Fans pick 57 books like Devil's Embrace

One of my all-time favorite stories set on the high seas with a daring sea captain and a worthy heroine. The story involves two competing shipping companies in 19th century England, and two captains (the English Earl, Captain Sutherland, and the American, Captain Lassiter). Each must win the Great Race from London to Sydney to survive.

When Lassiter is imprisoned, his daughter, Nicole, who has been raised at sea decides to enter the race for him. Nicole is attracted to the handsome Sutherland, who when he first encounters her in a dockside bar, thinks she's a whore. Circumstances make them enemies. When sabotage of her ship forces her to join him on his ship, her spirit and his wall of stone collide. The result? A fast-paced story that grabs you.

This is an enthralling tale of Queen Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs and a great love story. Few authors can come close to the masterful storytelling of Laurie McBain, which is why I am one of her fans. With an amazingly complex plot, this one features prejudice, treachery, threats to the queen, spies, gypsies, and high seas adventure making it one of her best. 

Set during the War of 1812 this is a great pirate romance. It tells the story of innocent, sheltered Merry Wilding, an American living in Virginia with her maiden aunt. Merry has a talent for drawing faces from memory, a talent her brother, an American spy will use to his benefit, exposing her to pirates and worse. On her way to England with her aunt, she is kidnapped. Taken to a pirate ship, Merry meets the English pirate, Devon, who remembers her from a night long ago. 

The writing is superb, the characters courageous, heartwarming, and very special; the descriptions vivid. The story is a wonder to read. You will be swept away on a pirate ship to experience adventures, battles at sea, storms, death, humor, and love.

Set at the dawn of the Regency era, the story begins on a British naval vessel on its way to Australia, transporting a famous prisoner—American privateer, Justin Phillips—as well as civilian passengers, including shy, 17-year old Christina Marks, in mourning for her father’s death and going to live with her uncle.

Justin and Christina share a love for books and ideas but are terribly different personalities. Were it not for the unusual circumstances in which the shy, unselfish girl speaks through a small window to a prisoner she can’t see, they never would have formed the bond they did. 

Horsman has brilliantly crafted this tale of a sheltered vicar’s daughter and a hardened man. Despite all against them, the two fall quickly and desperately in love.

An atheist doctor, a former priest with wavering faith, and a whiskey-sodden British consul in sweltering Northeastern Argentina. The Honorary Consul has all the elements of a classic Greene novel. The author in his autobiography ‘Ways of Escape’ said it was his favourite work. Over the river from the small town of Corrientes is Paraguay and the American backed dictator, General Stroessner. In a muddle up Charlie Fortnam gets kidnapped by Paraguayan rebels hoping for an exchange of prisoners; the American Ambassador was the real target. The British government isn’t eager to get involved, Charlie is a sixty-year-old ‘honorary’ consul and alcoholic. Worse still he has recently married Clara, a young prostitute – not a becoming image at all. 

Since 9/11, beginning with the slaughter of Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal by al-Qaida in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002, the kidnapping of journalists has grown to become a state-sponsored industry, mainly in the Muslim world from the Philippines to Africa, to the Middle East. Many survivors write about their kidnappings.

I especially liked Michael Scott Moore's book, in part because I know him, but more because he was held and tormented for three years in the desert by Somali pirates; yet forgives them to save himself. Moore is a German-American journalist and a surfer from California who also lives in Berlin. I loved his courage of diving, naked, from the deck of the ship he was on into the Red Sea, and swimming for freedom.

To be a kidnap victim is to live in a primal, sometimes reptilian world. I liked that he didn't hold back in telling… show more.

This was probably the first book I ever chose to read. I read books at school or for school, but I saw this being read on Jackanory (for the young ones, that was a TV programme where a book was read by a famous person over five days) and went to the library to borrow a copy. I just couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

It’s a crazy story of a house that floats off down the street during a particularly bad storm. The family has all sorts of strange adventures on the high seas. It really appealed to my sense of humour and general wackiness.

I read it to my daughter many years later and loved it even more. 

The Flower Boat Girl is a historical novel about the life of Zheng Yi Sao, the most successful pirate in history (and, yes, a woman). Sold as a child to a floating brothel, at 26 she buys her freedom, but then is kidnapped and forced to marry a pirate. From there, she uses her strength and cunning mind to carve her destiny and practically make history. I loved this book, because it gives us an honest portrayal of a pirate's life and how a woman has no place in it, yet one woman makes it against all odds.

I’ve read this book three times, which is rare for me. I have such a daunting TBR pile that I rarely reread books. But as one of the first urban fantasy stories I ever read, it holds a special place in my heart, and every time I read it, I wish there were more.

The amount of world-building Mckinley achieves in a single, stand-alone book is phenomenal. Within the first few pages, I fell in love with the world’s history, the characters, and the social conflicts present in this book. The depiction of vampires and other magical races was so well done. When the book ended, I was hungry for more, which is why I keep coming back to this exceptional read.

Early in his career, Stephen King wrote half a dozen books under the pen name “Richard Bachman,” and decades later, he revived Bachman for one last novel about a small-time crook who depends on advice from his deceased partner in crime when attempting to pull off the kidnapping of a millionaire’s baby.

It reminds me of Steinbeck, with its pairing of a hapless, brutish soul and a smarter, slicker partner who can’t save him from himself, and the windings of fate as King spins them out broke my heart.

Does a kidnapper deserve sympathy? No, but then again, yes, and the amazing thing is how powerfully Stephen King puts you in this unfortunate man’s shoes and makes you feel what he’s feeling.