Here are 63 books that Chasing Lucky fans have personally recommended if you like
Chasing Lucky.
Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Since I was a child, my imagination would run rampant with ideas and fantasies I had no idea how to channel. Then, when I was fifteen, I joined my high school’s creative writing class, and suddenly, every fantasy I’d ever concocted in my head had somewhere to develop. Sweet romance books have always fulfilled me, and I love it when, from the first page, you can feel the sparks between the main characters. They have a wholesomeness that leaves me feeling refreshed and hopeful, and I love that, for a few hundred pages, I can dive into another world and experience love through someone else’s eyes.
Sometimes I just want to read a book that is lighthearted and adventurous—no angst or tragic happenstances—and this book checked that box for me. The characters’ banter and youthful tones had me smiling frequently. This book was a great summer read, and having the plotline center around a game of Assassins made for a lot of laughs.
"The feel-good summer read of my dreams!"-Alicia, Goodreads Reviewer "Boy, did it also give me all the summer feels."-Larissa, Goodreads Reviewer "This book is bound to become a favorite of all who love contemporary romance."-Kelly, Goodreads Reviewer "If beachy contemporary romances are your jam, then trust me-you do NOT want to miss this book."-Jessica, Goodreads Reviewer Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both…
Since I was a child, my imagination would run rampant with ideas and fantasies I had no idea how to channel. Then, when I was fifteen, I joined my high school’s creative writing class, and suddenly, every fantasy I’d ever concocted in my head had somewhere to develop. Sweet romance books have always fulfilled me, and I love it when, from the first page, you can feel the sparks between the main characters. They have a wholesomeness that leaves me feeling refreshed and hopeful, and I love that, for a few hundred pages, I can dive into another world and experience love through someone else’s eyes.
I loved the immediate connection between Layken and Will in this book. They had such strong chemistry from the start—the kind where I knew something would go wrong very soon.
For me, it was a perfect combination of sweet with some light angst amidst the forbidden lovers. I also found the slam poetry angle incredibly unique and unlike anything I’ve read before.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends with Us, Colleen Hoover’s romantic, emotion-packed debut novel unforgettably captures all the magic and confusion of first love, as two young people forge an unlikely bond before discovering that fate has other plans for them.
Following the unexpected death of her father, eighteen-year-old Layken becomes the rock for both her mother and younger brother. She appears resilient and tenacious, but inside, she's losing hope. Then she meets her new neighbor Will, a handsome twenty-one-year-old whose mere presence leaves her flustered and whose passion for poetry…
Since I was a child, my imagination would run rampant with ideas and fantasies I had no idea how to channel. Then, when I was fifteen, I joined my high school’s creative writing class, and suddenly, every fantasy I’d ever concocted in my head had somewhere to develop. Sweet romance books have always fulfilled me, and I love it when, from the first page, you can feel the sparks between the main characters. They have a wholesomeness that leaves me feeling refreshed and hopeful, and I love that, for a few hundred pages, I can dive into another world and experience love through someone else’s eyes.
Watching these two characters grow up, fall apart, and then find their way back to each other was touching. I loved seeing them ascend into adulthood and grapple with feelings beyond the childhood friendship they’d been comfortable in all their lives. I also liked that, even as things were falling apart in the past, readers could see them reconciling in the future.
I thought this book was the perfect example of how messy young love can be and how, in the heat of the moment, people make mistakes that can change everything.
Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser that has felt too true for the last decade, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Since I was a child, my imagination would run rampant with ideas and fantasies I had no idea how to channel. Then, when I was fifteen, I joined my high school’s creative writing class, and suddenly, every fantasy I’d ever concocted in my head had somewhere to develop. Sweet romance books have always fulfilled me, and I love it when, from the first page, you can feel the sparks between the main characters. They have a wholesomeness that leaves me feeling refreshed and hopeful, and I love that, for a few hundred pages, I can dive into another world and experience love through someone else’s eyes.
