Fans pick 27 books like Freeze My Margarita

By Lauren Henderson,

Here are 27 books that Freeze My Margarita fans have personally recommended if you like Freeze My Margarita. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Ruddy Gore

Kim Fleet Author Of Paternoster

From my list on feisty female crime fighters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison. 

Kim's book list on feisty female crime fighters

Kim Fleet Why did Kim love this book?

I lived in Australia for several years and loved visiting historic buildings with their wrap-around verandas, pressed-tin high ceilings, and old-world grandeur. Greenwood’s books, set in 1920s Melbourne, remind me of those buildings. Her heroine, investigator Phryne Fisher, epitomizes 1920s glamour.

She’s wealthy, educated, sexy, and self-assured, and conducts her investigations in a dazzling array of sumptuous outfits. But what I like most about Phryne is her ability to talk to anyone, whether that’s the grandest society hostess or the roughest docker.

In this book, she’s investigating a series of murders in a theatre and also finds herself drawn to Melbourne’s Chinese community. She moves easily between worlds, often kind, always shrewd, never flinching.

By Kerry Greenwood,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Ruddy Gore as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Ruddy Gore, the next historical mystery featuring the unstoppable, elegant amateur sleuth. Can Miss Fisher use her theater ties to take care of a phantasm haunting a Gilbert and Sullivan show?

"The appeal of this story is the glimpse it provides into the 1920s theater world and the opportunity it affords to observe Phryne and Lin Chung's romance from its inception."―Booklist

Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Movie Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears Currently Streaming on Acorn…


Book cover of Indemnity Only

Kim Fleet Author Of Paternoster

From my list on feisty female crime fighters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison. 

Kim's book list on feisty female crime fighters

Kim Fleet Why did Kim love this book?

I love the character of VI Warshawski: tough, brave, capable, and utterly loyal to her friends. VI (as she is known) is the archetypal ‘tart noir’–a female investigator in the mold of the hardboiled noir detectives but with empathy, vulnerability, and great style. VI can pack a punch, handle a gun, and is tenacious to the point of stubbornness, often at great personal risk, yet we also see her moments of self-doubt, her humanity, and her compassion towards others.

I couldn’t put this book down.

By Sara Paretsky,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Indemnity Only as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V.I. Warshawski he's the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son's missing girlfriend. But V.I. soon discovers the real John Thayer's son - and he's dead.

As V.I. begins to question her mysterious client's motives, she sinks deeper into Chicago's darker side: a world of gangsters, insurance fraud and contract killings. And while she must concentrate on saving the life of someone she has never met, it becomes clear that she is in danger of losing her own.


Book cover of X

Kim Fleet Author Of Paternoster

From my list on feisty female crime fighters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison. 

Kim's book list on feisty female crime fighters

Kim Fleet Why did Kim love this book?

I love the character of Kinsey Millhone because she’s so human and relatable. Her life is messy; she gets herself caught up in situations where she knows she ought to let things drop but just can’t let them go, and she has a kind heart. She also has the endearing quality of being self-deprecating and not taking herself too seriously.

This book is set in the 1980s, and I enjoy seeing Kinsey’s legwork to solve her case without the benefit of mobile phones or the internet. I also love her relationship with her elderly neighbor and how protective she is of him when she feels that new people in the neighborhood are taking advantage of him.

By Sue Grafton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked X as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

X is the New York Times number 1 bestseller and thrilling, twenty-fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series from Sue Grafton.

In hindsight, I marvel at how clueless I was . . . What I ask myself even now is whether I should have picked up the truth any faster than I did, which is to say not fast enough . . .

When a glamorous red head wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption thirty-two years ago, it seems like an easy two hundred bucks for private investigator Kinsey Millhone. But when a cop tells…


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Book cover of Through Any Window

Through Any Window By Deb Richardson-Moore,

Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.

Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriff’s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. As…

Book cover of Clean Break

Kim Fleet Author Of Paternoster

From my list on feisty female crime fighters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison. 

Kim's book list on feisty female crime fighters

Kim Fleet Why did Kim love this book?

Although I love a good murder story, I also enjoy fiction about other sorts of crime.

In this book, Manchester-based private investigator Kate Brannigan has two cases to solve: a series of art thefts and a case of industrial sabotage that leads to two murders that seem at first glance to be unconnected. Kate is determined to solve the case, even if it involves using unorthodox methods to do so. 

I love her range of skills, from Thai boxing to going undercover to staking out a suspect. I find Kate a very likable character: funny, sarcastic, conflicted about her love life, and with a backing group of friends she genuinely cares for.

By Val McDermid,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Clean Break as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The fourth riveting thriller in the Kate Brannigan series, from No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Val McDermid.

'The Queen of Crime is still at the top of her game' Independent

When a Monet is stolen from a stately home, Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan goes head to head with organized crime as she hunts the thieves through Europe.

Meanwhile, someone is leaving a trail of bodies across the Northwest. As Kate confronts some harsh truths in her own life, the case stretches her love and loyalty to its limits.


