Here are 100 books that The Mistake fans have personally recommended if you like
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What makes a good sex scene for you? Long and drawn out, fast and furious or an unusual location? Perhaps the interesting use of accessories is your jam. And that’s before we get to angry sex, makeup sex, unexpected sex, or sex with the fear of discovery. I’ve loved steamy romance novels for as long as I can remember, and when I look for books with sex scenes, I have high expectations. I’m a fan of something unusual. Not tacky or totally unrealistic, just something surprising and interesting. But have all the best ideas been written? No way. I’m a firm believer that the best is yet to come.
This is the first book in a great hockey romance series. Bad-boy college hockey player Garrett is in desperate need of tutoring. After relentlessly pestering classmate Hannah, she finally agrees to tutor him. But, despite his playboy reputation, Hannah seems immune to his charms. She’s crushing on another guy, and Garrett hatches a plan to help Hannah reel him in: He’ll date her to elevate her social status and make the guy jealous. Except Garrett is getting increasingly interested in Hannah himself.
I love books where one kiss changes everything, and this is a great slow-burn of a book, with lots of banter and an unlikely friendship leading to a beautiful relationship. It’s fun and sexy with just the right amount of seriousness.
New York Times bestseller and TikTok sensation Elle Kennedy brings you the first in the sexy Off-Campus series that everyone is talking about.
She's about to make a deal with the college bad boy...
Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she's carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush's attention, she'll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice...even if it means tutoring the annoying,…
After spending nearly two decades working in technology and Intelligence—working with law enforcement from all different agencies—I developed an appreciation and understanding of the worst that humans can do to each other. My specialty was domestic counterterrorism and foreign policy—and I did everything from developing software for chem/bio work to White House briefings. I have studied profiling and analysis in academic and real world settings – I have two Masters degrees – Strategic Intelligence & Criminal Justice – from American Military University, both with a minor in Terrorism Studies. While the academic background is great, the real-life experiences are what taught me the most – and find their way into my stories.
When Lacey Campbell escapes a serial killer as a co-ed, she helped send him to prison for life. Years later, she’s a forensic scientist, working for the Medical Examiner and the case comes back to haunt her.
Elliot’s skill with writing chilling suspense and steamy romance – combined with a knowledge of forensics – leaves the reader always wanting more. Luckily, there are five books in the Bone Secrets series, so there’s a lot more to enjoy.
What drew me to Kendra Elliot’s work was a review someone else wrote where they said her accuracy and penchant for realism were so good that they (a forensic scientist in real life) didn’t get pulled out of the story by any errors.
That reviewer was right. The accuracy, combined with the twists and turns in the stories, have you reading with the lights on. (My favorite kind of book!)
Hidden is the first book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.
Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life.
Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend's.
I’m passionate about young adult sapphic romance books because this is something I wished I would have read in high school. If I had novels similar to these when I was growing up I might have realized that I identify as queer sooner and it could have helped me understand more about myself. Because of this, I’ve been an avid reader, and writer, of sapphic young adult romances. If it’s sapphic, send it my way. I hope you enjoy these sapphic novels as much as I have!
Imogen, Obviously was such a fantastic read that I really could relate to.
Imogen was a lot like me in high school, a people pleaser who thought she was straight. She considered herself an ally, but then sometimes would have thoughts about girls, but passed them off as wanting to be their friend and looking back, I had the same thing happen to me. I really wished this book was available to me in high school because it would have helped me understand a lot more about myself.
This book has a memorable cast of characters including Imogen’s love interest Tessa and I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time.
With humor and insight, #1 New York Times bestseller Becky Albertalli explores the nuances of sexuality, identity, and friendship in this timely new novel.
Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s got the World’s Greatest Ally title locked down.
She's never missed a Pride Alliance meeting. She knows more about queer media discourse than her very queer little sister. She even has two queer best friends. There's Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, who helps keep Imogen's biases in check. And then there's Lili—newly out and newly thriving with a cool new…
In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large.
