85 books like Bone Crier's Moon

This book can be described in one word: Fun. From a ship crewed by female pirates to a quest for treasure, it has all the witty dialogue and adventure to match the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but instead features a fierce, female captain named Alosa who has mad skills and a way of looking at the world that will make you laugh out loud and cheer her on. 

This is the first in a duology, so it’s also not too much of a commitment to read, unlike some longer series. Both books are equally fast-paced and enjoyable. If you’re like me, you’ll be ready to grab your pirate hat and strap on your sword by the end of this book.

Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for retellings, as you may have noticed since this book is the second retelling to make my list.

This book retells the 12 Dancing Princesses, exploring the family’s curse more in-depth. That means it’s filled with gothic settings, plenty of tragedy, and the requisite family secrets. It’s the perfect spooky story to keep you up all night (because you won’t be able to put it down).

This is one of the hottest books I have read, involving a prince of Hell and a witch bent on vengeance. I lived for the scenes when they were together. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife—it was so good—as they worked together to find her sister’s killer.

This book is charming, charming, charming. Did I mention that it’s charming? But it’s not all sweetness and light. I love books that weave together beauty and danger, and dazzle me with imagery that paints vivid pictures in my head. The prose is extraordinary, full of deception, danger, romance and glamour, hard choices, and sinister forces. The fair folk are exquisitely described, but beneath their perfect exteriors, they are opportunists, decaying, hollow, and cruel. The writing is quite beautiful, the plot and characters entrancing. I wish this was a series because I had a serious book hangover upon closing the last page.

Our whole family loves this book about an Indigenous child’s smoking ceremony. As a white settler-colonial family in Australia we are keen to read and learn from Indigenous authors and the publisher, Magabala press, are outstanding in the quality of the books they publish. The simple yet effective computer-created artwork gives an intimate insight into the importance of the first lesson of law, connecting to Country, which leads to great conversations and reflection. The inclusion of Indigenous words within the story adds to the depth of sharing with the audience and allows the voices of the women to be heard beyond those who usually attend such an important rite of passage. A real treasure. I wish it came as a board book as our copy has had to be taped together many times!

Among the proliferation of contemporary self-help books, Myths, Rites and Symbols elucidated what I consider to be a 'missing link’. As Eliade described ancient and indigenous initiatory rites of passage I discovered there are specific stages of transformative growth after the shock of betrayal. Initiation ceremonies often begin with isolation and separation—an existential crisis designed to train a novice (and the reader) to confront symbolic death and embrace the unpredictable vicissitudes of life’s ordeals as spiritual tests. The process awakens self-discovery and inner wisdom, which inspires a spiritual rebirth, renewed creativity, and a purpose-driven return to life.

Eliade planted a seed in my imagination: reframe separation as a ‘sacred separation’—and use the shock of betrayal (and its many ordeals) as part of a grand, personal ceremony of initiation.

In every story in this heart-rending collection, the protagonists—all of them Indigenous people—are dealing with some of the most challenging circumstances that can be imagined: the tragic deaths of loved ones, the trials of trying to rebuild one’s life post-incarceration, and the fallout from substance abuse, to name just some of the difficulties the stories address. At the same time, most of the protagonists exhibit some form of resilience in response to these challenges, and I was deeply moved by the variety of this resilience, by the characters’ determination, and by Johnston’s insights into their experiences. I also love the ways in which the stories are connected by place: All of them unfold in Oklahoma, and Johnston brings their settings to life.

What I love most about this journal-type workbook is how practical and easy to digest it is. The book doesn’t give specific advice but provides prompts and worksheets for couples to focus on the most frequent topics of concern for new parents so they can plan ahead for how to manage them. The book poses thought-provoking questions for partners to learn more about their own and each other’s experiences, values, and hopes and discover where both their challenges and strengths may be. Couples can pick it up, open it to any page, and have conversation prompts as well as an action item that can help them to move forward. I can imagine couples revisiting these conversations again and again over time to see how they’ve progressed and where any sticking points might still need to be worked through.

Best for: expecting couples or those who are thinking about having a… show more.

There are hundreds of good books on Goddess spirituality. This one presents a heart-centered approach that blends beautiful color plates of historical Goddess art and artifacts from around the world with an accessible explication of each Goddess’s mythology and cultural significance—as well as Hallie Iglehart Austen’s invitation to join her in a brief guided mediation for each Goddess. Her stated goal is that readers might “come into balance, reclaiming the lost feminine deep within ourselves and sharing that wisdom and power with the world.” Here’s the opening to a preface entitled “A Millennial’s Initiation”: “Every book is a teacher, yet some books reveal truths that flow into your deepest roots and stay with you forever. Reading The Heart of the Goddess was, truly, a rite of passage for me.” 

When I first read this book, I could hear Roberta Flack’s famous song “Killing Me Softly” playing in my head.

I felt as if the author had peered into my own heart and articulated everything I felt about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest work, The Great Gatsby. Corrigan covers an enormous amount of territory—everything from her personal reflections on the novel to how it didn’t sell well at first to how it gained in popularity as GIs read it during WWII as part of a free books program designed just for them up to the four film iterations of the tale.

Along the way, though, she explores why Gatsby still moves so many readers and why it’s considered The Great American Novel.