100 books like Maggie Moves On

Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Inheritance Games reads like a YA contemporary version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and we were bewitched.

This book combines so many story elements we love: a mysterious invitation, found family, secrets, and a scrappy, inventive heroine. The setting, the Hawthorne House, is its own character, too, chock full of traps, tunnels, codes, and puzzles to crack. Barnes also balances her mystery beautifully with a romantic subplot—a mix we strove for in our book.

I’ll admit that I picked up Tessa Bailey’s books strictly because of the reader raves all over TikTok. I read her It Happened One Summer first, and then immediately put Hook, Line, and Sinker on my wish list and I have to say, I loved the second book even more than the first, and that was a high bar to beat.

A riches-to-rags story about two sisters forced to move from their luxurious lives in LA to a much more sparce existence in a small fishing village populated with sexy crab fishermen, it’s part Schitt’s Creek and part Deadliest Catch—a testament to the fact this toe-tingling romance was conceived and written during the pandemic when the author was admittedly binging both shows on TV.

The hero, who is a really big ‘dill’ (see what I did there? LOL) is the heir to a deli dynasty famous for their pickles. The heroine is an overworked deli manager tested by her new employee (who she doesn’t realize is actually the big boss undercover). It’s a comedy of errors punctuated by steamy moments. Don’t think too hard about it. Big Pickle is a pure escapist romp.

This is the book, and the fictional small town, that first inspired me to write my own small town Rom Com series and I have never looked back.

A hot firefighter who has a comically ill-behaved racoon as his pet, the small town of Happy Cat centered around the town’s sex-toy factory, and a heroine confounded by both the factory and the town as she struggles to save them both—with the help of the hot fireman, of course. Laugh-out-loud moments, steamy moments, tender moments, and more dildos than any book should contain—Hosed is what a feel-good romance should be.

My sister recommended this book to me, and I’ve recommended it multiple times since. More than once, I’ve read the prologue out loud to another person and couldn’t keep from crying. Just from the prologue, people. I’m tellin’ ya. Anyway, Kate accompanies her grandmother to renovate her childhood home with the assistance of a bunch of geriatric busybodies and one hunky hockey player. Matt quit playing hockey to take care of his wife when she was diagnosed with cancer, then when she died, he gave up on everything he loved. Kate is a social worker who wants to help him find healing, but she never expects it to break her heart in the process. 

The title says it all!

A woman on the run from the mafia relocates to a new town and faces both danger and (very steamy) romance. She’s the kind of spunky, quippy protagonist that I love, though she’d probably come across as a bit too much in real life. The book shines when she’s settling into the community and managing her new teaching job alongside an assortment of side characters who each have their little moments to shine. While the hero is the strong and silent type, he matches her energy perfectly.

This book is equal parts exciting and romantic. It’s probably the most re-readable book on this list and definitely the steamiest.

Before I Called You Mine truly brought me through the gamut of emotions with a plot that pitted the main character’s two deepest desires against each other: becoming an adoptive mother and true love.

As a mom who has adopted twice, my heart thrummed in time with Lauren’s as she pursued her passion of adopting, only to come up against an obstacle she never expected. This journey of the heart was so relatable and heartfelt, I couldn’t help but walk it with the characters. And wow! What characters.

A novel about tough choices and how following God’s path brings the sweetest rewards in the end. This is a lesson I’ve learned repeatedly in my own life. How encouraging for this book to remind me. 

I first fell in love with Emily Ruskovich’s short fiction, and this novel, which takes place near a fictionalized version of Mt. Hoodoo, captures the same uncanniness of the ordinary that first drew me to her work.

She captures the landscape’s strange darkness and stark beauty in such detail that I actually dreamt about it. And if you’re obsessed with memory like I am, you’ll be drawn to the way she exposes the shakiness of what we remember as “truth.” 

This fun regency story pits a nobleman in dire financial straights against the female merchant who buys his late mother's home. He plans to woo her into marriage to get his house back. Too bad she despises entitled lords. A hilarious battle of wills takes place with practical jokes, a fictitious menagerie, and boxing lessons that morph into an unconventional courtship ritual. I love smart heroines, and Sally Duncan uses her wits to great effect to keep Lord Farnsworth guessing and the reader giggling.

Frances lives in the Victorian Era in London, but in her hometown of New York, it’s the Gilded Age. This is her background in all its glittering and horrifying glory. 

Crime novels fit quite naturally in this era. I love a loathsome villain and Rosemary Simpson serves up some of the worst in her Gilded Age series. She uses actual events, like the great blizzard of 1888, as catalysts for some heinous crimes. If you needed to dispose of a body, what better place than a snowdrift? 

Prudence MacKenzie, the dead man’s fiancé and our sleuth, doesn’t seem to realize the danger she’s in. I spent the entire read on the edge of my seat wondering if she’d make it to the end of the book alive. This is historical noir in elegant Gilded Age style.