The ‘sorority girl’ is a stock character in most novels set on American college campuses, and you’ll be hard pressed to find one who isn’t portrayed as beautiful but vapid and one misstep away from the twin horrors of having a bad hair day and witnessing their ex leave a party with their best friend.
Patton’s novel self-consciously leans into the stereotypes of white Greek culture at a big southern university, which makes its critique of that culture and its broader cast of characters both funny in their exaggeration and horrifying in their appeal.
This is exactly the kind of sorority-themed novel you would expect from the genre but also, because of a couple of unexpected twists, the one you never saw coming.
Bestselling author Lisa Patton digs into exciting new territory with Rush, a story about mothers and daughters, sisterhood, tradition, and doing the right thing, now in trade paperback with a new epilogue!
Experience the phenomenon from a front row seat...
It’s move-in day for college freshmen on the Ole Miss campus. Nobody wants to fit in more than Cali, a bright, small town girl with family secrets too scandalous for the well-to-do to imagine. Sorority rush is weeks away and without a pedigree, Cali doesn’t have much of a chance at membership. Her dorm room alone is as plain as…
I have always been a voracious reader and was blessed with parents who filled my home with books, who read to me, and who exposed me to both true and fictional stories that expanded my heart and nourished my imagination. I grew up on Christian biographies, along with devouring history and novels. I was shaped, nourished, and strengthened by the stories of real men and women who lived lives that mattered, and who understood that God never puts His children in times, in places, or in circumstances where He cannot enable them to shine brightly, and where they cannot speak truth and compassion into the darkness.
I’ve always wanted to study literature at Oxford University. I never have and almost certainly never will, but Carolyn Weber is the friend I would have made if I had that opportunity, and thanks to this powerful, luminous memoir I still got to “meet” that friend and experience what our long conversations over tea might have been like.
Weber’s deeply honest story of discovering Christianity while stumbling upon the footsteps of other seekers after truth and beauty at an ancient university made both an old, old town and the ancient truth of the Gospel seem bright and fresh.
When Carolyn Weber set out to study Romantic literature at Oxford University, she didn't give much thought to God or spiritual matters-but over the course of her studies she encountered the Jesus of the Bible and her world turned upside down. Surprised by Oxford chronicles her conversion experience with wit, humor, and insight into how becoming a Christian changed her.
Carolyn Weber arrives at Oxford a feminist from a loving but broken family, suspicious of men and intellectually hostile to all things religious. As she grapples with her God-shaped void alongside the friends, classmates, and professors she meets, she tackles…
I’ve always been fascinated by books that explore the slow, painful unraveling of the human psyche. In part, I think because it’s something so many more of us either fear or experience (at least to some degree) than anyone really wants to admit—but it’s also just such rich material for literary unpacking. I also love books with strong, angry female protagonists who fight back against oppression in all of its forms, so books about pissed-off madwomen are a natural go-to for me. Extra points if they teach me something I didn’t know before-which is almost always the case with historical novels in this genre.
I love this because, in many ways, it is a kind of modern take on Sargasso Sea, with a liberal dash of Catcher in the Rye thrown into the soup: an exploration of what happens when you apply the same kinds of patriarchal oppression and expectations Antoinette suffered in the 19th century to a young 20th-century woman living in what is supposedly a more “progressive” and “modern” era.
Esther Greenwood’s unraveling is both brutally relatable and unexpectedly humorous at points, and there are images from it that are so starkly drawn that they stay embedded in your mind like glass shards after an explosion. It’s a modern classic for a reason.
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria…
So many people want perfection. There are so many books out there where boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, and have a happily ever after. But the books on my list show you that not everything is perfect. Life isn’t perfect. Things aren’t always good or happy. I like when something beautiful is born from something ugly, and every book on this list is exactly that. Perfect with imperfections.
Wait for You by Jennifer L. Armentrout was a book I read long ago, and
it's one that still sticks with me to this day. It's a book I've read
and reread.
