90 books like Allegedly

I love this book as it’s about a marriage in crisis and it shows the complete power that those we love most can hold over us.

I also loved the fascinating insight into the world of tennis as both main characters are tennis coaches – and I’ve always enjoyed Wimbledon! I thought the family dynamics and the push-and-pull of who to trust and why was utterly gripping.

I also loved how the way other people see the marriage is so completely different to how Stan and Joy, the husband and wife, see it. There are different versions of truth and, somehow, the one that carries the most love is the most important of all.

I’m one of those readers who sometimes read a book because they have to. I started this book with the idea that I couldn’t possibly miss Stephen King’s debut novel. On paper, it stood at the antipodes of my liking— a horror story, but also a mystery and a thriller, set in a high school and so drenched in blood you might fear staining your finger at each turning page. Yet, I was so absorbed by Carrie’s tormented personality that I forgot all the above and went all the way down to the end in a single breath.

This book confirmed one of my firmest tenets—if you come across a book that is not your genre and love it, it means that you indeed loved it. A lot. 

I read this book in high school and it messed. Me. Up. So much so that I remember it in vivid detail to this day and credit it with my desire to write dysfunctional family fiction.

I’d be hard-pressed in real life (thank God) to find a family suffering from issues ranging from incestuous relationships through moral superiority and unforgiving rigidity up to greed and murder… all of which feels like the tip of the iceberg.

Reading the tale of a family who has gone so far off the rails will, if nothing else, make you appreciate the mundane problems your own family has. And isn’t that why we read this genre?

Jade, the protagonist, is just about to start college, so the “What I did on my summer vacation” essay assignments are likely far behind her, yet I found myself wondering how she would describe her summer trip to Vietnam to stay with her estranged father in his haunted and haunting French colonial villa restoration project.

Come for the colonialism and generational trauma; stay for the ghosts and the bugs and the excellent world-building around food culture (all of which are intertwined.) What makes this book so visceral for me personally is Jade’s anger at her father, so intense that it seems to permeate every inch of the house and the words on the page, and the sense of being Other in so many ways. 

This is the perfect book to read on one of those stormy, sweltering summer nights when each bolt of lightning highlights the shadows lurking in the… show more.

This book should come with a warning: Moss’ delicious descriptions of her fictional shop’s offerings will send you running to the nearest cheese shop. Warm-hearted Willa Bauer has opened her French-inspired cheese shop, Curds and Whey, in Yarrow Glen, a small town in the beautiful Sonoma Valley. When she becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a vicious food critic, she must fight to clear her name.

With my background, I had to include a book set in N. Ireland during the Troubles. McKinty’s books are a clever blend of fiction and nonfiction. His description and understanding of the absurdities of the Troubles mirror my own beliefs.

His RUC detective is a Catholic in a largely Protestant police force, and McKinty weaves an easily understandable tableau of what it took to live through the Troubles. It is something very difficult to explain to outsiders, though I believe the entire populace still suffers from PTSD.

It was not an easy read as it brought back many painful memories, such as being caught up in the horror of Bloody Friday.

This was the first book I read by Sharon Bolton and it got me hooked on this author.

The book draws you into the lives of the residents of a small village where beneath the idyllic setting lurks secrets and malice. We follow newcomer Clara, a local vet, who is called upon when poisonous snakes turn up in the residents’ homes. The book has a brooding atmosphere which will leave you checking under the bed before you sleep.

Many of the women in my family worked in domestic service. I do know that their work lives were not easy and their employers were often quite demanding. Still, each time I wander into the Victorian era where Mrs. Jeffries is housekeeper to Inspector Witherspoon of the Metropolitan Police, I imagine that my grandmother or my aunt is one of the household staff who Mrs. Jeffries organizes to do a “behind the scenes” investigation and provide the Inspector with the right clues to solve his cases.

Kellye Garrett takes the fake world of reality TV, hashtags, and influencers to circle her reluctant protagonist, Lena Scott. Life and actions are judged to only have value if you have video of it to get clicks. That’s the message that stuck with me.

Lena Scott and her sister Desiree may share a father, but they could not be more different. That father is hip-hop mogul Mel Pierce known in the business as Murder Mel. The family members are in and out of each other’s lives with the same kinds of drama a blue-collar family would have; there are just bigger price tags. Lena steps out and opts for a modest life away from the family fortune and her father’s name.

When Desiree suddenly dies as a fallen from grace celebrity who appears to have overdosed, Lena doesn’t buy it. Even two years without speaking doesn’t erase how well she… show more.

Pam Jenoff’s historical fiction rocks, but Almost Home is my favorite of her books. Here’s a secret: it’s her favorite, too. With its interwoven past and present storylines and breathtaking suspense, I couldn’t put it down. As a graduate student ten years ago at Cambridge University, Jordan Weiss’s life was shattered when her boyfriend drowned. Now, a U.S. intelligence officer, she finally returns to England to help her terminally ill friend, Sarah, and to make sense of decade-old secrets. As soon as Jordan arrives, she discovers that no one and nothing are what they seem. But she doesn’t give up her investigation—even in the face of grave danger. A true badass! This book kept me up all night—exactly the kind of read I adore.