Book cover of The Alphabet Man

David David Katzman Author Of A Greater Monster

From my list on shattering the conventions of what a novel can be.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a writer, artist, and actor throughout my life, I’ve explored and enjoyed many artistic forms. While I appreciate books across many genres, I elevate to the highest level those works that manage to break conventional boundaries and create something original. In my own work, I have always challenged myself to create something unique with a medium that has never been done before. At the same time, I have sought to discover a process and resulting work that inspires readers’ own creativity and challenges them to expand their imagination. 

David's book list on shattering the conventions of what a novel can be

David David Katzman Why did David love this book?

Grossman achieves something remarkable in The Alphabet Man. The work manages to weave together visual, avant-garde graphic design, literary poetry, and a suspenseful thrilling plot. The book itself is gorgeous to look at it, and the text layout is designed as a work of art. Grossman seamlessly blends these disparate elements into a unified, unique creation that breaks the boundaries of what a novel can be. 

By Richard Grossman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Alphabet Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"America loves a murder, and I am a murderous American," observes Clyde Wayne Franklin, who is considered by many to be the foremost poet in America. No ordinary killer, he is equal parts writer, obsessive lover, alcoholic, moralist, ex-con, clown, and butcher. The Alphabet Man is the story of his ruthless search for carnal love and spiritual redemption as he moves through the underworld of Washington, D.C., a sadistic landscape peopled by drug dealers, prostitutes, and assassins-for-hire. Part thriller, part psychological and linguistic masterpiece, Grossman's explosive fiction convinces us that if there is a pure poetry in the modern world,…


Book cover of Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium

Mareike Jenner Author Of Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

From my list on contemporary television.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.

Mareike's book list on contemporary television

Mareike Jenner Why did Mareike love this book?

This is a short book in which Newman explores the changes in what the term ‘video’ means.

The term is closely intertwined with the history of television, describing first television broadcasts and then how taping was used to bridge the time differences between the American east and west coasts. The term then described the ways home video revolutionized how video was used in the private sphere. Today, we receive videos as the digital snippets we see on YouTube or the short clips we post on social media. 

I like Newman’s work in general. But this book tells us so much about TV history in the US; I find it an incredibly fascinating work.

By Michael Z. Newman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Video Revolutions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Since the days of early television, video has been an indispensable part of culture, society, and moving-image media industries. Over the decades, it has been an avant-garde artistic medium, a high-tech consumer gadget, a format for watching movies at home, a force for democracy, and the ultimate, ubiquitous means of documenting reality. In the twenty-first century, video is the name we give all kinds of moving images. We know it as an adaptable medium that bridges analog and digital, amateur and professional, broadcasting and recording, television and cinema, art and commercial culture, and old media and new digital networks. In…


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Book cover of Lethal Legacy

Lethal Legacy By H.R. Kemp,

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…

Book cover of XX

Jon Crabb Author Of Graven Images: The Art of the Woodcut

From my list on for any uber-hip, hard to impress bookworms.

Why am I passionate about this?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with cultural curiosities, extraordinary eccentrics, secret societies, decadent dandies, rebels, devils, and anything weird and wonderful. I parlayed a love of Word and Image into a career in the arts and worked for places including Tate, Thames & Hudson and the British Library. But to be honest with you, that was just a ruse so I could spend more time delving through interesting books and prints. Some people see the world a little differently; I think we all benefit by spending a bit of time in the company of their art. "It's the Ones Who've Cracked That the Light Shines Through."

Jon's book list on for any uber-hip, hard to impress bookworms

Jon Crabb Why did Jon love this book?

A hugely ambitious mix of text and graphic design, in which typography is used in bold and disarming ways. It is also a genuinely compelling sci-fi novel about very, very, big ideas. Filled with meta-narratives, in-jokes, artistic references, and mixed media, it’s an interesting alternative to that other oft-cited cult classic House of Leaves. As someone who has worked as both designer and editor, I was blown away by Hughes’s ability to combine a good story with such avant-garde design. The themes communicated will give you much to contemplate – or ramble on about to any friends you successfully corner. A staggering achievement destined to be a future cult classic.

By Rian Hughes,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked XX as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A boundary pushing, extremely inventive sci-? epic of ?rst contact by world-renowned graphic designer and comics creator Rian Hughes

When a signal of extraterrestrial origin is intercepted by one of Earth s most powerful radio satellites, people worldwide, including a small team of tech outsiders at a software engineering ?rm specializing in arti?cial intelligence, race to interpret the message carried by what could be the ?rst communication from an intergalactic civilization. Has humanity made ?rst contact? Is the signal itself an alien life-form? A threat? If so, how will the people of Earth respond?

Supplemented by redacted NASA reports, magazine…


Book cover of Cinema by Other Means

Nicky Hamlyn Author Of Film Art Phenomena

From my list on artists’ film and video.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an artist-filmmaker, writer, and Professor of Experimental Film at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury, Kent, UK. I have worked at the London Filmmakers’ Co-op and BBC TV. I have been making films since 1974 and teaching since 1988. I have published extensively on Artists’ Film / Experimental Cinema. I have edited and contributed chapters to numerous other books and journals, including Millennium Film Journal, MIRAJ, Film Quarterly, Sequence, and others. I have completed over 70 single screen works in 16mm and video, gallery film and video installations, and multi-projector film performances. These have been screened worldwide.

