Here are 92 books that The Better Sister fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am on a self-discovery journey, and each day, I discover more of why I am here on earth. The books I mentioned all have themes related to the human condition. I write to express what I understand. I love writing about characters and their journeys. I love all animals, and dogs are a great comfort. I’d like to see animal abuse come to an end in my lifetime. I write about people who have fallen from great heights and how saving animals and others in need saves them. We need to love more.
This book is about defending justice, using a legal system to fight something you know is wrong, and sticking to what is right at all costs. It is about knowing what’s right and what’s wrong.
My main character, too—Miss Pink sticks to what is right at all costs. This touching, powerful story shows the worst of people and the best.
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
In my years on the crime beat, I often met good people who did bad things and criminals with good intentions and good hearts. We tend to draw a line between good and evil, putting ourselves on the good side. From that perspective, we sit in judgment, believing we are incapable of evil because it’s “over there.” Inaccessible. Unfathomable. But that line is fictional. We redraw it constantly to feel good about ourselves and avoid empathizing with the worst of human nature. What I love about these five novels is that they expose that truth. The twists remind me that even my own line is blurred and ever-shifting.
This book is on my list of all-time favorites. I read it more than a decade ago, but I still can’t get the ending out of my head. The book is intriguing and fast-paced, and I found the characters so relatable–normal, middle-class people, much like my own family.
Maybe that is why the ending hit me so hard. I didn’t see it coming, but I should have. Maybe I didn’t want to believe it could happen or even consider the possibility. Who would? What a twist. All the evidence is there. The motive is there. It is the only ending that makes sense. It’s perfect.
If your son was on trial for murder, what would you do?
Andy Barber's job is to put killers behind bars. And when a boy from his son Jacob's school is found stabbed to death, Andy is doubly determined to find and prosecute the perpetrator.
Until a crucial piece of evidence turns up linking Jacob to the murder. And suddenly Andy and his wife find their son accused of being a cold-blooded killer.
In the face of every parent's worst nightmare, they will do anything to defend their child. Because, deep down, they know him better than anyone.
I’m a Romanian American author who arrived in the US with a job in software development. In more than twenty years as an immigrant, I’ve struggled with the same problems these novels explore: how to build a home in a new land, away from my family; how to fit in or make my peace with not belonging; how to be the parent of American-born children whose culture is different from my native one. I’m familiar with the US immigration system from my yearslong citizenship application, and I also interviewed an immigration lawyer extensively for my thriller.
In this gripping courtroom drama, an explosion in Miracle Creek, Virginia, destroys the business of South Korean immigrants Pak and Young Yoo and puts their daughter Mary into a monthslong coma. As arguments mount against the woman accused of starting the fire, Young struggles with a question many immigrants must face. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought her child to the US, where Mary struggles as a teenager and where she was almost killed. The tension between the two generations resonated with me as a parent and immigrant. As Young hopes to discover who caused the explosion that killed two other people, she must also help Mary imagine a future in their adoptive country.
'That wonderful, brilliant sort of book you want to shove at people as soon as you've finished so they can experience it for themselves' Erin Morgenstern
A thrilling debut novel for fans of Liane Moriarty and Celeste Ng about how far we'll go to protect our families - and our deepest secrets.
In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine - a pressurised oxygen chamber that patients enter for "dives", used as an alternative therapy for conditions including autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two…
A twisty psychological thriller about beautiful, successful Leonie who has just met Markus, the man of her dreams. But Leonie has a secret. Ten years ago, she was involved in an accident in which another driver died. Leonie shouldn’t have been behind the wheel that night – so she fled…
Before W. Somerset Maugham became the most popular writer in the world, he spent five years as a doctor in a London hospital. He says it was perfect training to be a novelist: he learned everything about human behavior from his patients. I’ve been a criminal lawyer for more than 33 years, and every day, someone tells me a story I could never dream up. I meet my clients at the point of crisis and work with them through shock, anger, depression, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. It’s the same for my characters, who are as alive to me and my readers as anyone in my life.
