Here are 97 books that Something Blue fans have personally recommended if you like
Something Blue.
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I have always been drawn to the ocean. When I decided to start writing novels, I knew that I wanted to set them in coastal locations. I live in the Boston suburbs and spend time whenever I can at the beach. I have written books centered in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Cape Cod. I am working on a story set on the north shore of Massachusetts. I am a high school social studies teacher of twenty-four years and a parent of two teenagers. All of my writing includes cooking and the enjoyment of good food as a major focus. I hope my books make you hungry!
Although not coastal, this book’s Palm Springs setting is full of swimming pools and a feeling of escape to somewhere new. I laughed, I cried, and I adored the dynamic between Patrick and his adorable niece and nephew.
Secondary characters, such as the three neighbors and other family members, added depth and emotion to the story. I seriously read this book in 24 hours!
National Bestseller • Wall Street Journal Bestseller • USA Today Bestseller An NPR Book of the Year Semi-finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor Finalist for the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards
From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer.
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out…
I’m a novelist who was first a reader. For me, books are windows, showing the world through lenses I haven’t experienced before. In difficult moments, they’ve been lifelines, proof that I’m not alone and happy endings (at least happier) are possible. What “feels good” in a book is a quality unique to each reader. Below are stories about imperfect characters who not only survive their pasts but succeed—in unwinding from the wounds, changing aspects of themselves that no longer fit who they choose to be now, and ultimately creating happier lives. That kind of success feels great to me. I hope it might for you, too.
Malibu Rising was the first book I read by Taylor Jenkins Reid. As soon as I finished, I read three more of her novels. All of them made me feel great. Hers are stories you can lose yourself in and come out feeling refreshed and optimistic.
Malibu Rising centers around the adult Riva siblings, children whose parents stopped parenting long before the kids were equipped to care for themselves. Particularly impacted is Nina, the oldest, who has spent her life making choices that prioritize the well-being of everyone except herself.
This is a book about dealing with old wounds, the kind that hide under the surface of successful lives. It’s a story that takes us on multiple journeys of self-discovery and healing. For me, a book doesn’t get more “feel good” than that.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • From the author of Carrie Soto Is Back, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo . . .
“Irresistible . . . High drama at the beach, starring four sexy, surfing siblings and their deadbeat, famous-crooner dad.”—People
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Time, Marie Claire, PopSugar, Parade, Teen Vogue, Self, She Reads
Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours,…
I’ve been an avid reader since childhood. I read almost all genres, but my favorite type of book has always been the kind that you associate with a beach bag and a lazy day of reading in the sun (and maybe even a beverage nearby with a tiny umbrella). I love books that provide a realistic escape, where I can lose myself in the descriptions of picturesque scenery and flawed but lovable characters. Not surprisingly, these are also the types of books I’ve chosen to write. I want to give readers the same joy of sitting back on a chaise lounge with a piña colada (perhaps metaphorically) and disappearing into the fictional world I’ve created.
The Blue Bistrois one of Hilderbrand’s earlier books, and like almost all of her work, it is set on the island of Nantucket. I thoroughly enjoy reading all of Hilderbrand’s novels because of the incredible imagery she uses to describe the settings. I feel like I know the beaches, restaurants, hotels, and streets of Nantucket from reading her books almost better than I could from vacationing there. The Blue Bistrois especially compelling because it is set in a unique upscale restaurant and weaves distressing personal drama with mouthwatering menu descriptions. If you like good food and good gossip, you’ll love The Blue Bistro.
Elin Hilderbrand, author of the enchanting Summer People and The Beach Club, invites you to experience the perfect getaway with her sparkling novel, The Blue Bistro.
Adrienne Dealey has spent the past six years working for hotels in exotic resort towns. This summer she has decided to make Nantucket home. Left flat broke by her ex-boyfriend, she is desperate to earn some fast money. When the desirable Thatcher Smith, owner of Nantucket's hottest restaurant, is the only one to offer her a job, she wonders if she can get by with no restaurant experience. Thatcher gives Adrienne a crash course…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I’ve been an avid reader since childhood. I read almost all genres, but my favorite type of book has always been the kind that you associate with a beach bag and a lazy day of reading in the sun (and maybe even a beverage nearby with a tiny umbrella). I love books that provide a realistic escape, where I can lose myself in the descriptions of picturesque scenery and flawed but lovable characters. Not surprisingly, these are also the types of books I’ve chosen to write. I want to give readers the same joy of sitting back on a chaise lounge with a piña colada (perhaps metaphorically) and disappearing into the fictional world I’ve created.