I found this book truly inspiring. Hadley’s dedication to swimming was motivating in itself and reminded me much of when I was a teenager, locking myself in my room to write whatever story idea was on my heart that day.
I loved how this book dealt with the real challenges of youth. It was interesting how the characters unburdened themselves by facing their greatest fears. The romance was also beautifully written, and I found myself rooting for both characters on their own paths and together.
Beloved author Kasie West once again delivers a witty, lighthearted romance that will charm her legions of fans and is perfect for readers of Jenny Han and Huntley Fitzpatrick.
At sixteen, Hadley Moore knows exactly who she is—a swimmer who will earn a scholarship to college. Totally worth all the hard work, even if her aching shoulders don’t agree.
So when a guy dressed as Hollywood’s latest action hero, Heath Hall, crashes her swim meet, she isn’t amused. Instead, she’s determined to make sure he doesn’t bother her again. Only she’s not sure exactly who he is.
I love books that take you to another world, stories that show you bits of our reality while exploring another. It’s thrilling to step into a world where anything can happen, where dragons exist, where our laws of nature may not apply. But also, I love seeing the familiar in fantastical places: love, friendship, and hope. Though the characters in books may inhabit worlds made mostly out of paper, ink, and imagination, their stories are universal.
Filled with magic, prophecy, and ancient goddesses, Hunted By the Sky transports you to a world where a girl with a star-shaped birthmark seeks revenge for the murder of her parents, and a boy who is willing to do anything to save his father will soon meet. In this beautiful novel, you will find thoughtful worldbuilding and fantastical mirrors to our own reality, exploring identity, class, and love.
Gul has a star-shaped birthmark on her arm, and in her kingdom, marked girls are disappearing. Gul's mark caused her parents murder at the hands of the king's army, and forced her into hiding. When a group of rebel women rescue her to train her in warrior magic, Gul only wants one thing: revenge.
Cavas is ready to sign his life over to the king's army in exchange for money and medicine for his sick father. But when he meets Gul in the capital's bazaar, their chemistry grows, and he becomes entangled in a mission of vengeance - and discovers…
Fairy tales are some of my favorite stories: each time we touch them, we change them. Before we began writing them down, fairy tales were passed from speaker to listener, always changing with the teller, the audience, the culture. I’m fascinated by how often we revisit them, by what we change, and what we decide to keep. I think there are as many ways to tell a story as there are folks who are interested in telling it, and I like to see what authors and illustrators will cook up from our communal pot of stories.
This is a collection of short stories that mixes fairy tales and myths to create six spooky, atmospheric retellings.
A few of the short stories, like “The Witch of Duva” (which borrows from “Hansel and Gretel”) deal with some dark themes, and “When Water Sang Fire,” is a deeply tragic, sapphic work inspired by “The Little Mermaid.”
My favorite of the collection is “The Soldier Prince” which combines “The Nutcracker” and “The Velveteen Rabbit” to produce a story with a fascinating take on agency, love, and self-awareness.
It’s queer in a way I don’t think I can define; I was still thinking about that story weeks after I finished it, and I would—in a heartbeat—read a whole novel about that particular nutcracker.
Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.
Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, no. 1 New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love. Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, these tales will transport you to lands both…
I love being cozy more than just about anything – that’s why I keep writing books set in boarding schools in the fall! My books are best served with a cup of tea and a purring kitten to get you through the sad bits – which, as we all know, just make romantic endings even more satisfying.
This book is the equivalent of eating a batch of fresh chocolate chip cookies inside a drafty and most definitely haunted lighthouse on the Oregon coast as the waves crash against the shore and you pull your blanket a little tighter around you.
No one does atmosphere like Shea Earnshaw (No one, I said it) and this story of drowned girls off the Oregon coast will send a chill up your spine even as you’re reaching for your next cup of tea.
Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem Witch trials in this haunting story about three sisters on a quest for revenge - and how love may be the only thing powerful enough to stop them.
Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow...