I always wanted to be a writer, but after university and a year of traveling and trying to write a book, I went to law school. A fish out of water there, all I did was criminal law. To me, this novel was a beacon. Turow was a criminal lawyer and a novelist—I could do the same one day.
I loved everything about the book, from the first line to the complex and ambiguous ending. In my first novel, I ended it in the same way. One of the wonderful things about being a published author is meeting writers whose books I’ve read and loved. When I met Turow, we mostly talked about baseball: Cubs versus Blue Jays. (Writers I’ve learned don’t like to talk about writing with each other). What was unspoken but clear was my admiration and thanks for his inspiration.
Rusty Sabich is a prosecuting lawyer in Chicago who enters a nightmare world when Carolyn, a beautiful attorney with whom he has been having an affair, is found raped and strangled. He stands accused of the crime.
This 'insider' book by a Chicago lawyer was one of the great novels of the 1980s, selling more than nine million copies, and was made into a famous film starring Harrison Ford. It's a supremely suspenseful and compelling courtroom drama about ambition, weakness, hypocrisy and American justice.
I'm an author of more than twenty Christian fiction books. I write true romantic suspense with equal parts engaging romance and thrilling suspense. My debut novel was a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest, and many of my subsequent titles have reached bestseller status. I engage with readers through my blog, which is recognized as a top 25 Christian fiction blog on Feedspot, and my Facebook group, "Heartbeats and Hideaways."
I loved this book by Colleen Coble for its romance, suspense, and mystery blend. The unique storyline immediately drew me in, with the heroine’s repressed memories unraveling upon her return to the scene of her childhood trauma.
The twists and turns in this gripping thriller kept me guessing. The female lead is relatable, and the love interest adds something special to the story. The subplot about the injured orca was an endearing addition to the novel.
In this USA TODAY bestselling romantic suspense, Claire's visit to a luxury hotel in Maine awakens repressed memories that undermine all she holds dear.
In 1989, Claire Dellamare disappeared from her own fourth birthday party at the Hotel Tourmaline on the island of Folly Shoals, Maine. She showed up a year later at the same hotel, with a note pinned to her dress but no explanation. Nobody knows where Claire spent that year-and until now, Claire didn't even know she had ever been missing.
But when Claire returns to the Hotel Tourmaline for a business meeting with her CEO father,…
I’ve always been fascinated by people’s motives whether that be in real life or written on the page. That’s what drew me to write in the thriller genre to begin with because at the core, it's about finding out why people do things. But sometimes this genre portrays female characters as either innocent damsels or evil femme fatales, neither of which captures that women are a mix of good and bad like all other people. That’s why I try to write my female protagonists in my novels, short stories, and fictional podcasts, in a way that makes them conflicted humans and causes them to experience both downfalls and triumphs.
This novel is exactly what I look for in a thriller.
It’s fast-paced, filled with twists, and full of complex female characters.
The Howell Family is forced to move from California to Brooklyn for the husband’s job. Wife and mother, Nora is tasked with setting up their new home and getting her two teen daughters settled into their new schools.
However, she discovers their new Brownstone was the site of a grisly murder of an entire family in the 1990s. Soon one of the daughters notices someone stalking her and their house causing the family to fear the killer has returned.
But Nora isn’t the helpless stay-at-home mother everyone thinks she is as she goes through great lengths including hiding a dark past to keep her family safe.
One of Bibliofile's Most Anticipated Mystery/Thriller Books!
“Great psychological suspense with a wallop of a twist.” —Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author
New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub makes her trade paperback debut with a fast-paced thriller in the vein of Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs and Megan Collins’ The Winter Sister. Here, a family making a fresh start moves into a house which was the site of an unsolved triple homicide—and are watched by an unknown person...
The watcher sees who you are...and knows what you did.
I’ve loved romance stories for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, we’d make the long drive to visit my grandma, and I would always sneak into her room, perusing the Harlequin romance books she was never without. As I grew older, I turned to novels with love stories to escape the hard times in my life. If I could rely on anything, it was that I would get a happy ending when I delved into those pages. When I began writing my own books, that feeling was what I became most passionate about giving to my readers. An escape from the everyday. The promise of a happy ending.
