10 books like Keep Sweet

By Michele Dominguez Greene,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Keep Sweet. Shepherd is a community of 8,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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The 19th Wife

By David Ebershoff,

Book cover of The 19th Wife

Brenda Stanley Author Of The Treasure of Cedar Creek

From the list on escaping polygamist cults.

Who am I?

Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.

Brenda's book list on escaping polygamist cults

Discover why each book is one of Brenda's favorite books.

Why did Brenda love this book?

I love escaping into a story, and if it is historical fiction, I want it to be historically accurate. By telling the story in both the present day and in the past, I was intrigued and this kept me reading. The novel is based on the experiences of a real woman living in polygamy but tells the story of what happened then and how it affects the lives of others later. It may be fictional, but the historical accuracy made the story come to life. I could feel her angst with being part of her family, but also knowing she didn’t want this life.

The 19th Wife

By David Ebershoff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The 19th Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime.
Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and…


The Scent of Rain

By Anne Montgomery,

Book cover of The Scent of Rain

Brenda Stanley Author Of The Treasure of Cedar Creek

From the list on escaping polygamist cults.

Who am I?

Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.

Brenda's book list on escaping polygamist cults

Discover why each book is one of Brenda's favorite books.

Why did Brenda love this book?

This book was so hard for me to put down. I was caught up in the many twists and turns, and wanted to know how this young girl would escape. This story not only looks at the horrors of modern-day polygamist cults but also the challenges of the foster care system. I was swept up and cheering her on as she escaped into the treacherous terrain of the Arizona desert. With Montgomery’s vivid descriptions, I could feel the heat and the struggles these young people faced while trying to escape. This book is beautifully written and had me connected to the characters from the beginning.

The Scent of Rain

By Anne Montgomery,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Rose Madsen will do anything to keep from being married off to one of the men in her Fundamentalist Mormon (FLDS) community, even endure the continued beatings and abuse of her mother. But when her mentally handicapped baby sister is forced to strangle the bird she loves at the behest of the Prophet, Rose frees the bird and runs away. 

Adan Reyes will do anything to escape the abusive foster care system in Phoenix, even leaving his good friends and successful high school athletic career behind him. Ill-prepared for surviving the desert, Adan hits the road only to suffer heat…


Stolen Innocence

By Elissa Wall,

Book cover of Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Brenda Stanley Author Of The Treasure of Cedar Creek

From the list on escaping polygamist cults.

Who am I?

Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.

Brenda's book list on escaping polygamist cults

Discover why each book is one of Brenda's favorite books.

Why did Brenda love this book?

I found Wall’s first-hand account of what life is like inside a polygamist cult to be both revealing and tragic. The book is nonfiction but reads like a novel. I loved how the pages were full of descriptive passages that gave me an insider’s view of what these young girls are taught and must face as child brides. It helped me see that what began decades before is still happening under a cloak of secrecy. I found this book revealing and disturbing, and one I couldn’t put down.

Stolen Innocence

By Elissa Wall,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life.

In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at the age of fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's women.…


The Sound of Gravel

By Ruth Wariner,

Book cover of The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

Brian Rush McDonald Author Of The Long Surrender: A Memoir about Losing My Religion

From the list on people who left life-defining ideologies.

Who am I?

I became involved in a rigid religious movement as a teen and prepared for the ministry at a fundamentalist college and seminary. I took this ideology to its logical extreme and became a foreign missionary. I know from the inside how such an ideology takes hold of a person and how difficult it is to escape its grasp, especially when family and career are intertwined. Through my own struggle with depression and anxiety, I scoured books to help understand myself and faith development, eventually earning a Ph.D in counseling, emphasizing developmental theory. I know from personal experience what it means to walk away from a way of thinking that has defined much of your life.

Brian's book list on people who left life-defining ideologies

Discover why each book is one of Brian's favorite books.

Why did Brian love this book?

This is an amazing memoir of a woman who was raised by a fundamentalist Morman family who lived in a polygamist compound in Mexico. She was her father’s thirty-ninth child and the daughter of a union between him and her mother, who was his fifth wife. Her father died when she was only 3 months old, and she spent most of her childhood with her mother, four siblings, and an abusive stepfather. The community was a confusing combination of rigid religious beliefs, sister wives, and poverty. At age 15 she takes three of her siblings and escapes to California to build a new life. I am amazed that a child could have the understanding, foresight, and courage to do what she did. The book is very well written and thoroughly captivating. 