Two centuries ago, in the small, isolated town, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return from the depths, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may…
I’m primarily a science fiction writer and reader, but mystery is my first literary love, and I was the editor-in-chief of the mystery magazine, Plan B. So, I doubly love it when a mystery story takes place in a science fictional world. In my own work, certain themes keep showing up even when I don’t intend them to because I love them as much as I love a juicy mystery: using technology to change our bodies and environments, the struggle that wealth and corporate greed create, how we can learn to understand someone who is radically different from ourselves. These five books hit all those marks for me.
This book treads ground common to books I love to read and write—vivid characters living in a world that is bisected by wealth—in a lushly atmospheric, but emotionally brutal, short read. Jewel is not a detective by trade—she is a courtesan working in one of the high-end houses. When her friend Winfield is murdered by a rich and powerful client, but mysteriously comes back to life—only different—Jewel needs answers. I loved the complex relationships between the characters and their society, and especially loved how the feeling of the world is prioritized, making the setting and its inhabitants richer.
In a far future city, where you can fall to a government cull for a single mistake, And What Can We Offer You Tonight tells the story of Jewel, established courtesan in a luxurious House. Jewel's world is shaken when her friend is murdered by a client, but somehow comes back to life. To get revenge, they will both have to confront the limits of loyalty, guilt, and justice.
I was named after my father’s aunt, who moved from Canada to Switzerland in the 1920s to join a travelling church. Family lore remembers she rode a bicycle in the mountains and when she was dying, her sisters sent her maple leaves in the mail to remind her where she started. As a child, I was fascinated by this mysterious other Katie. Why did my father choose her name for me? Would I be like her? Did I get to choose? As a novelist, I love choosing names. Their power is subtle but strong, and when a writer gives a character more than one name, new layers emerge and stories bloom.
Gentlemen and Players is a boarding house story with a dark heart. I picked this one from an aunt’s bookshelf and read it expecting something of the sweetness of Chocolat, but found a far more satisfying story, with twisting questions of identity, class, and revenge. I liked the clever split narrative, which used chess imagery, and the mystery of the Black Pawn, whose identity is deftly concealed until the close of the book. This is a surprising psychological thriller that would make a great book club pick, and I will not forget the rooftop chase nor that bonfire night.
Perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Susan Hill, Nicci French and Val McDermid, this is an astute and intelligent psychological thriller centring around obsession and rage from international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris. Fast paced with unexpected twists and turns, it will get right under the skin...
'[A] gripping psychological thriller... Harris is one of our most accomplished novelists and Gentlemen & Players, with its pace, wit and acute observation, shows her at the top of her form' -- DAILY EXPRESS '[A] delicious black comedy ... the plot is so cleverly constructed, the tension so unflagging, you'd think she'd been…
Like many people, The Lord of the Ringscaptivated me as a child. I read those books as well as The Hobbit half a dozen times before I was twelve, and a couple of times more since. What’s more, I was lucky enough to be nine when the first movie came out, which only furthered my childhood obsession. Though I’m less enthralled by the series now, the classic quest it represents still has a place in my heart. I’ve tried to reproduce the grandeur and adventure of that story in my writing, and I’ve found a good portion of it in the books I recommend below. May they take you on captivating new journeys!
Quest is in the name, and does it ever live up to it! As the culmination of The Farseer Trilogy, it does the previous books justice. The journey is arduous, full of twists and turns, and the reader feels every wound Fitz suffers. Yet as in every good quest, in the end, he achieves what he aims to do – though not in the way he expects, and at an unimaginable cost. This is Hobb at her finest, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
'Fantasy as it ought to be written' George R.R. Martin
The gripping finale to Robin Hobb's classic Farseer Trilogy.
With the king no longer living and the heir, Verity, missing and declared dead, Prince Regal has treacherously seized the throne.
Regal's torture has left Fitz more dead than alive, and more closely than ever bonded with his wolf. All who once loved him believe him dead: even Molly, now pregnant with his child. But he cannot go to her without placing her in terrible danger.
With nothing to lose, Fitz sets out for Tradeford, where Regal has withdrawn, having heartlessly…
