95 books like Parallel

By Elle O'Roark,

Here are 95 books that Parallel fans have personally recommended if you like Parallel. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Midnight Library

Ira Nayman Author Of The Dance: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction

From my list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse.

Why am I passionate about this?

I, Ira Nayman, have been writing stories set in the multiverse for almost twenty years, first with the Alternate Reality News Service set of books, then with my Transdimensional Authority/Multiverse novels and, most recently, with multiverse triptychs (the spark for The Dance). One of the things that I recently realized about my writing is that a lot of it focuses on the factors that shape our lives and make us the people we are. My ongoing fascination with the multiverse is because it is a great vehicle for exploring this idea by showing us how our lives could have turned out if circumstances or our choices had been different.

Ira's book list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse

Ira Nayman Why did Ira love this book?

There is a certain kind of literature that takes my breath away. In my experience, there is nothing more exhilarating than reading a book that you think is contemporary that veers, with the reader hardly noticing, into the speculative. I adore books that take the ordinary world and sprinkle it with magic and possibilities.

With this book, Matt Haig answers a question many of us contemplate: What if? What if I’d taken the other fork in the road? This book answers that question for one flawed, beautiful character, and I was enthralled with every page.  

By Matt Haig,

Why should I read it?

34 authors picked The Midnight Library as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon

Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year

"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."-The Washington Post

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of…


Book cover of The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Donna Norman-Carbone Author Of All That Is Sacred

From my list on soulful connections.

Why am I passionate about this?

As someone who has experienced a lot of loss in my life, I’ve done a good amount of research and exploration into the soulful nature in all of us (the living and the dead) through reading nonfiction (Laura Lynn Jackson, Brian Weiss, Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts, John Edward and Suzane Northrop among them) and fiction that deals with strong soulful connections. Through my own work as an author, I seek to provide the message love, in any form, transcends life and death. We only have to be open to the possibility to know it and experience it. Nothing is a coincidence and we are all connected. I hope these selections open you to the possibility.

Donna's book list on soulful connections

Donna Norman-Carbone Why did Donna love this book?

Mitch Albom creates a heavenly world for the main character, Eddie, who has just ascended from earth after saving someone at the carnival where he worked; thus, meeting his own tragic demise.

What strikes me most in this story are the seemingly irrelevant connections we make in life and how those connections could have a deep and lasting impact. Every single thing we do or say or the people we touch is purposeful here, and drives us, our souls, to seek grace in all that we do.

By Mitch Albom,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Five People You Meet in Heaven as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A STUNNING 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE MASTER STORYTELLER'S INSPIRATIONAL CLASSIC

To his mind, Eddie has lived an uninspiring life. Now an old man, his job is to fix rides at a seaside amusement park.

On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie's time on earth comes to an end. When a cart falls from the fairground, he rushes to save a little girl's life and tragically dies in the attempt. When Eddie awakens, he learns that the afterlife is not a destination, but a place where your existence is explained to you by five people - some of whom you knew, others…


Book cover of One Italian Summer

Tonya Penrose Author Of Venetian Rhapsody

From my list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated with time travel since I was young, and that's been a few moons. When the idea came to write books that play with time and space and cloak them in a romantic comedy, I got in my favorite writing chair to see who showed up with a story. I want to entice readers to take the journey, pondering suppose we could time travel? I think time is malleable, at least in my characters' hands. And they've done an excellent job of keeping me intrigued with their escapades in the past and present. I hope you enjoy the books I chose to recommend as much as I did. 

Tonya's book list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship

Tonya Penrose Why did Tonya love this book?

I took a bit of a side trip away from romance in selecting, One Italian Summer, though love threads through this story.

The bond between mother and daughter can never be truly severed. From that premise, One Italian Summer throws open the door for a reader to experience a time slip where it's possible to reconnect with someone who has passed.