The Sound of Gravel

By Ruth Wariner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The Sound of Gravel is Ruth Wariner's unforgettable and deeply moving story of growing up in a polygamist Mormon doomsday community. The thirty-ninth of her father's forty-one children, Ruth is raised on a farm in the hills of Mexico, where polygamy is practiced without fear of legal persecution. There, Ruth's family lives in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity and attends a church where preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States,…


Mormon Enigma

By Linda King Newell, Valerie Tippetts Avery,

Book cover of Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith

Alex Beam Author Of American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church

From the list on Mormon history.

Who am I?

In 2012, a publisher asked me if I wanted to write a book about Joseph Smith's assassination. I leapt at the chance, in part because I was fascinated by Smith and the Latter-day Saints, and in part because I appreciated how many of the important contributions to Mormon history --- including Fawn Brodie’s famous biography of Joseph Smith, or the first honest and comprehensive account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre -- sprang from the pens of women and men with no formal academic training. By contrast, many “scholars” have disgraced themselves with prevaricating or pusillanimous accounts of the religion’s raucous and fascinating 190-year history. So jump in! Never a dull moment with the Latter-day Saints! 

Alex's book list on Mormon history

Discover why each book is one of Alex's favorite books.

Why did Alex love this book?

This is an honest book about Joseph Smith’s first, and only “real” wife, Emma, who virulently opposed polygamy and, after Joseph’s death, convinced herself that it never existed. Emma is one of the three titans of Mormon history: she, her husband, and the subject of my next pick.

Mormon Enigma

By Linda King Newell, Valerie Tippetts Avery,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Mormon Enigma is the bestselling biography of Emma Hale Smith, wife of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. It was Joseph Smith who announced that an angel of the Lord had commanded him to introduce a 'new order of marriage.' And it was Emma Hale Smith who confronted the practice of polygamy head on.

As the authors note in their introduction, "Early leaders in Utah castigated Emma from their pulpits for opposing Brigham Young and the practice of polygamy, and for lending support to the Reorganization. As these attitudes filtered down through the years, Emma was virtually written out of official…


The King of Confidence

By Miles Harvey,

Book cover of The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch

Catherine Richmond Author Of The Shelter of Each Other

From the list on communes and cults in the 19th century.

Who am I?

The Loess Hills of Iowa provide a great place to hike, with leg-stretching hills and diverse species of plants and animals, and a park with the unusual name Preparation Canyon. In 1853 a small band of Mormons built a commune called Preparation. Leader Charles Blancher Thompson kept his printing press busy, publishing over a thousand pages. Few of those pages told about those who lived there. The Shelter of Each Other is the story of the people of Preparation, brought to you by a writer whose imagination fills in blanks and connects the dots.

Catherine's book list on communes and cults in the 19th century

Discover why each book is one of Catherine's favorite books.

Why did Catherine love this book?

The mid-1800s United States was full of scoundrels, get-rich-quick schemes, and religious fervor.

James Strang was born into this milieu, was baptized into the Latter Day Saints by Joseph Smith, and claimed to be the Smith’s successor.

He located brass plates, translated them, and published them in his newspaper. He and his followers moved to an isolated island in Lake Michigan, where he was crowned king. In 1856, he was murdered.

The leader of Preparation, Charles Blancher Thompson, also grew up in this environment and joined the Mormons. Thompson followed Strang for a while. Like Strang, Thompson published revelations in his own newspaper, moved his followers to a remote location, and became postmaster. In 1858, he came close to being murdered.

The King of Confidence provided cultural context for my book.

The King of Confidence

By Miles Harvey,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The "unputdownable" (Dave Eggers, National Book award finalist) story of the most infamous American con man you've never heard of: James Strang, self-proclaimed divine king of earth, heaven, and an island in Lake Michigan, "perfect for fans of The Devil in the White City" (Kirkus)

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist for the Midland Authors Annual Literary Award
A Michigan Notable Book
A CrimeReads Best True Crime Book of the Year

"A masterpiece." —Nathaniel Philbrick 

In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer…


For Time And Eternity

By Allison Pittman,

Book cover of For Time And Eternity

Catherine Richmond Author Of The Shelter of Each Other

From the list on communes and cults in the 19th century.

Who am I?

The Loess Hills of Iowa provide a great place to hike, with leg-stretching hills and diverse species of plants and animals, and a park with the unusual name Preparation Canyon. In 1853 a small band of Mormons built a commune called Preparation. Leader Charles Blancher Thompson kept his printing press busy, publishing over a thousand pages. Few of those pages told about those who lived there. The Shelter of Each Other is the story of the people of Preparation, brought to you by a writer whose imagination fills in blanks and connects the dots.

Catherine's book list on communes and cults in the 19th century

Discover why each book is one of Catherine's favorite books.

Why did Catherine love this book?

For Time and Eternity takes place during the same time period as Preparation.