The two main characters in Who Do You Love stayed with me long after I read this book, and I’ve found them popping into my thoughts again and again over the years – a sure sign of well-written characters. It’s the story of two people who come in and out of each other’s lives and how their love changes and evolves over time. Full of joy, heartbreak, hope, and loss, this love story will draw you in and stick with you.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner delivers "a tale of love against the odds" (People).
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are just eight years old when they meet one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenial heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she's intrigued by the boy who shows up alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy's taken back to a doctor and Rachel's sent back to her bed, they think they'll never see each other again.
I’m a lecturer in medical humanities at the University of Leeds in England and I’m currently writing a book about the portrayal of traumatic pregnancy in fantastic literature (science fiction, horror, fantasy…). ‘Medical humanities’ is a field of study that looks at medical issues using the tools of the humanities, so it encompasses things like history of medicine, bioethics, and (my specialty) literature and medicine. Thinking about literature through the lens of traumatic pregnancy has led me to some fascinating, gory, and philosophical books, some of which I’m including on this list.
In this book, Doris Lessing tells the story of the Lovatts, a perfectly normal middle-class English family with four children and a seemingly idyllic life. The idyll is spoiled when the wife, Harriet, becomes pregnant with her fifth child.
The novel tells the story of the child's (Ben’s) life until he is in his teenage years, but the early scenes that describe Harriet’s difficult pregnancy and her foreboding that something is deeply wrong with her unborn child are the ones that I find particularly sinister.
Here, Lessing shows how pregnancy can be an experience that wreaks unpredictable consequences on the smooth functioning of life.
Doris Lessing's contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society's unwillingness to recognize its own brutality.Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an idyll of domestic bliss in defiance of the social trends of late 1960s England. While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their old-fashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby. Gruesomely goblin-like in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong and violent, Ben has nothing innocent or infant-like about him. As he grows older and more…
Like many women my age, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the possibly discordant relationship between the things I love doing—writing, reading, spending time in solitude with stories and ideas—and the expectation of motherhood. For many of us, the prospect of parenthood can feel less like a choice than a cultural imperative, and it can be difficult to reconcile brain and body, self and society. The novels on this list feature razor-sharp, highly educated female protagonists who experience, recall, or imagine pregnancy and motherhood in complicated ways. Their minds and bodies are sometimes in sync, sometimes painfully at odds, but always fascinating to behold.
This 1965 novel by English author Margaret Drabble follows protagonist and PhD student Rosamund as she becomes a single mother.
Educated, upper-middle-class Rosamund narrates with a quintessentially British and—for me—highly enjoyable blend of primness and humor. Fascinatingly and somewhat frustratingly, Rosamund keeps her pregnancy a secret from her daughter Octavia’s father, even after Octavia is born. She’s like a strange English Virgin Mary who studies Elizabethan sonnets and really doesn’t want to “put anyone out”.
Her story also offers an interesting glimpse into class issues in 1960s London and the way that experiences of pregnancy and motherhood can both transcend and accentuate class divisions.
A celebration of the drama and intensity of the mother-child relationship, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.
It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show of independence, and becomes pregnant as a result of a one night stand. Although single parenthood is still not socially acceptable, she chooses to have the baby rather than to seek an illegal abortion, and finds her life transformed by motherhood.
'Rosamund is marvellous, a true Drabble heroine . .…
Return to Hope Creek is a second-chance rural romance set in Australia.
Stella Simpson's career and engagement are over. She returns to the rural community of Hope Creek to heal, unaware her high school and college sweetheart, Mitchell Scott, has also moved back to town to do some healing of…
I'm a shameless people-watcher. There's nothing I like better than sitting in a cafe, or an airport, or on a bus, and observing the people I see (and yes, I admit, eavesdropping on their conversations). What are they wearing and what does it say about them? Who are they with, and what's their relationship? What are they saying to each other - and what are they not saying? So it's not surprising the most important element of a book for me is the characters, and my favourite characters are women who are a little bit different, who don't fit the mould - because you just never know what they'll do.
In late 1950s London, Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, resigned to being given the soft 'women's interest' stories at work, and going home each evening to her crochety, demanding mother.
