Here are 68 books that Family Secrets fans have personally recommended if you like
Family Secrets.
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I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
This book had me laughing out loud in the first chapter and several times thereafter. The female lead is a CIA assassin in hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, where she meets two older woman, Gertie and Ida Bell, who the town has dubbed the “Geritol Mafia” and who were in Viet Nam together.
The author creates characters—and relationships between those characters—that stayed in my mind long after reading the book. Again, I eagerly wait for each new release in the series so I can be part of Fortune, Gertie, and Ida Bell’s adventures.
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever-in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out…
I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
Not only did I, as the reader, get a great mystery to solve, but the main character is a baker who owns her own shop, The Cookie Jar, so there are a ton of delightful recipes included! I enjoyed the family dynamics in Fluke’s books between Hannah, her two sisters, and her mother.
The romantic dynamic between Hannah and the two love interests was intriguing. It’s also set in Minnesota, where I’m originally from, so I could perfectly picture the setting and feel the cold in winter.
First in the New York Times-bestselling mystery series: “A cleverly plotted cozy full of appealing characters and delicious cookie recipes.”—Publishers Weekly
Take one amateur sleuth. Mix in some eccentric Minnesota locals. Add a generous dollop of crackling suspense, and you've got the recipe for this mystery series featuring Hannah Swensen, the red-haired, cookie-baking heroine whose gingersnaps are almost as tart as her comments and whose penchant for solving crime is definitely stirring things up.
While dodging her mother’s attempts to marry her off, Hannah runs The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden’s most popular bakery. But after Ron LaSalle, the beloved deliveryman…
I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
Cozy mysteries tend to have an amateur sleuth with a day job who lives in a small town. Not only is the protagonist everything I love in a character—flawed, relatable, and hysterically funny—but I found her day job a refreshing change from other cozies I’ve read.
Not only is she a female tow truck driver in a male-dominated profession, but she’s also a girly girl who does the job in high heels. I also loved that it was clear the author thoroughly researched the profession, making it highly believable. After reading the first, I eagerly awaited new releases in the series. I’m hooked!
Super-feminine and confirmed shoe-a-holic Delaney Morran receives an unexpected inheritance--the keys to a tow truck from a dad she's never known. Even though she hasn't changed a tire, or even driven any kind of a truck, she's determined to make the rough and dangerous business a success. When she hauls a vehicle with the body of her jerk-of-an ex hidden in the trunk, the small-town cops in Spruce Ridge, Colorado do not believe this a coincidence. They have her in their headlights as the prime suspect. When the news hits, her business stalls. As a woman trying to make a…
It’s Seb’s last day working in Turkey, but his friend Oz has been cursed. Superstition turns to terror as the effects of the ancient malediction spill over, and the lives of Oz and his family hang in the balance. Can Seb find the answers to remove the hex before it’s…
I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
This book isn’t typically what I read, but I am so glad I did! Rather than a traditional mystery where the threat is typically from a person, the threat here is from nature, secrets, and the perils of being alone in a remote lighthouse for months, especially since the last caretaker disappeared years ago.
It’s a psychological thriller set in Alaska with an independent, oh-so-brave female lead, and I found myself cheering her on as she conquered the dangers and her fears. I truly enjoyed every page of this book.
Hitchhiking her way through Alaska, a young woman named Anna is picked up by Kyle, a fisherman. Anna and Kyle quickly fall for each other, as they are both adventurous, fiercely independent, and in love with the raw beauty and solitude of Alaska. To cement their relationship, they agree to become caretakers of a remote lighthouse perched on a small rock in the middle of a deep channela place that has been uninhabited since the last caretaker mysteriously disappeared two decades ago. What seems the perfect adventure for these two quickly unravels, as closely-held secrets pull them apart, and the…
In the ‘60s, everyone was reading—or claiming to have read—Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I faked reading it, to appear cool. The idea of a road trip, though—characters running away, running toward, or often both—and the self-discovery that ensues—was so intriguing, I made it the heart of the novel I first drafted decades ago. I wrote about a middle-aged woman who flees her life to find a lost love and her lost youth, then put the manuscript away. For 30 years. When I retired from my social work career, I pulled it from the closet, revised it, and became an author at 74.
When this astonishing debut novel about a complicated mother-daughter relationship came out, I wondered if the author had met my mother. Because Adele August believes there’s nothing for her in her small Wisconsin town, she sets off for Los Angeles with her twelve-year-old daughter and a dream—Ann will be a child star; Adele will make a wealthy marriage; they’ll live the lives they were meant to. Simpson’s writing is gorgeous: “My mother and I should have both been girls who stayed out on the porch a little longer than the rest… who strained to hear the long-distance trucks on the highway... girls who looked at the sky and wanted to go away… but who finally sighed, and calling the dog with a mixture of reluctance and relief, shut the door and went home.” Reality can’t live up to Adele’s delusions; mother-child roles are often reversed; but love underlies this tangled…
A national bestseller—adapted into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon—Anywhere But Here is the heart-rending tale of a mother and daughter. A moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer, the novel follows the two women as they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions. A brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation, Anywhere But Here is a story about the things we do for love, and a powerful study of familial bonds.
Author Greil Marcus’ phrase “the old, weird America” gave me exactly the right words for something I’ve always felt: that there is a specific weirdness to the American landscape, an uncontrollable current of strange that runs beneath the carefully cultivated surface of heroes and neighbors and shared, stable dreams. Of course, as William Faulkner observed, the past isn’t past, and America is as weird as it’s ever been. Maybe weirder. Look at the news. Look out your window. No surprise, then, that I’m drawn to such a perspective when I read other people’s stories, and seldom get completely away from it when I write my own.
