Fans pick 100 books like The Peach Keeper

Seldom do battered women get true justice. In this book, justice is served on a very cold plate.

Two sisters, Sally and Gillian, are witches by heritage. After their parent’s deaths, they grew up with their two aunts, also witches.  

Sally was a happily married woman until her husband suddenly died. Gillian has lived a life of independence or what some might consider a wild life style. When Gillian’s boyfriend becomes a mortal threat, she gives him a potion, accidentally killing him. He comes back to haunt her from the grave. That’s when everyone in their family comes together to banish his evil spirit.

One of many of “the queen’s” paranormal/magical series, these novels—Blue Dahlia, Black Rose, and Red Lily—also date back nearly two decades. I was especially drawn by the historical mystery, featuring the mournful ghost of a woman who’s been haunting a family home for centuries. Roberts skillfully draws the intrigue through the series featuring three strong women tied together by a gardening business. In the first book, Blue Dahlia, we meet determined, successful Roz Harper, who owns the family business, and her new employees. Stella is a young widow and Hayley a single, expectant mother. As their stories weave throughout the trilogy, we’re treated to romances and the linking thread of the spooky, historical mystery. 

I recently finished my first Kerry King novel, and I’ll definitely read more. I adored the flawed, quirky characters, the tentative, heart-fluttering romance between Nicole and Hawk, and her unusual ability. Though she views it as a curse, Nickle, as her family calls her, has overwhelming compulsions to “relocate” items. Not steal and keep. Just move them where they cry out to be. Her actions have landed her in plenty of trouble, especially now that she’s stolen money from her estranged lawyer husband. The test of a good book for me: I look forward to reading it each day, find myself whipping through many more pages than intended, and am compelled to tell my fiancé about it. This novel engaged and delighted me in all those ways. 

As a recent debut, I wanted to include another wonderful new writer venturing into mixed genres. Misha Popp’s heroine pie-baker even wears flirty vintage dresses as she harnesses her family magic to off abusive men through deadly pies. I rooted for Daisy throughout, partly because she’s an avenger with a conscience, and because she’s always felt she had to maintain distance to hide her secret. How sweet to watch her grudgingly open up to friendship and romance, realizing they add a special spice to life. The well-drawn, diverse, likable characters pursue intriguing plot directions, supported by witty dialogue. And the pie descriptions are downright mouth-watering. No surprise, Popp is a masterful baker in her own right. 

It’s been years since I first read Crossing Oceans and it has stuck with me, its message so moving, so challenging, so compelling, that I can’t forget it.

I read this book through tears, hating the choice that the character made because I doubted it was the one I would have made in her place. Yet, it was the Christ-like choice. This novel challenged me to be more like Jesus and to receive a love from Him that I didn’t have in and of myself. 

I so enjoyed this story about water witches that I included it as the book club read in my 4th book.

(Yes, in my books there are teas on Saturday afternoons at Open Your Imagination, a fairy garden shop.)

Before diving into A Spell for Trouble, I had no idea what a water witch was. Like me, the protagonist Aleksandra Daniels didn’t know much about them, either.

To a normal person, they might be considered mermaids, but they are much, much more! Aleksandra visits her aunt and cousins, having only heard the rumors about water witches being magical healers.

When she gets enmeshed in their world, she learns who she is at her core, and she discovers her passion.

I love when a story not only enthralls me but educates me. Truly enjoyable.

I love James Patterson books, particularly his Alex Cross series, and I confess I have gorged on them this summer. I appreciate the remarkably short chapters, making it easy to pick up and put down if interrupted. This one is particularly interesting as we learn more about the family and their relationship dynamics. The fact his relative is accused of murder in what appears to be a slam dunk case, Cross is not satisfied. After a plea from his lawyer niece, Cross goes to investigate. Going back to his roots in his hometown dredges up good and bad memories for him and Nana-Mama. Readers who like suspense and a complicated mystery will enjoy this story. Investigations are fraught with danger for the whole family and Cross is a man who protects his family. This is not a typical whodunnit. The case is solved but not in the way one might… show more.

Fill the genre blender with equal parts contemporary mystery, paranormal, and family dysfunction, and then add several scoops of atmospheric creepiness to replicate the recipe for What You Never Knew. Who doesn’t like a mystery set on a lake, in a cottage located on a private forested island where secrets have been hidden for decades? Especially those associated with June’s father, who left the family (never to be heard from) when she was 12. Now 30 years later, June Bennett returns to Avril Island and the more secrets she unearths, the more her life is in danger. Just as enticing as the genre mix, the narration is delivered by June and her deceased sister, May, who recently died in a car accident. The setting, atmosphere, and pacing will keep the pages turning!

The shocking twists alone are enough to satisfy readers eager for turmoil and drama in an unsettling Gothic environment, but Marshall deftly creates a shadowy world with its own rules, with a sure hand.

As mist settles over the landscape as well as our protagonist’s memories, something rotten in this ancestral home calls to her through a labyrinth of architecture that is slightly off. The antagonistic distant family intimidates Helen as the house settles into her bones and dreams, steeling readers for a stunning final act that will keep their hearts pounding well after setting this book down.

This is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable books I’ve read in recent memory.

When it comes to Constance Greene, I hardly know where to begin.

She’s certainly the oldest and most deadly character in fiction writing today. I say she’s the oldest because she’s trapped in the body of a thirty-something-year-old woman even though she was born in 1873, long story.

She appears as a supporting character in multiple novels, as the love interest of Detective Aloysius Pendergast, but she is so much more than that. She’s eloquent, brilliant, and does not succumb to emotional distress under any threat of death.

In Blue Labyrinth, eight highly trained mercenaries pursue her and none of them live to tell the tale. At her most ruthless, she can kill with any tool at her disposal and she is loyal to the man she loves.