The author adds a magical twist and manipulates time to where the character, Katy, meets her deceased mom, then a younger woman in Italy. The author gifts the reader with a beautifully told, heartfelt story. 

By Rebecca Serle,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked One Italian Summer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“[A] magical trip worth taking.” —Associated Press

“Rebecca Serle is a maestro of love in all its forms.” —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author

The New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years returns with a powerful novel about the transformational love between mothers and daughters set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast.

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse,…


Book cover of Golden Girl

Robin Jay Author Of Sunny’s Secrets

From my list on life (and death!) with an element of fantasy.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I finally accepted that I’m analytical, it was surprisingly liberating. I think that’s why I enjoy trying to figure out a story and its characters and what will happen next. Because of this, it’s delightful when a story genuinely surprises me. I especially appreciate magical elements that defy reality. I’m also a motivational speaker and filmmaker, two powerful story-telling mediums, so I love books that inspire me in some way, challenge my perspectives, and leave me thinking about them for days. When a book is so well written that I can turn off my brain and lose myself in the story, it’s a fabulous escape for me. 

Robin's book list on life (and death!) with an element of fantasy

Robin Jay Why did Robin love this book?

Ever since my mother passed away on her favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, I’ve been obsessed with how much control we might actually have in life and beyond. So, Golden Girl’s story of Vivian getting to watch her children and even make some changes after her passing was right up my alley!

I found myself identifying with her as she watched, worried, and decided when and how to alter the course of events. And who doesn’t have a few secrets they want to keep hidden? I saw what happened to my family after losing my mother and wondered what mom would say or do differently if she could have seen us and manipulated events from beyond!

By Elin Hilderbrand,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this #1 bestselling page-turner from "the queen of beach reads" (New York Magazine), a Nantucket novelist has one final summer to protect her secrets while her loved ones on earth learn to live without their golden girl.

On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of thirteen beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted…


Book cover of Your Soul's Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born

Liane Carmen Author Of When Wings Flutter

From my list on more behind the scenes in our lives than we realize.

Why am I passionate about this?

From my term paper in 11th grade on Life After Death, I’ve always been fascinated with what happens when we pass away, reincarnation, and all things unexplained. After I lost a few important people in my life, I was more compelled than ever to find answers. A trip to a medium, who mentioned the challenges we’re meant to learn and the fact that we reincarnate with the same “soul family,” sent me off to the races reading every book I could find on the topic. What I uncovered left me wanting to tell a story of my own that would leave people wondering if there’s more than we realize—before, during, and after this life.

Liane's book list on more behind the scenes in our lives than we realize

Liane Carmen Why did Liane love this book?

From my eleventh-grade term paper about life after death, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of reincarnation.

This extremely insightful book only fueled that interest. It explores the idea that our souls pre-plan the challenges in each lifetime with purpose.

This book made me look at the struggles I’ve experienced much differently. Now the question I always ask myself is, “What was I supposed to learn from that?”

By Robert Schwartz,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Your Soul's Gift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In his groundbreaking first book, Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born, Robert Schwartz brought the idea of pre-birth planning into the mainstream. Now, his compelling sequel delves even deeper. With detailed discussion and the deeply personal stories of his interviewees, Schwartz offers an incredible guide map to the soul and encourages his readers to heal at a profound level. Through complex ideas such as the development of greater self-love, an emergence from victim consciousness, and understanding the qualities you came into this lifetime to cultivate and express, Schwartz bestows practical…


Book cover of My Heart Will Find You

Tonya Penrose Author Of Venetian Rhapsody

From my list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated with time travel since I was young, and that's been a few moons. When the idea came to write books that play with time and space and cloak them in a romantic comedy, I got in my favorite writing chair to see who showed up with a story. I want to entice readers to take the journey, pondering suppose we could time travel? I think time is malleable, at least in my characters' hands. And they've done an excellent job of keeping me intrigued with their escapades in the past and present. I hope you enjoy the books I chose to recommend as much as I did. 