Maybe I need to travel? Again I have a book here that has you practically swooning over the setting.
The Channel Islands sound…wonderful, and I loved the charming descriptions. This book asks if you can fall for someone before you meet them. Is there such a thing as fate?
Or is love hiding where we least expect it? I really enjoyed that the love interest isn’t typical of a romance novel. Yay for realistic heroes!
From the New York Times bestselling author of This Time Next Year comes a heartwarming and hilarious tale that asks: What if you picked up the wrong suitcase and fell head over heels for its mystery owner?
Hopeless romantic and lifestyle reporter Laura’s business trip to the Channel Islands isn’t off to a great start. After an embarrassing encounter with the most attractive man she’s ever seen in real life, she arrives at her hotel and realizes she’s grabbed the wrong suitcase from the airport. Her only consolation is its irresistible contents, each of which intrigues her more and more.…
From the moment I started reading those ‘create your own story’ books as a child, I’ve loved a story with a different ending, or at least the possibility of a different ending because I like to be taken by surprise. Having spent years as a magazine journalist interviewing people about their lives, I knew I wanted to write stories about people, because people are fascinating and surprising. My fascination with people and time travel also probably explains why my debut novel, Before You Go, had both of those elements in them – and when I find a book that bends convention a little – or a lot – I’ll shout about it from the rooftops!
This has such a clever premise – a man who can’t let himself get close to anyone because every time he does, he dreams about how they’re going to die and when.
And then he meets Callie, and he does everything he can not to fall in love with her... except he can’t help himself. And then he dreams about her death...
THE RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 'Unique and breathtaking and painful and broken and perfect . . . just like love' Jodi Picoult 'Exquisitely written, incredibly moving and impossible to put down' Beth O'Leary, author of The Flatshare ___________
Joel is afraid of the future. Since he was a child he's been haunted by dreams about the people he loves. Visions of what's going to happen - the good and the bad. And the only way to prevent them is to never let anyone close to him again.
Callie can't let go of the past. Since her best friend…
I have a passion for telling the stories of women who've been sidelined by history, fascinating and significant leading ladies who made a meaningful mark, even though their names are now less well-known than many of the men of their time. The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post is my ninth book. I’ve written two children’s books, one nonfiction memoir, and six historical fiction novels, but this one feels particularly exciting and personal to me because I fell in love with the historical material, the time periods covered, and the subject herself, while researching and writing this novel. Post’s life is not taught in history classes, but should be, because she certainly makes history fun.
This story of a Cuban-American family sweeps the reader from Havana to Florida, from the years of Fidel Castro’s Revolution into the present-day immigrant experience. Historical fiction is a gift to readers in that it puts us squarely into history’s most tumultuous and dramatic moments, and that is exactly what Cleeton has done with this beautiful and transportive novel of the Perez family.
A HELLO SUNSHINE x REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
“A beautiful novel that's full of forbidden passions, family secrets and a lot of courage and sacrifice.”—Reese Witherspoon
After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity—and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution...
Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest—until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
As an immigrant in the United States, I have been fascinated by the dynamics between races and cultures—both in the country and globally. As I travel extensively (63 countries so far), I experience some of the biases firsthand—sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I have come to realize that despite the difference in the color of our skin—and the clothes we wear—we are more alike than different.
I loved the book because of my deep interest in its theme: the radicalization of Muslim youth in Europe. It’s a convincing account of a young Londoner getting drawn to ISIS, which upends a family already mired in tragedy.
The key characters shine in their own narrative, and their respective truths speak to me. I also loved that the writer gives us a snapshot of the lives of the ISIS recruits living in Syria.
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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE
A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDAND AND NEW YORK TIMES
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'The book for our times' - Judges of the Women's Prize
'Elegant and evocative ... A powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world' - Guardian
'Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century' - New York Times
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Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of…
