear that the killers weren’t really in love especially when the guy chains the girl to a dead body. However, it was a pretty gruesome yet intriguing scene. As a graduate who studied Criminal Justice & Legal Studies, I can attest, these books don’t disappoint.
FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers's cutting-edge 21st-century geospatial investigative techniques and impeccable logic have helped him track some of the country's most grisly killers. But those skills are pushed to the limit in this new installment of the highly-acclaimed, award-winning The Bowers Files series.
This time it's a congressman's daughter who is found dead even as her killers launch a spree of perfect murders in the Northeast. With nothing to link the crimes to each other, Agent Bowers faces his most difficult case yet--even as his personal life begins to crumble around him.
Known for his intricately woven, masterfully plotted…
Unlike most authors, who only write one genre, I write mystery/suspense, thriller, fantasy, and dystopian. I love plotting and naming stories. I studied Criminal Justice & Legal Studies in college and absolutely loved it. I've also been reading these genres since I was little. I certainly never thought I’d be a writer, but the ideas kept coming so I guess the writing chose me. As a self-published writer, I get to make every decision concerning my books and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I write my books, design the covers, make the trailers, market the books, and everything else. I enjoy using my writing to point to the things I believe are important.
What a story! In this book Maddie and Quinn are kidnapped and wake up on an island filled with booby traps. They have to figure out how to survive and get off the island while they’re being chased by the killer and his two dogs.
To make matters worse Quinn is still suffering from injuries from a previous book when a killer tried to crush him with a backhoe. I knew just from looking at the cover, I would love this book, but it was so much better than I ever imagined.
When Maddy McKay and Quinn Holcombe don't show up for Quinn's surprise birthday party, his friends know that something is very wrong. Their search turns up little beyond evidence that Quinn and Maddy just decided to take off for a long overdue vacation. But it soon becomes apparent that they did not leave of their own accord.
Maddy awakens in a cement room with no idea where she is. But it's not long before she realizes she's in the clutches of a madman exacting revenge by hunting. His prey of choice? Humans. Now Maddy and Quinn must run for their…
Unlike most authors, who only write one genre, I write mystery/suspense, thriller, fantasy, and dystopian. I love plotting and naming stories. I studied Criminal Justice & Legal Studies in college and absolutely loved it. I've also been reading these genres since I was little. I certainly never thought I’d be a writer, but the ideas kept coming so I guess the writing chose me. As a self-published writer, I get to make every decision concerning my books and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I write my books, design the covers, make the trailers, market the books, and everything else. I enjoy using my writing to point to the things I believe are important.
Technically, this is a children’s book. However, I’ve loved it from the moment I read it the first time.
Since then, I lost count of the number of times I’ve read it. It is a fantasy book with a little mystery tied to the end. What an excellent plot twist. I’ve always been a daydreamer and this story is exactly the kind of thing I’d love.
Cecelia looks like a peasant girl and lives in a village so small that it's not even on the map. But she knows that secretly, she is the true princess, hidden away as a baby to be kept safe from the enemies of the kingdon. A commoner named Desmia was placed on the throne as a decoy. Cecelia has always known that when it was safe, she would be taken out of hiding and returned to her rightful place on the throne.
Then danger finds her in her village, and Cecelia has to act. With the help of her best…
One of my favorite sections in the library is the collections of folk and fairy tales. Especially the lesser-known tales. My novel, Vasilisa, is inspired by the Russian folktale Vasilisaand Staver, plus my question of “how did Vasilisa get so strong?” I love combining folk tales with extensive research of the culture and history of their settings, as well as delving into characters who have vastly different experiences than mine. And I love reading character and detail-rich novelizations of traditional tales. It was difficult to pick only five novels based on lesser-known fairy tales. Enjoy, then go find some others!
I have two favorite retellings of Goose Girl and it was difficult to pick one for my list (the other is by Shannon Hale). The lyrical language combined with a young woman who grows from passive acceptance to taking a stand is beautiful. I especially love the ending and her unique solution to saving the man she loves. It is a story of abuse and healing, learning to trust and to find family. It is also on justice and mercy, at many levels.
'A dark, Middle-Eastern influenced retelling [...] dangerous secrets, false identities, delicious court intrigue and justice.' Culture Fly
Between her family's cruelty and the court's contempt, Princess Alyrra has spent her life in the shadows. Forced to marry a powerful foreign prince, Alyrra embarks on a journey to meet her betrothed with little hope for a better future. But powerful men have powerful enemies - and now so does Alyrra.
When Alyrra is betrayed and her identity is switched with another woman's, Alyrra is faced with the first choice she's ever had: to start a new life for herself or fight…
I get bored easily when I read a book where I can predict the plot. The two things that really set apart the original stories are world development and character complexity. You need a strong character, filled with their own eccentricities, flaws, and virtues. And you need an interesting, well-developed world in which your character can live. If you do these two things well, the story easily writes itself. If you can discover how the character thinks, acts and interacts in their world, how they seek to solve their problems and fix their flaws—that’s what makes a story worth telling…and for me, that’s the story I want to write.
This book draws you into its own, unique world right from the first page. You immediately meet the main character in unusual circumstances—not where you might expect a protagonist to be found. Yet the author does a wonderful job of slowly showing you past events that brought the character to this place, and you find yourself hoping she will find a happy ending. I love the way the author draws you into the story so that you feel like you are experiencing what the main character feels.
