100 books like The Beguiled

Some odd 1950s social attitudes caught me by surprise when I re-read this much-loved book from my past (what are those bruises all about?). Don’t let this put you off this wonderful story of courage and hardship as Jean Paget, an ordinary woman is swept up in the Japanese invasion of Malaya, faces terrible hardships in her group of female prisoners. Starving and sick, they are helped by an Australian, Sgt Joe Harman, also a prisoner, but his kindness results in the most terrible retribution. To say more would ruin the shock of this fabulous story, but I guarantee that Joe Harman will have your heart by the end of the book.

I found The Moon-Spiners through a Disney movie of the same name (book was better). When I found out it was also a book, I went hunting at my local library and fell in love with the way Stewart immediately pulled me into her stories, evoking awe, fear, laughter ,and romance. She wafted me away to exotic places, and into exciting and romantic adventures with strong female characters. I went on to read all her books, even the Arthurian ones, but her romantic suspense books remain my favorites and the ones I turn to when I need a comfortable visit with old fictional friends. 

Growing up, my brother and I were a pigeon pair, almost like twins. He was a sensitive boy who wore glasses and played the piano beautifully. Boarding school thumped all that out of him and forced him along a different path. The central character of this novel echoed this dynamic, drawing Brodie Moncur, the Scottish piano tuner, straight to my heart. Despite Brodie’s recurring bouts of tuberculosis and the violence of his bullying family, he gently pursues Lika Blum, a beautiful Russian singer, across 19th-century Europe. The passion and revenge meted out on this gentle soul cannot deaden his rapture for Lika. He knows that he is a man with limited time on his hands who is “trapped in a maddening cycle of strange unhappiness.”

Set amid the final days of the Second World Way in an abandoned Italian village, it tells the story of Hana, a nurse tending to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, the anonymous Englishman is something of a mystery. But with the help of a copy of Herodotus' The Histories, which the airman had on his person when rescued, Hana begins to piece together his life.

I felt the writing twists from moments of great beauty and clarity to whole sections that are almost impenetrable in their poetic depth. Switches of narrative viewpoint make the reader work hard at times, but it’s well worth the effort for this poignant tale that remains with you long after you have read the last page.

Elsie Silver was a new-to-me author in 2021 and I’m hooked! A Photo Finish is actually book 2 in the series, but they are interconnected stand-alones. In this book, the female main character is a horse jockey. She’s strong, capable, and determined. The male main character is a veteran with secrets of his own and he is delicious and broody and really, really needs a hug. Those two have a secret, salacious past and it was so fun to see them clash and come together for an amazing, feel-good romance.

Lindsay Buroker is probably my favorite fantasy author, her books are full of fun, quirky characters who even have me reading genres I don’t normally read. In this book, Colonel Ridgewalker Zirkander, a cocky war hero pilot in a world where magic is hated and feared, meets Sardelle Terushan, a sorceress from an earlier era who was preserved in a stasis chamber. Along with her snarky sentient sword Jaxi, Sardell must help Ridge fend off an attack while hiding her magical ability. An ability that would have everyone wanting to kill her. This is the first book of a series featuring adventures of Ridge, Sardell, Jaxi, and Ridge’s squadron of young goofy pilots.

Anything―and I mean anything―by Mariana Zapata is an outstanding slow-burn read. Every book gives you not only a gorgeously written HEA but also laugh-out-loud humor, incredible secondary characters, and stories you’ll physically miss when you’re done. Dear Aaron is a unique read that starts with letters and ends with a heat you’ll feel in your bones.

A person needs self-knowledge before loving another. That’s true for the hero and heroine of A World Such As Heaven Intended, an American Civil War novel by Amanda Lauer. They meet briefly at the start of the book. Both realize their lives have been changed by the encounter, even though the heroine is loyal to the Confederacy and the hero to the Union. The hero and heroine then are separated. That allowed me to follow each one’s journey as they navigated life in a war-torn country. The tension caused by different loyalties remains strong when they reunite. But they’re thrown into a life-and-death situation that made me wonder if they’d find their happy ending! This novel is first in the Heaven Intended series.

There is never enough alternate history. Particularly alternate history that doesn’t focus either on the Nazis winning World War II or the South winning the American Civil War. Thankfully we have Egalia’s Daughters, yet another forward-thinking novel from the seventies. Set in a world where gender norms are swapped around entirely, its male characters wear special testicle bras and adorn their beards with flowers (I do like that last part). Of course, this woman-dominated world is no less homophobic than our own, and as part of their gender rebellion, the men form relationships with one another, in various configurations. It’s a delightful read, with its gender reversals a mirror reflection of our own society.

As both a writer and a reader, I fell in love with this book (well, as a writer, I was also wildly jealous of how easy Cole makes it look, but that’s another story) because she takes a fraught subject—interracial romance during the Civil War—and managed to create a spy romance that I simply could not put down until I turned the last page.

Often with spy novels, there’s an emphasis on heroism, but what I appreciated about this book was how the emphasis was on Elle doing heroic things all in the pursuit of wanting to live a quiet, boring life with the man she loves (Malcolm).

It's a great series, and I’m hoping Cole goes back to tell the story of Malcolm’s sister.