A stunning assembly of archival photographs and newspaper clippings from Jackson County, Wisconsin, in the last decade and a half of the 19th century, and the definitive explanation of why nobody in old-time photographs is ever smiling—and, I choose to believe, the real reason the parts of The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas were filmed in black and white. Economic privation, unceasing bereavement, disease both physical and mental—in other words, Tuesday. Was there any joy in Jackson County? Somewhere, I’m sure. What’s documented here is a stark, powerful beauty. The most real book I’ve ever encountered, and one of two on face-out display on my bookshelves.
This book is about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910. Against these are juxtaposed excerpts from the Badger State Banner, from the Mendota State (asylum) Record Book, and occasionally quotations from the writings of Hamlin Garland and Glenway Wescott.
Buried Secrets. A web of deceit, betrayal, and danger. Can she survive her fight for justice and truth? Laura thought she knew everything about her late husband before he died. Now, her life and the lives of those she loves are in danger. As Laura delves into his previous role…
I am the mother of six and a voracious journaler. I am also a novelist. Though I’ve found that the facts of family adventures are often more fascinating than fiction. I bring in-the-moment observations as well as decade-seasoned insights to the world of family life. I also love reading about other families with all their quirks and joys.
Caddie Woodlawn is a kindred spirit with her love of adventure, boisterous friendship with her brothers, and her dislike of the constraints of “lady-like” expectations. Her parents give her freedom and responsibilities, both of which help her grow into a young woman—not of fashion, but of character. I love the interactions between the siblings and between the parents and children. They are real, with frustrations and forgiveness, love and laughter.
Twenty-one years ago, I moved off the grid. As a city-dweller who didn't even go camping, I'd never considered myself a country woman, but I felt called to the woods. I wanted to learn practical skills like how to split wood and bake bread, and I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint. Now, because of our lifestyle, we don't run microwaves, toasters, or dishwashers, and it’s been 20 years since I’ve had a clothes dryer. Living this way has changed me. My relationship with the environment has evolved over the years, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about the different ways experiences in nature can help us humans to grow.
I love how this book starts—a young mother escaping her seemingly perfect life in the middle of the night, wearing a nightgown with infant in tow. Rachel Clayborne drives through the night to her grandmother’s lake house in northern Wisconsin, where we learn all the ways that being reasonable has led her to a miserable life.
Hassinger is particularly skilled at describing those intimate moments between a nursing mother and her young, and her protagonist, Rachael, is achingly aware of what she gave up to gain this wonderful experience of motherhood. One of my favorite scenes between Rachel and her first love, Joe, culminates with him telling her, “Did it ever occur to you that you can’t always get what you want? Even if you know what that is?” I love a story that grapples with that.
Undone by motherhood, judged by her husband, thirty-two-year-old Rachel Clayborne flees with her baby in the middle of the night for the one place on earth that's been her refuge: her grandmother's lakehouse in northern Wisconsin. Hoping to reconnect with a former, healthier self, she instead faces a confused and dying grandmother, her ever-present nurse who seems bent on thwarting each of Rachel's desires, and a changed ex-boyfriend-her first and most passionate love. As a constant rain threatens the nearby dam, Rachel struggles to discern what's happened to the past, who she's become, and what kind of a life she…
Conflict and disagreement have always interested me. I was a middle child, so I naturally fell into the role of peacemaker. But I also had strong opinions, and I always thought I knew the right answer. The pursuit of education, love, and a career brought me to rural Montana, an Asian metropolis, and everywhere in between. These experiences deepened my fascination regarding how people could have such different beliefs, and how we are to live together despite those differences. A PhD in Science and Technology Studies, supervised by a political scientist, sent me on the path to diagnosing what ails American democracy, and what the cure might be.
Before Trump, there was Scott Walker. The controversial former governor of Wisconsin, Walker waged war against the state’s unionized public employees and universities.
I tell everyone I know to read this book, because it is an honest and incisive portrayal of why rural people vote for politicians like Walker and Trump. Too often leftists seem to want to unfairly dismiss all rural conservatives as hopelessly ignorant, racist, or even worse. The Politics of Rural Resentment’s humanizing portrayal helped me to better understand the motivations of people who don’t live in urban centers.
If we are to bridge the divides in this country, it will be only by following Cramer’s lead.
Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
From an early age I have been drawn to dark themes in stories. I always wanted to hear the dark fairy tales when I was a kid. My mother is from Finland originally, so I was weaned on Finnish folk tales and the Finnish mythology, the Kalevala, which has very many dark stories. Being a graphic novelist myself, I tend to favor morally ambiguous, darker broken characters in my stories. Happy characters make for boring stories I believe. There needs to be conflict for there to be drama. And there needs to be drama to make interesting stories.
An amazing personal tale of someone who went to high school with, what was to become, infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. What makes it so good, in my opinion, is, that it doesn’t become sensationalist in any way. It clearly shows how a vulnerable, very disturbed child could fall through the cracks in 70’s America. It is drawn in a cartoony style, which helps to create a distance from the reader to the incredibly dark and sad subject matter. It works amazingly well as it is told from the perspective of Dahmer’s classmates. Well recommended!
My Friend Dahmer is the hauntingly original graphic novel by Derf Backderf, the award winning political cartoonist. In these pages, Backderf tries to make sense of Jeffery Dahmer, the future serial killer with whom he shared classrooms, hallways, libraries and car rides. What emerges is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young man struggling helplessly against the urges, some ghastly, bubbling up from the deep recesses of his psyche. The Dahmer recounted here, although universally regarded as an inhumane monster, is a lonely oddball who, in reality, is all too human. A shy kid sucked inexorably into madness while the…