I worked as a journalist in the 1980s, and even then, the women on the team were often patronised and the men kept the good stories for themselves, so I could absolutely empathise with Jean.
She's far from your classic heroine yet Clare Chambers writes her so beautifully: thoroughly fed up with her lot, yet managing to keep a wry sense of humour and find small moments of pleasure in life.
As a peculiar work assignment led her to a chance at happiness, I was on the edge of my seat, hoping for a happy ending.
'A very fine book... It's witty and sharp and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche' David Nicholls
'Perfect' India Knight
'Beautiful' Jessie Burton
'Wonderful' Richard Osman
'Miraculous' Tracy Chevalier
'A wonderful novel. I loved it' Nina Stibbe
'Effortless to read, but every sentence lingers in the mind' Lissa Evans
'This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I honestly don't want you to be without it' Lucy Mangan
I’ve been completing Dry Januarys (and other sober months) since 2017! In turn, I’ve felt more energized, more positive, have experienced better sleep and better skin, among other benefits. I think giving up alcohol for any amount of time is beneficial and I encourage people to try it.
Unlike many non-alcoholic recipe books, this one's for women who are trying to conceive, are already pregnant or are breastfeeding, or individuals who are looking for a little bit more nutrition in their sips. This collection of more than 40 nutritious mocktail recipes are unique and the book also includes tips for sustainable mixology
Selected as one of Food Network's "Best Healthy Cookbooks of 2019" and as a "favorite must-read" by The Bump, Drinking for Two is the perfect gift for pregnant women, the health conscious new mom, or any woman just trying to stay healthy! This book features 45+ delicious, plant-based mocktail recipes carefully crafted to deliver essential nutrients and antioxidants, and target common pregnancy symptoms, all leading to a healthy pregnancy.
With recipes for flat, bubbly, apres-dinner, and warm comfort drinks, registered dietitians Diana Licalzi and Kerry Criss carefully developed and tested each mocktail to include whole foods and all-natural sweeteners. Quick-to-prepare…
Throughout my teen years, I heard the narrative that mothers are powerless doormats who should be doing something better with their lives. But in time, I realized motherhood is a position of profound power. And I knew that the prevailing messaging on motherhood needed to change! As an author, speaker, and policy advisor for an NGO at the United Nations, I have spent the past 10 years inspiring women to embrace their potential—including their irreplaceable roles as mothers. I have a degree in English, but my finest education came from raising my four college-age daughters and my one young son. Mothers are miraculous!
This book ripped my heart to pieces and somehow put it back together better than it was before. It profoundly changed my outlook on motherhood and freedom and showed me how those two things are intimately connected.
This true story of one woman, her husband, and their unthinkable life in China is riveting, chilling, hopeful, and tender. I cried, and then I cried some more. Copies of this book can be difficult to find; I’m so glad I found one.
Social scientist and China expert Mosher relates the story of Chi An, a former population-control worker in China, whose own second pregnancy became the catalyst for her fight to stay in the U.S. "A searing and candid look at a place where the state brutally intrudes into the most intimate parts of a woman's life."--Kirkus Reviews.
James Malloy is a ferry captain--or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a "girl" named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island’s daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored.
There is a dearth of books that span the emotional journey into motherhood. An old adage directs authors to write the book they would like to read, so I kept that in mind as I began the journey myself. Throughout my pregnancy and postpartum experience, I was often surprised by perfectly ordinary occurrences that aren’t often discussed. There is a hush cast on anything that isn’t purely nurturing and romantic, which means that mothers who encounter unpleasantness are blindsided, and consider themselves aberrations. I wrote my book as honestly as possible to normalize the normal and to offer myself as a compatriot to those mothers.
This book delves into the science of pregnancy, but through a feminist lens. Through extensive research, Garbes details just how the female body creates life, a sometimes grisly and often wonderous process, as well as pans across our culture, with all its pitfalls, to explain just why women deserve better support through medical care and social nets.
A candid, feminist, and personal deep dive into the science and culture of pregnancy and motherhood
Like most first-time mothers, Angela Garbes was filled with questions when she became pregnant. What exactly is a placenta and how does it function? How does a body go into labor? Why is breast best? Is wine totally off-limits? But as she soon discovered, it’s not easy to find satisfying answers. Your obstetrician will cautiously quote statistics; online sources will scare you with conflicting and often inaccurate data; and even the most trusted books will offer information with a heavy dose of judgment. To…
