100 books like The Ladies of Missalonghi

No writer evokes atmosphere better than Daphne Du Maurier. Whilst some of her other works are better known and possess more gravitas, Frenchman’s Creek, set largely around the Helford River, captures the essence of this beautiful corner of Britain perfectly. Add to that Du Maurier’s ability to transport us back to Restoration England without it feeling like a history lesson, so we can identify with the characters despite them living hundreds of years ago, and you get a great read. There is a small tinge of the supernatural in Frenchman’s Creek, and an interesting love story, but it is the atmospheric prose and fast-paced plot that makes it stand out (both provided some inspiration for the sequel to my book which is set in the same location).

I literally could not stop crying through this entire book. When this novel first begins, we find Kenna Rowan has just been released from jail. She is alone, penniless, and scared with all the cards stacked against her, and she is on a mission to find her daughter. Despite the mystery surrounding the incident that causes Kenna’s incarceration, you are instantly drawn into this character’s vulnerability and sheer force of will and determination. She is at once utterly alone on an island while also strong and brave like a warrior, ready to face the demons in her past in order to find a path back to the daughter that was taken from her. I love all of Colleen Hoover’s novels, but this one shredded me. I couldn’t put it down, had to find out what happened, had to know that Kenna was safe, understood, and vindicated.   

I came across this novel after I started following the author on Instagram. It was my first time dabbling in magical realism, and I found myself instantly hooked. Angie is an overweight, fifty-year-old housecleaner with a special skill—she can see the dead. Despite her best efforts to ignore her intuition, the spirits follow her, seek her out, and try to absorb and siphon her human powers. I love the arc of this novel, following the most unlikely of heroines into a death-defying struggle, where she learns that she is stronger than she ever thought possible and more importantly, she doesn’t need anyone else to save her. I rooted for her the entire way through, and now I’m excited to hear the author is making this into a trilogy.

All hail Paige Toon! She is the best of women’s fiction—not too raunchy or over the top or gut-wrenching. Simple, sweet stories with a bit of heat. I recommend her to everyone I know. This particular novel, The Minute I Saw You, touched my heart from the very first page. When we meet Hannah and Sonny, they are both at a crossroads in their lives, not sure which way to turn or how to move on from respective tragedies in their past. I love that Hannah’s history involves something so unexpected that isn’t revealed until halfway through the book and becomes ever more the reason to root for her. And I love that she and Sonny spend so much time working through their demons independently before coming together. It’s a feel-good novel that leaves you with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.  

I don’t often read books more than once, but this one I have, and I know I will read it again. The woman whose life is revealed this time is 70-year-old Nora Porteous. She has returned to her native Brisbane, Australia after having escaped it by marriage to Sydney, and having escaped that marriage to London. She now reflects wryly on how she developed throughout those years of hardship and joy as she also experiences the changes in the neighbourhood she ran from decades before. As we move through both her memories of the past and her experience of the present, the details that help us to understand her are extraordinary: ‘The man is unlocking the door. I have had to talk and smile too much in his car, and as I wait I consciously rest my face.’

Journalist Jenny Valentish knows treatment, AA, and the pathways to addiction and recovery. It’s brutally honest, and her story reads like so many others – some who didn’t make it to recovery. She further educates the reader with research and a better understanding of the psychology and physiology that drive female addiction with humor and exceptional insight.

It’s not common for books about WWI to contain detailed analysis of both the battlefields and the home front (although this dual coverage is a feature of my lost generation multi-biographies).

To compile a comprehensive history of Australia during the war that combines what happened at home with what occurred at the various fronts is indeed a daunting task, yet Joan Beaumont accomplished it with conspicuous success in this acclaimed and award-winning book. 

The Broken Years is a wonderful book about what Australian soldiers thought and felt during the war.

It originated in Bill Gammage’s PhD thesis, which was the first systematic study of the soldiers’ letters and diaries collected by the Australian War Memorial. The result is an illuminating and moving masterpiece, which proved transformational.

When he began his thesis he was in unfamiliar territory, as the concentrated use of these sources was unprecedented — in fact, military history itself was not popular. But he persevered, gradually sensing he was on to something, and indeed he was.

The Broken Years became an enduring classic. It was personally very influential for me during the 1970s when I was a dissatisfied, recently graduated lawyer considering a change to something more aligned with my interest in history. I took the plunge, left the law, and I’ve been a historian and biographer ever since.

Charles Bean’s epic volumes were pioneering, illuminating, thorough, deeply researched and far superior to equivalent official histories produced by other nations involved in the conflict.

Although Bean’s books were written long ago — between 1921 and 1942 — they are still the starting point for any credible project concerning itself with what the AIF did in battle. And he edited various volumes in the Official History series compiled by other writers as well, including a book about the home front during the war.

Bean was remarkable. His Official History, and the records and research materials underpinning it, have been crucial in so much of my work—not only my lost generation multi-biographies, and also my books on Pompey Elliott and Will Dyson, but many other research projects as well.

I read this story in my teens and as a result, spent years wanting to join the navy. (That did wear off!) Having read it again recently, it seems a much darker story than I had remembered. But the mystery at its heart won’t let you go. Nevil Shute was a great storyteller and like many writers of his generation had many experiences to draw on. The story is quite slow-moving, but poignant—heartbreaking in fact. Gradually, he unfolds the mystery of Jessie Proctor, an Englishwoman working for a family in Australia. It begins with Jessie’s suicide and we uncover the events that have haunted this young, ex-servicewoman’s life. As Shute says, "a war can go on killing people for a long time after it’s all over."