Her parents forbid any contact with the wagon train camping near their Iowa farm, so when the girl meets a charming young man from the group, she questions their edict. She runs away from home and marries.

Too late, she realizes their theology is not Christian - she's trapped in a cult. The church's requirement that its men commit adultery is only the beginning.

For Time And Eternity

By Allison Pittman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked For Time And Eternity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

All Camilla Deardon knows of the Mormons camping nearby is the songs she hears floating on the breeze. Then she meets one of them―a young man named Nathan Fox. Never did she imagine he would be so handsome, so charming, especially after Mama and Papa’s warnings to stay away. Though she knows she should obey her parents, Camilla can’t refuse her heart. But even Nathan’s promises cannot prepare her for what she will face in Utah.


Angels in America

By Tony Kushner,

Book cover of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Karen Havelin Author Of Please Read This Leaflet Carefully: Keep This Leaflet. You May Need to Read It Again.

From the list on to help you keep on living with chronic illness.

Who am I?

Like my main character, I’m a Norwegian writer with ties to the US, who grew up with various chronic illnesses. I discovered the reason for much of my trouble when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. Isolated and in pain, I have always turned to books. I craved seeing my life reflected. Since Please Read This Leaflet Carefully came out, I’ve heard from many readers. I hope that it can help people who haven’t seen themselves in art before. This list addresses the needs of a life with chronic illness and pain: guidance, darkness, humor, comfort, and poetry. I hope these books will help you as much as they did me. 

Karen's book list on to help you keep on living with chronic illness

Discover why each book is one of Karen's favorite books.

Why did Karen love this book?

Angels in America was the first place I saw a fuller depiction of life with serious illness, and it blew my mind. Prior, who has AIDS, is arguably the main character. The focus doesn’t cut away from him the second things get very bad. Instead, we stay and see him through. I believe deeply in the power of seeing one’s darkest moments honestly reflected in art. I first discovered Angels through the amazing TV series with Al Pacino and Meryl Streep and it broke my heart into a thousand pieces. When I later read the plays, I was amazed at how funny they are. The joke density is very high. The bleakness and pathos combined with incisive humor are what make these amazing works of art some of my all-time favorites. 

Angels in America

By Tony Kushner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes includes Part One, Millennium Approaches and Part Two, Perestroika

“Glorious. A monumental, subversive, altogether remarkable masterwork…Details of specific catastrophes may have changed since this Reagan-era AIDS epic won the Pulitzer and the Tony, but the real cosmic and human obsessions—power, religion, sex, responsibility, the future of the world—are as perilous, yet as falling-down funny, as ever.” –Linda Winer, Newsday

"A vast, miraculous play... provocative, witty and deeply upsetting... a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama." - Frank Rich, New York Times

"A…


Book cover of Riders of the Purple Sage

Bob Giel Author Of Shawnee: The Adventure Begins

From the list on generating interest in the Western genre.

Who am I?

I have a life-long love of Westerns. I’ve researched the period and the events extensively. One of the first things I look for in any book I read is period accuracy. The books I write are historically accurate, though they are fiction. I’m on a mission, through my writing, to save the Western genre.

Bob's book list on generating interest in the Western genre

Discover why each book is one of Bob's favorite books.

Why did Bob love this book?

This was the first Western I read when I was young. It made an impression on me, not only as a Western, but as a classic story of good and evil with sharply drawn characters that make it come alive to the reader. Grey’s writing puts the reader right in the middle of every scene. And it has an ending you don’t see coming, but one that fits perfectly.

Riders of the Purple Sage

By Zane Grey,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Riders of the Purple Sage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.


Autoboyography

By Christina Lauren,

Book cover of Autoboyography

Louise Willingham Author Of Not Quite Out

From the list on coming out.

Who am I?

Louise is a geographer and writer from Staffordshire, England, where she aims to someday own a house with a library. Until then, she is collecting books of all genres – from romantic YA to true crime – and working on improving her embroidery skills. She can often be found either yelling about queer rights or walking through the countryside sometimes both!

Louise's book list on coming out

Discover why each book is one of Louise's favorite books.

Why did Louise love this book?

Coming out once is difficult, but going back into the closet is a unique sort of challenge. Tanner and Sebastian fall in love when neither of them are exactly ready for it, and their conflicting backgrounds make it difficult for them to reach a happy medium. No spoilers, but this book presented the pain of coming out – or not better than any other I’ve read.

Autoboyography

By Christina Lauren,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Coming-of-age novel about two boys who fall in love in a writing class-one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community.

Three years ago, Tanner Scott's family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.
But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High's prestigious Seminar-where honor roll students diligently toil to draft…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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