89 books like Angels & Demons

The ‘zombie apocalypse’ scenario has been used for years by risk management professionals to make the examination of possible societal breakdowns more fun and/or interesting.

By focusing on a hazard people know, like hurricanes or wildfires, audiences come to the discussion with pre-existing biases and, in many cases, first-hand experience. This forces the communicator to counter such bias before getting to key messages.

There’s never been an actual zombie apocalypse (nor is there likely to ever be one…), which means the zombie scenario adequately ‘levels the field’. It forces audiences to think beyond their go-to assumptions and introduces levels of uncertainty and unknown that are typical of major disasters.

This book, written without obvious heroes and heroines, in a documentary style, makes a perfect proxy for a disaster exercise scenario. I also believe it does a great job illustrating how different forms of governance result in different response strategies, which… show more.

I love this book despite the incredible discomfort I experience every time I read it.

Diving in the cold waters of the North Atlantic on a good day is no picnic. But diving deep into the wreck of a mystery U-boat, not knowing if you are going to come out? Epic.

I just recently listened to the Audible book while driving back from an undersea research project in a van filled with young scientific divers. The climax had us all squirming in our seats!

This was Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel written after leaving a lengthy career in television. I read it years before I got the writing bug. Along with the rest of the world, I loved Reacher from the outset, a no-nonsense ex-US Army military policeman. A loner who believes in justice, he freewheels around America, walking into trouble and bumping into people with problems that he helps to solve. He’s a big man you can’t forget or miss; Reacher is six feet five.

I knew the theme was familiar, but the character was original, exciting, and tough. Frequently called hardboiled, Reacher hurts people if he has to, sometimes has to kill the ones who want him dead, but he’s a man you want on your side. He doesn’t pussyfoot around. He gets things done. A genuine hero.

I found, like the man, that the writing was sharp, tight, and concise.… show more.

I did not want this series to end!

A strong-willed protagonist who discovers that she isn’t human and wields runes to fight demons invading her world, what’s not to love? Enemies to lovers, plus demons and Nephilim, SWOON!

I consumed this entire series in weeks! It is the OG of Young Adult Fantasy books that include Nephilim. I highly recommend this book series.

When I first started publishing my writing, my editor told me my writing reminded her of Frank Peretti.

Then readers started saying the same thing. I had no idea who Frank Peretti was, so imagine my surprise when I read This Present Darkness and saw that Peretti had brought the concept of spiritual warfare to life in a book with several plots that weave together seamlessly.

Often referred to as “the Stephen King of Christian fiction,” Peretti is a genius with the written word. His novels have a way of immersing you into the story from the first line, and by the time they let you escape back to reality, you’re a different person. At least I am.

With so many Christian stories getting a rightfully earned reputation for being cheesy, it’s refreshing for a true storyteller to give us truth.  

Again, I chose a book that is given in the first-person point of view. Rather than using a variety of first persons to tell a story, Martel takes the main character, Pi, and uses him in back-and-forth narrations from various ages – young and in the moment, and older, looking back. As well, he uses Pi as a general narrator overall in the storytelling. This gives the illusion that perhaps the other characters are not so important, or rather they are not the point of the story. 

This is one of my favorite on the border of Science Fiction books. About a lonely boy who spends time on a hill in a tree near a closed mine entrance. One day he drops his apple and it rolls to the closed up entrance and the unexpected happens. I long blue arm reaches for the apple and disappears back in the min. 

Toward the end, the boy makes friends with the blue-skinned creature from the mine and discovers an entire community living in the cave. The explanation given on why they are so skinny and blue-skinned intrigued me as to why things are the way they are – that all things have a scientific explanation. 

I rarely read young adult books, but Pure’s cover intrigued me. That’s good because it was a fun read.

Well-developed characters and a clever setting play a large part in the book’s charm. Pure takes place after a nuclear war. There are plenty of survivors, but the radiation left behind has a secret side effect never disclosed to the public: It causes flesh to merge with objects.

For instance, the main character has a doll for a hand. Her grampa has a fan stuck in his throat. Some people are fused with the ground. A group of mothers merged with their children. Adding to this, a giant dome hosts the last “pure” humans. While Pure relies on common young adult tropes, the result feels fresh and unique.

I reread Fire regularly because I love the heroine, Fire, and her conundrum: how can she love herself when her beauty is so destructive, when it inspires such terrible behavior in the people around her? We think of beauty as an asset, sure that we would be happier, more confident, more liked if we were more beautiful, and Cashore explores the limits of beauty in this novel. She also digs deep into a very problematic father/daughter relationship as Fire deals with the lessons her father, Cansrel, taught her about how to use her beauty for power, and decides to forge her own path. Like so many of these hard family relationships, Fire must reconcile her love for her father and her hatred of what he’s become. 

A love story for the ages, set inside of a giant spaceship! Amy wakes up from cryogenic sleep only to fall for a boy she was never supposed to meet… Add in great writing, a murder mystery, and the dark vacuum of space, and you’ve got every ingredient for a timeless young adult journey. Amy + Elder forever.