Nicky's book list on artists’ film and video

Nicky Hamlyn Why did Nicky love this book?

While written from a Yugoslav perspective, this book is a fascinating study of films made using unconventional methods, materials, and equipment, including ‘written films’: films that exist as texts and that would be impossible to make as films. Levi draws on the historical and the post-war avant-garde; Dada, Surrealism, Lettrisme, Structural-Materialist film, and other movements that constitute a material and ideological rejection of conventional cinema and the way it treats the medium as a mere means to an end. In these works, produced in Japan, Europe, and the USA, the technology is turned on itself, interrogated, and repurposed to anti-illusionistic ends.

By Pavle Levi,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cinema by Other Means as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cinema by Other Means explores an extraordinary history, stretching from the 1910s to the present: it is a study of various avant-garde endeavors to practice the cinema by using the tools, the materials, the technology, and the techniques, which either modify or are entirely different from those associated with the standard film apparatus. Using examples from both the historical and the post-war avant-garde-Dada, Surrealism, Letterism,
"structural-materialist" film, and more-the book tells the tale of the multiple conditions of cinema; of a range of peculiar and imaginative ways in which filmmakers, artists, and writers have pondered and created, performed and transformed,…


Book cover of Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age

Nicky Hamlyn Author Of Film Art Phenomena

From my list on artists’ film and video.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an artist-filmmaker, writer, and Professor of Experimental Film at the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury, Kent, UK. I have worked at the London Filmmakers’ Co-op and BBC TV. I have been making films since 1974 and teaching since 1988. I have published extensively on Artists’ Film / Experimental Cinema. I have edited and contributed chapters to numerous other books and journals, including Millennium Film Journal, MIRAJ, Film Quarterly, Sequence, and others. I have completed over 70 single screen works in 16mm and video, gallery film and video installations, and multi-projector film performances. These have been screened worldwide.

Nicky's book list on artists’ film and video

Nicky Hamlyn Why did Nicky love this book?

LeGrice was a founder of the London Filmmakers’ Co-op in 1968 and has worked ever since as a film and video maker, teacher, and writer. His book collects a large number of theoretical and critical essays on a range of topics, from film as material to the way films variously position the spectator as a consumer and/or self-conscious critic, to comparisons between film and digital media, in aesthetic, technological, and ecological terms. The essays are always approachable, even when he is discussing more abstract theoretical problems. Many examples are discussed.

By Malcolm Le Grice,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Michael Le Grice, a pioneer of "structural film" in the 1970s and whose first video and computer works were exhibited in the late 1960s, provides a collection of his most notable essays. The essays shed light on the work of other artists and film-makers and documents a period, especially the 70s, when artists' film was at the centre of polemical debate about the nature of avant-garde and the future of radical or experimental film. The book contributes to the contemporary debates about film, video, art and new technology.


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Book cover of Death on a Shetland Longship: The Shetland Sailing Mysteries

Death on a Shetland Longship By Marsali Taylor,

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…

Book cover of The Moustache

Jeffrey Baumgartner Author Of The Insane Journey

From my list on delightfully absurd works of fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've benefited from (or perhaps been cursed by) a diverse life. I've lived and worked in six countries on three continents. I've been an English teacher, copywriter, magazine columnist, internet entrepreneur (in Bangkok, of all places), author, and creativity consultant. But before that, I was a child with an overactive imagination. I delighted in science fiction, surrealism, and humor. Outlandish ideas inspire me. And I love absurdity when done well. It is easy to come up with nonsense. Creating meaningful nonsense is far more difficult. But when it works, it is brilliant!

Jeffrey's book list on delightfully absurd works of fiction

Jeffrey Baumgartner Why did Jeffrey love this book?

I love the sheer simplicity of this novel's theme and the chaos a simple act can wreck. The novel begins with the main character deciding to shave off the mustache he has had for more than a decade while his wife is out. When she returns, she says nothing about the missing mustache. When he brings it up, she denies he has ever had a mustache. Likewise, friends and colleagues say the main character never had a moustache. 

Things get worse from there. The novel raises questions about identity, trust, and memory.

By Emmanuel Carrere, Lanie Goodman (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Moustache as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ADVERSARY

One morning, a man shaves off his long-worn moustache, hoping to amuse his wife and friends. But when nobody notices, or pretends not to have noticed, what started out as a simple trick turns to terror. As doubt and denial bristle, and every aspect of his life threatens to topple into madness - a disturbing solution comes into view, taking us on a dramatic flight across the world.

Translated by Lanie Goodman

Elegant, pocket-sized paperbacks, VINTAGE Editions celebrate the audacity and ambition of the written word, transporting readers to wherever in the world…


Book cover of Ruddy Gore
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Interested in avant garde, surrealism, and graphic design?

Avant Garde 26 books
Surrealism 110 books
Graphic Design 14 books