Tonya's book list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship

Tonya Penrose Why did Tonya love this book?

My Heart Will Find You is truly a time travel adventure romance with heart.

The characters come to life on the page as we're transported back to Kansas, where buckboards get you where you want to go, and grit is served up each day. A dream sets the story in motion and acts as the transporter of Etta to the man she loves from a past life.

Hang on. There are more twists you won't expect. Oh, and do keep the tissues next to you for the ending. 

By Jude Deveraux,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Heart Will Find You as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A mail-order bride
A lonely rancher
A portal to the past

Their love refused to stay quiet, echoing across time…

When the world is brought to a standstill in the early days of a global pandemic, Etta Wilmont finds herself suddenly stranded in Kansas City. Desperate to secure a roof over her head, Etta crosses paths with Henry Logan, a lonely older man in need of a caretaker. His invitation for Etta to stay with him seems to be the solution to both their problems—and maybe the spontaneous adventure Etta’s life has been missing.

As Etta and Henry settle into…


Book cover of Into a Cornish Wind

Tonya Penrose Author Of Venetian Rhapsody

From my list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated with time travel since I was young, and that's been a few moons. When the idea came to write books that play with time and space and cloak them in a romantic comedy, I got in my favorite writing chair to see who showed up with a story. I want to entice readers to take the journey, pondering suppose we could time travel? I think time is malleable, at least in my characters' hands. And they've done an excellent job of keeping me intrigued with their escapades in the past and present. I hope you enjoy the books I chose to recommend as much as I did. 

Tonya's book list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship

Tonya Penrose Why did Tonya love this book?

Author Kate Ryder describes Into a Cornish Wind as a romance with a "twist of otherworldliness."

That phrase set the hook for me to snag this book. Toss in character, Kat’s uncommon gift of when her paintbrush connects with a canvas, she’s capable of visioning her subject’s past, and you’ve got a story that delivers intrigue, historical interest, and a hero to love.

I enjoyed this fresh take in a time-travel love story and hope you do. 

By Kate Ryder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Into a Cornish Wind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kat Maddox has had her fair share of terrible relationships. And after discovering that her latest boyfriend has been hiding an entire other life from her, it's time for a fresh start.

Accepting a job on the Cornish coast, Kat begins a new chapter in Fowey. She is immediately drawn to the beautiful Cornish landscapes and swiftly an old feeling begins to emerge. Ever since she was young, Kat's had a 'gift' – when her paintbrush touches canvas, she's able to see the history of her subject as if by magic.

Consumed with trying to discover what this could mean,…


Book cover of Trapped in Time: A Modern-Historic Love Story

Tonya Penrose Author Of Venetian Rhapsody

From my list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated with time travel since I was young, and that's been a few moons. When the idea came to write books that play with time and space and cloak them in a romantic comedy, I got in my favorite writing chair to see who showed up with a story. I want to entice readers to take the journey, pondering suppose we could time travel? I think time is malleable, at least in my characters' hands. And they've done an excellent job of keeping me intrigued with their escapades in the past and present. I hope you enjoy the books I chose to recommend as much as I did. 

Tonya's book list on featuring a time-travel romance or relationship

Tonya Penrose Why did Tonya love this book?

Trapped in Time is the quincentennial weekend escape.

Thanks to a bump on Emma’s head, the story takes you on a time-travel excursion back to the Victorian era, where modern-day Emma suddenly finds herself. With no way back to reality, she navigates and manipulates her way into the arms of the aristocratic John to serve a secret purpose.

But as Emma confronts the struggles of women in this era, she faces critical decisions of mind and heart. This story resonated on many levels to see the hard won progress as women we’ve made and that our path continues with batons held high.

By Denise Daye,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

On the day she and her mother escaped her cruel father, Emma Washington vowed to never fall in love. 