In the territory of Ixia the government maintains control through the Code of Behaviour, forbidding the practice of magic, but danger lurks in mysterious places...
Imprisoned for murder Yelena Zaltana's punishment is death, until she is reprieved - for a price.
As the Commander of Ixia's food taster she will risk assassination from poison daily, a position she would be a fool to refuse... In a world where magic equals death and freedom is for the lucky few, survival is all Yelena has and the battle for her life has just begun.
I am a person with nearly unlimited curiosity who has been telling stories since I was small. There is literally almost no topic I have not read or inquired about, and fantasy is where curiosity has fueled my imagination. Learning, exploring, and sharing what I discover are my passion so I hope you will enjoy my first publicly shared story.
This book combined the old west with a very thought-out magic system that enhanced the setting. The humor was sometimes tear-drawingly funny for me. The characters seemed alive, complex, and independent. The world seemed real and tangible if not quite like our world. The magic also had a refreshing take and allows for infinite speculation on how the powers might cross-combine. It also had moments of monumental exercises of power as well as monumental limits on powers complicating the storyline.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action.
Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.
Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history—or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to…
I believe with all of my heart that each one of us was created with two achingly powerful inner drives: 1) the longing for new worlds and 2) the desperate urge to do something meaningful. I simply could never believe that human beings are all simply cosmic accidents produced by some sort of cosmic casino. I believe God created people and gave us each an instinct to seek our true home. The books I write—all 22 of them—are tales of flawed individuals, thrown into unexpected, life-changing events, and given the chance to journey through many astoundingly lush worlds, all in an effort to do the seemingly impossible.
Mistborn was my first experience with gazillion-selling epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.
Kel and Vin are the two main characters, and I bonded with them immediately. IMHO what sets Mistborn apart from any other fantasy I’ve read is the magic system. I don’t want to spoil it, but it has something to do with metallurgy.
The twist is in worldbuilding, creating a world in which magic exists almost as a natural property, seemingly adding new laws of nature that are absolutely unique to the fantasy genre. It was so cleverly written and believable. I loved it.
Brandon Sanderson - the international phenomenon who finished the Wheel of Time sequence - introduces a fantasy trilogy which overturns the expectations of readers and goes on to tell the epic story of evil overturned in a richly imagined world.
A thousand years ago evil came to the land and has ruled with an iron hand ever since. The sun shines fitfully under clouds of ash that float down endlessly from the constant eruption of volcanoes. A dark lord rules through the aristocratic families and ordinary folk are condemned to lives in servitude, sold as goods, labouring in the ash…
I'm Professor and Director of the Gender and Women’s History Research Centre at the Australian Catholic University. I've always been interested in the power of ideologies about gender to shape people’s lives, and in the experiences of women in times past. I started off exploring these topics in early modern Europe and then looked at how women, and ideas about gender, shaped the ways European peoples engaged in the world at this period. This has helped me to see the very significant ways that the lives of women and men are always shaped by gender ideologies across the globe and across time, and the innovative ways that people respond to the challenges and opportunities that they encounter.
This was one of the first studies of Marie Antoinette that aimed to take seriously her style as a critical political tool, one that worked both for the ill-fated French queen and against her. The study of bodily adornment, clothing, and fashion choices are now a key part of how we understand gender politics and the politics of the body both in history and in our own lives.
Importantly, Weber situates Marie Antoinette’s understanding of the importance of her fashion in the wider context of the culture of display at Versailles, where close examination of bodies in ceremonial, sartorial, and sexual labour was the norm. From caca dauphin to the Diamond Necklace Affair, Weber traces the changing dynamics of Marie Antoinette’s relationship with fashion, from her time as a trendsetter to the ways in which it became part of a compelling narrative for the queen’s downfall.
A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year
When her carriage first crossed over from her native Austria into France, fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette was taken out, stripped naked before an entourage, and dressed in French attire to please the court of her new king. For a short while, the young girl played the part.
But by the time she took the throne, everything had changed. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber tells of the radical restyling that transformed the young queen into an icon and shaped the future of the nation. With her riding gear, her white furs,…
When I was studying Japan in graduate school, my advisor once told me that he hoped I wouldn’t pursue research in women’s history, calling it a fad. He was wrong, but it took me well over ten years to figure that out. Thanks to colleagues and friends, I helped build the field of Japanese women’s history in English, especially for the early modern period. As professor emerita at the University of California, Irvine, I remain committed to the possibility of uncovering the lives of yet more amazing women who challenge the stereotypes of docile wife and seductive geisha all too prevalent in fiction set in Japan.
In recounting Nakanoin Nakako’s history, Rowley affords us insight into three worlds—the imperial court in Kyoto, a remote village on the Izu Peninsula, and a Buddhist convent. Born into a family of court nobles in early seventeenth-century Kyoto, Nakako’s life of privilege as an imperial concubine came to an abrupt end when the emperor discovered that she participated in wild parties and sexual escapades. Furious, he wanted her killed. Instead the shogun, his titular subordinate and de facto boss, sentenced her to exile on a distant island. She ended up working as a teacher for farmers before returning to the city of her birth fourteen years later and becoming a nun. Hers is the remarkable story of a resilient woman and her war-torn world.
Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking sake and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a…
