Here are 100 books that I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You fans have personally recommended if you like
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You.
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People behave rationally and irrationally. Observing and thinking about human nature is the sport of my lifetime. In literature and art, I worship real wit. I thirst for the unusual, the deadpan, the acknowledging of one thing while another slips in unseen. Wit has been, for me, a shield and a tool for good. I try not to use it as a weapon because wit as a weapon often damages a wider target than one intends. I strive to endow my fictional women, my protagonists, with sharp yet understated wit that spares no one, not even themselves. Especially not themselves. The books I recommend here live up to my standards.
I love this book because it’s dark and unsettling. Wait, what? Yeah. Eleven-year-old Harriet roams her city, spying on adults and kids and writing about them in her notebook. Sounds cute, but her personality is pretty damn awful when you really look at her. And this I love. Call me perverse.
I was ten when I first met Harriet, a sneakers-and-jeans-wearing girl who doesn’t know much but wants to know more. She’s not upbeat. She does crappy things to her friends and enemies. Fascinating! I knew kids like that.
Harriet’s wit is based on calculation: If I do X, I might see Y result, and then I might learn Z.
Some readers label Harriet a sociopath. They’re missing it: She’s on a flawed mission to grow up. As was I.
First published in 1974, a title in which Harriet M. Welsch, aspiring author, keeps a secret journal in which she records her thoughts about strangers and friends alike, but when her friends find the notebook with all its revelations, Harriet becomes the victim of a hate campaign.
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
Spy stories have always captivated me. This fascination grew after I learned that throughout history, many women worked behind the scenes as key spies. How cool is that? So, I decided to write a girls' spy school set in Jane Austen's world. Junior Library Guild said this about A School for Unusual Girls, “An outstanding alternative history series entry and a must-have for teen libraries.” Scholastic licensed the series for their school book fairs. Ian Bryce, the producer of Spiderman, Transformers, Saving Private Ryan, and other blockbusters, optioned it for film. To date, more than 600,000 copies of my award-winning historical novels are in the hands of readers around the globe.
I absolutely loved this series! The heroine is a young woman struggling to survive the harsh streets of Victorian England. Caught stealing, Mary Quinn is convicted and sentenced to hang. However, the Agency rescues her from the noose and provides her with an education. In return, she trains to work as an investigative agent among the upper-class society of London. These books expose the realistic darker side of that world, but if you could handle Oliver Twist, you can handle these. Lee captured the mystery and intrigue so brilliantly I could not put them down.
A colourful, action-packed Victorian detective novel centred around the exploits of "agent" Mary Quinn.
At a young age, Mary is rescued from the gallows by a woman masquerading as a prison warden. She is taken to Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls. The school, Mary learns, is a front for a private investigation agency and, at 17, she is taken on as an agent. In her new role she is catapulted into the family home of the Thorolds to investigate the shady business dealings of Mr Thorold.
As an author and a lifelong lover of books, I read all genres. My favorites are set in fantastical worlds with unique settings. The mash-up of history and fantasy is endlessly compelling to me, and I always want to see a romantic subplot (or main plot!) in the books I read. I want a happily-ever-after even when the strange world and its villains are conspiring against the main characters.
Set in the mid-1400s in France, this series starter contains action, court intrigue, romance, and assassin nuns! I read it years ago and it remains a favorite, not only for the beautiful language, but for the strong heroine, Ismae, and her journey from following the rules and doing as she’s been told, to learning how to discern right from wrong and follow the guidance of her own moral compass. This is a book I would loveto watch as a movie, not only for the action, but the costumes.
Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others. Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high…
Steampunk has always been a fascinating genre to me, especially seeing how different creators play with historical elements. But the question that I’m always looking to answer is, “Why is this history different from our own?” What has allowed this alternate Victorian era to create fantastical technology? As I asked this question about my own steampunk books, I found great delight in how other authors have combined magic with their technology to create delightfully refreshing outcomes. I continue to search out these books as I am always surprised at their creativity and novelty.
I love the pun on “finishing” school and how both meanings are taught to the characters. There is something so satisfying about being perfectly polite with all the proper decorum and being expertly capable of deadly violence.
I appreciate that Sophronia retains her rebellious ingenuity, using unique methods to solve her problems. And, of course, the whole thing is on an airship!
It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to finishing school.
Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners-and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.
But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might…
One fateful day in 4th grade, after finishing the Chronicles of Narnia, I picked up a YA spy novel off my teacher’s bookshelf. I never went back. I was immediately drawn to the depth of the characters, the nuance of how their public persona didn’t always match their internal thoughts, and their ability to succeed when no one thought they could. Eventually, what I read became what I wrote. Now, whenever I get overwhelmed, I love to turn to the genre that helped me through High School. Whether I reread old favorites, revisit my own stories, or find new friends, these characters remind me I can do anything.
If Alex Rider introduced me to YA spy novels, Cammie Morgan solidified my love of the genre. She was a character that reminded me of myself, and I desperately wanted to attend the Gallagher Academy so I could be her friend.
As the final book in the series,United We Spy handles something that terrifies Young Adults: entering Adulthood. Somehow, reading how Cammie was able to survive the transition from child to legal adult (while defeating a terrorist organization no less), it made me believe I could survive graduating High School and beginning College.
The sixth book in the Gallagher Girls series leads Cammie and her spy school friends to another wildly entertaining mission. With new assignments to tail and capture, the final book in the globally bestselling series results in an explosive finale!
Green tracers in the sky over Baghdad. My first political memory is the start of the Gulf War in 1991. I remember writing angry essays criticizing the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 for my high-school assignments. I have always been interested in US foreign policy and in how presidents make decisions. During my PhD, as I was working on a chapter on the origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I discovered the extent and–frankly–the madness of some of the plots the CIA and the White House concocted against Fidel Castro. More recently, the US government’s use of assassination and “targeted killings” have become the focus of my research.