I love how the main character, Avery, is flawed–making her
feel real. And I love Cam and how patient he is with her. Avery is a
character who's had some trauma, and she's running. Little does she know
she's running right into the arms of the man she's supposed to be with.
These characters felt so real.
The writing was good, but not over the top to where I had to stop and think, "Who talks like this?" And it was
paced perfectly–the couple grew to be closer over a longer amount of
time rather than to meet, fall in love, and overcome everything in a
matter of days or weeks. It's another example of something
beautiful coming…
“J. Lynn creates a wonderful cast of characters that will make you laugh, swoon, and cry. Cam stole my heart.”
—Cora Carmack, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Losing It
Some things are worth waiting for...
Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago--an event that forever changed her life. All she needs to do is make it to her classes on time, make sure the bracelet on her left…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Anne Gardiner Perkins’ Yale Needs Women combines rigorous historical research and riveting storytelling to produce a book that is both insightful and inspirational. She explains how Yale University’s first female students in 1969 faced extensive discrimination and had to fight rampant misogyny, outdated traditions, and backwards views on a daily basis to get an education.
WINNER OF THE 2020 CONNECTICUT BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION AND NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS FOR BOOK CLUBS IN 2021 BY BOOKBROWSE "Perkins' richly detailed narrative is a reminder that gender equity has never come easily, but instead if borne from the exertions of those who precede us."-Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls If Yale was going to keep its standing as one of the top two or three colleges in the nation, the availability of women was an amenity it could no longer do without. In the winter of 1969, from…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Campus Traditions is a complete study of college culture that spans centuries and all of the United States. It is thorough, entertaining, and presents a clear evolution of post-secondary education from old-time colleges to today’s mega-university. Professors and students from all fields will recognize their university in this book and marvel at traditions that were thought to have been unique to their school but are, in fact, part of a much greater national trend.
From their beginnings, campuses emerged as hotbeds of traditions and folklore. American college students inhabit a culture with its own slang, stories, humor, beliefs, rituals, and pranks. Simon J. Bronner takes a long, engaging look at American campus life and how it is shaped by students and at the same time shapes the values of all who pass through it. The archetypes of absent-minded profs, fumbling jocks, and curve-setting dweebs are the stuff of legend and humor, along with the all-nighters, tailgating parties, and initiations that mark campus tradition--and student identities. Undergraduates in their hallowed halls embrace distinctive traditions because…
Having worked on college campuses for 25 years as a professor, administrator, and first-year experience program designer, I’ve seen first-hand how freshmen are increasingly failing at “adulting” because they are unprepared for the realities of campus life. I take on this needed preparation as co-author of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (and When You’re There) and as the creator of the Talking College™ Card Deck, discussion prompts for college-bound students and their parents/guardians. I share my insider knowledge with college-bound students and their parents at talks and workshops throughout the U.S. My goal is to help both groups thrive as they prepare for the upcoming transition.
Anthropology professor Rebekah Nathan made the bold decision to do what anthropologists do best: live amongst those of a misunderstood culture. After fifteen years of teaching at a large university, she left her faculty position and went undercover as a freshman. Nathan moved into a dorm, ate off the student meal plan, and enrolled in courses as a full-time student. The book is filled with thoughtful insights about the challenges first-year students face, including academic stressors, looming student debt, and an increasingly disengaged student culture. My Freshman Year exposes a realistic view of the new transactional-cultured university campus, while simultaneously offering a compassionate peek into the daily struggles of new students.
After more than fifteen years of teaching, Rebekah Nathan, a professor of anthropology at a large state university, realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students. Fewer and fewer participated in class discussion, tackled the assigned reading, or came to discuss problems during office hours. And she realized from conversations with her colleagues that they, too, were perplexed: Why were students today so different and so hard to teach? Were they, in fact, more likely to cheat, ruder, and less motivated? Did they care at all about their education, besides their grades?Nathan decided to put…