Now, Emma is a back-to-school PhD student with bigger and better things to worry about. That is, until one night, exhausted, slightly tipsy, and on her way home from a party, the glaring white light of a car comes crashing toward her, changing her life forever. Instead of waking up in a 21st-century hospital, she finds herself waking up in the backwaters of London, Victorian England, 1881… 

Trapped in a time where everything she once knew is considered witchcraft, Emma discovers…


Book cover of A Stitch in Time

Alison Blasdell Author Of The Confederates' Physician

From my list on historic romance to wish you lived in the past.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love reading novels that take me to another time, place, or adventure (an antithesis to my 30-year career as a professor teaching physiology & pathophysiology to medical and nursing students). I read for entertainment and variety. As an author, I write books I'd like to read! Drawn to history, I've written five historical romances—a woman of courage, intellect, and compassion at the heart of each. I've authored two contemporary espionage thrillers with a woman as the protagonist. I enjoy stepping out of the bounds of empiricism in my novels, blending genres, and stretching the imagination.

Alison's book list on historic romance to wish you lived in the past

Alison Blasdell Why did Alison love this book?

I love historical fiction that adds an element of fantasy, magical realism, or time travel. I like the expansion of the mind that accompanies appreciation of these novels. (Yes, I admit that appreciation guided me in writing one of my series in the historical/romance/fantasy blended genre.) A Stitch in Time is a time travel novel of romance in which the heroine slips through time to the Victorian English countryside. She moves back and forth from the present to the past. The story is complete with a haunted manor house, ghosts, mystery, and love unbounded by time.

If my description seems banal, I apologize, for this is an intelligently crafted story. The author's sentences are beautifully written, leading the readers into the inner thoughts of the character. I just recently discovered this prolific author, and I'm a big fan!

By Kelley Armstrong,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Thorne Manor has always been haunted…and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. After a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination. Now, twenty years later Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor. And when she returns, William is waiting. William Thorne is no longer the boy she remembers. He’s a difficult and tempestuous man, his own life marred by tragedy and a scandal that…


Book cover of Voyager

Anne M. Beggs Author Of Archer's Grace: Book One, Dahlquin Series

From my list on adventure romances in historical fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first spoken word was “wishy” for horsey, yes, I was born with the horse gene. My medieval fetish is nearly as deep, starting at five years old when my aunt took me to see Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. As a kid, I lived my fantasies through drawing and painting, with stories always playing in my head. When the voices became too strong, I turned to writing. I have researched the Middle Ages into and beyond middle age, dragging my family from castle to cathedral. My husband and I live on and run a boarding ranch with nearly fifty horses. We no longer travel to Europe, but we ride and shoot. Thus, the research continues.    

Anne's book list on adventure romances in historical fiction

Anne M. Beggs Why did Anne love this book?

This is the third in the Outlander series and was quite serendipitously the first of her books my husband and I listened to. He checked out the audio cassette version from the library and brought it on a kids-free trip to Maui…Maui, no kids, a hot-date-night book every day and night. This third book stands alone and has enough backstory to bring the listener/reader up to speed on this adventure/romance across time and distance even without reading Outlander or Dragonfly in Amber (which we did as soon as we got home). Living history through the lens of Jamie Frazier in 1740s Scotland and the Caribbean, and the dual time perspective of Claire, a 1940s time traveler is a riveting ride, again with characters that cause me to laugh, cry and, of course, bleed out. Ms. Gabaldon is also a gracious woman with her time and inspiration at writer’s conferences and…

By Diana Gabaldon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING OUTLANDER SERIES, NOW A HIT TV SHOW

Jamie Fraser is lying on the battlefield of Culloden, where he rises wounded, to face execution or imprisonment. Either prospect pales beside the pain of loss - his wife is gone. Forever.

But sometimes forever is shorter than one thinks. In 1746, Claire Fraser made a perilous journey through time, leaving her young husband to die at Culloden, in order to protect their unborn child. In 1968, Claire has just been struck through the heart, discovering that Jamie Fraser didn't die in battle.

But where is Jamie…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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