Spies, lies, love, coups, what more do you want? In the book we encounter Marie Mitchell, now under threat of assassination, but previously a CIA spy who had fallen in love with–and collaborated in the downfall of–Thomas Sankara.
For Marie, the transition to the CIA is a way of escaping the stifling and misogynistic FBI of the 1980s. For the CIA, a black, attractive woman is ideal to snoop in and undermine a charismatic leader. The book, told by Marie as a letter to her children, moves back and forward between her spying missions and her (self)exile in Martinique.
It is fast-paced, realistic, and able to portray the daring aspects, the bureaucratic obstacles, and the moral compromises of spying for the CIA.
I covered the FBI and CIA for years, first as a print reporter in Washington and then as the head of the NBC News investigative unit. So I have covered my fair share of spy scandals, and with my colleague Pete Williams helped NBC break the story of Robert Hanssen’s arrest. I was immediately drawn to the Ana Montes Cuba spy story when it broke and then learned that Montes had bought her condo from my close friend and college roommate, John. That meant I had spent hours inside Ana’s DC apartment, and that odd connection rooted me in her story in a deeper way.
Dan Golden is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who exposes how enemies of the United States are using our universities and graduate schools as recruitment centers for a new generation of spies.
Russian, Chinese, and of course, Cuban intelligence services are having a field day exploiting our open system to identify and turn their newest recruits (yes, our government returns the favor abroad.)
Spy Schools has an excellent chapter on Ana Montes, the Cuban agent who is the subject of my book. There’s also juicy information on the American woman who recruited Ana as a spy when they both were attending SAIS, the Johns Hopkins graduate school in Washington.
Grounded in extensive research and reporting, Spy Schools reveals how academia has emerged as a frontline in the global spy game. In a knowledge based economy, universities are repositories of valuable information and research, where brilliant minds of all nationalities mingle freely with few questions asked. Intelligence agencies have always recruited bright undergraduates but now, in an era when espionage increasingly requires specialized scientific ortechnological expertise, they"re wooing higher-level academics, not just as analysts but also for clandestine operations. Deterred by student protests and faculty hostility during the Vietnam era, the ClAand other security agencies are back - driven by…
As the father of two boys, I know how hard it can be to get kids engaged in reading. My boys were excited about mysteries and sports, which is why I created The Ballpark Mysteriesseries, in which cousins Kate and Mike solve mysteries at different MLB stadiums. By including facts and history in the books I can also engage readers who like real-life stories. For me, the best mystery and adventure chapter books for kids will meet readers where they are and take them on an exciting (and perhaps even scary or thrilling) journey while keeping them safe in their chairs and coming back for more.
A step up in reading level from some of the other books on my list, the Stuart Gibbs Spy Schoolseries gives readers looking for mystery and adventure something to sink their teeth into. Young readers will feel like secret agents as they trail Ben Ripley, a nerdy middle grade student, as he spies and sleuths his way through what turns out to be a CIA junior academy. I like the way the books move along quickly, like a Dan Brown novel, and also keep the humor flowing.
“Combines Alex Rider’s espionage skills with a huge dose of the sarcasm of Artemis Fowl.” —School Library Journal
Can an undercover nerd become a superstar agent? In the first book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben Ripley sure hopes so—and his life may depend on it!
Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he’s already pegged his dream job: CIA or bust. Unfortunately for him, his personality doesn’t exactly scream “secret agent.” In fact, Ben is so awkward, he can barely get to school and back without a mishap. Because of his innate nerdiness,…
Gabriella Lepore is a YA author from Wales in the UK. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can usually be found exploring the coastline or perusing a bookstore. She enjoys autumn days and cups of tea and is always searching for the next mystery!
Who lurks behind the ominous alias “Aces”? With its compelling narrative and prose, this book fearlessly confronts weighty topics like racism and homophobia.
It captivates with its brisk pace and emotional impact. And the ending was a twist I did not see coming.
When each of our older boys were in the midst of the college admissions process, our husbands suffered life-threatening health crises. It was such a bizarre coincidence that we both experienced intense brushes with mortality during this time of high anxiety. The juxtaposition between health and college admissions gave us a unique perspective and led us to explore the impacts of college admissions anxiety on families, friendships, students, and school communities. We had entirely plottedGirls With Bright Futuresand were nearly through the first draft when the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal broke in March 2019. We felt like the headlines had been ripped from our manuscript!
Holsinger’s debut novel was published in 2019, only a few months after the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal burst into public view, capturing the attention of a horrified nation. While The Gifted School tells the story of four friends in Colorado as their children are applying (and the parents jockeying) for admission to a middle school for gifted and talented students, the parenting mania themes are cut from the same cloth. With humor and wisdom, Holsinger deftly handles the intricacies and dynamics within and across each of the four families. The twists and turns are surprising, the characters extremely well-drawn, and readers are guaranteed to cringe as the parents in the story make one bad decision after another, suffering under—and ultimately succumbing to—the weight of their anxieties. Delicious fun!
"Wise and addictive... The Gifted School is the juiciest novel I've read in ages... a suspenseful, laugh-out-loud page-turner and an incisive inspection of privilege, race and class."--J. Courtney Sullivan in The New York Times
"The summer read that predicted the college-admissions scandal." -The Wall Street Journal
Smart and juicy, a compulsively readable novel about a previously happy group of friends and parents that is nearly destroyed by their own competitiveness when an exclusive school for gifted children opens in the community
This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children…
