Here are 100 books that The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly fans have personally recommended if you like
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly.
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I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.
This book deals with two different experiences of being a cancer survivor which is not something I've seen in a book before.I liked the way the book explored the idea of visible and invisible disabilities and how people view them differently. It's not a subject I've seen covered often in YA books and it's something so many people deal with every day. Jase was a jerk through a lot of the book, but I felt like this behavior was realistic given his past and his desire not to be seen through the cancer lens. His growth through the book was the most significant and it was gratifying to see the way his friendship with Mari changed his perspective on the world and his place in it.
Jase Ellison doesnt remember having acute lymphocytic leukemia when he was three years old. His cancer diagnosis only enters his mind twice a year. Once at his yearly checkup at the oncology clinic and one when he attends Camp Chemo in the summer. No one in his real life knows about his past, especially his friends at Atlanta West Prep. Mari Manos has never been able to hide her cancer survivorship. She wakes every morning, grabs her pink forearm clip crutches, and starts her day. Mari loves Camp Chemowhere shes developed a healthy crush on fellow camper Jase. At Camp,…
I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.
All the characters in this book felt totally real and the situations they find themselves in and live through are honest. And I’m not just talking about the main characters here – all the supporting characters have their own personalities and don’t resort to stereotypes as shorthand. The romance developed organically and felt like something healthy that both Josh and Skylar needed in order to really accept who they are.
If Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing separating straightedge Skylar from art school is three months of summer… until Skylar's mother loses her job, and Skylar realizes her dreams may be slipping out of reach. Josh had a different escape route: the Marines. But after losing his leg in Afghanistan, he returned home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be. What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise―a quirky motel…
I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.
I really enjoyed this book. Both main characters had real problems to deal with and the ways they coped and reacted felt authentic, even when they frustrated me. Jonas and Brennan are sweet kids and I was rooting for them to work out ways to overcome their issues and realize they were better together than they were on their own.I also liked that their parents were part of the picture and were just as clumsy in the way they dealt with their kids' problems as their kids. It was clear they really loved them and wanted the best for them, but they were no better prepared to deal with these issues.
To get back up sometimes you have to fall down, hard . . .
What's the point of pretending nothing has changed when everything has? It's the last summer before college, and Jonas Avery knows he should be excited. Instead, he hides out at home, avoiding his friends, his family, and everything that resembles his old life. Because nothing will be normal again―because of The Accident, when everything started falling apart.
Brennan Davis knows she needs to stand up and face her anxiety―the deep, dark, debilitating dread that rules her everyday life. Because what stops her from going out into…
I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.
Perry has created two great characters in Aidan and Kate. Both are damaged in their own ways – Kate has diabetes and Aidan lost an arm in Afghanistan - and certain their problems are the only things that define them. Watching them grow and change and accept that they are so much more than their problems makes this a satisfying read.
Kate's dream boyfriend has just broken up with her and she's still reeling from her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.
Aidan planned on being a lifer in the army and went to Afghanistan straight out of high school. Now he's a disabled young veteran struggling to embrace his new life.
When Kate and Aidan find each other neither one wants to get attached. But could they be right for each other after all?
Fantasy of all kinds is my jam, but I particularly like stories that weave monsters or myths into real life. When an author manages to reinvent a familiar monster trope, like Vivian Shaw with Van Helsing, and spin it into a new, stylized story, that’s the best display of cleverness. I’ve read an embarrassing amount of these kinds of books from Terry Pratchett to Frank Herbert. I think the notion of monsters/creatures/gods is our way of examining the different layers of the human psyche and a well-written monster trope story delivers that self-examination with a spoon full of fantastical sugar.
Greta Helsing’s family dropped the ‘Van’ half a century ago. And they don’t hunt vampires so much as heal them. That’s right, Greta is a supernatural doctor. Vivian Shaw has created a world where the good guys are genuinely good, unselfish people. I love me an antihero, but it’s a refreshing change of pace when the good guys really just want to help other people without ulterior motives. Despite the fact that most of the characters aren’t human, it restores my faith in humanity. I also appreciate the historical references and subtle geekery in these books. For example, Greta is a specialist in mummy reconstruction, and the detail Shaw goes into, just tickles me.
The first book in a delightfully witty fantasy series in which Dr. Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, must defend London from both supernatural ailments and a bloodthirsty cult
Greta Helsing inherited her family's highly specialized and highly peculiar medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although she barely makes ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood.
Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror…
As a history buff I am also fascinated by folklore and magic, and how it has influenced society during various time periods. I love discovering writers who seamlessly manage to present a parallel magical universe grounded in actual history or who manage to incorporate fantastical or magical elements into a historical novel. Over the last few years I’ve been increasingly drawn to exploring the philosophical, magical, and spiritual underpinnings of society as part of my historical research. Although my own published works to date have been straight historical fiction, my current work in progress is definitely veering into the speculative, alternative history realm.
Set in Victorian England, this novel is a sinister, gothic tale based on the ability of a young woman to read the souls of man-made objects and the disappearance of a young man drawn to the occult. I loved how this book was grounded in the real Victorian London and yet managed to incorporate gorgeously gothic supernatural elements as well as a love triangle involving well-drawn and believable characters. For me, the writing was what really drew me in and I have to admire anyone who can weave historical and fantastical elements as beautifully as this author.
In this hauntingly original debut novel about a young woman whose peculiar abilities help her infiltrate a mysterious secret society, Adam McOmber uses fantastical twists and dark turns to create a fast-paced, unforgettable story.
Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father in a crumbling family estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret—an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of man-made objects—and this talent isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends come of age, their idyll is…
At one time, it was commonplace for male mystery writers to devote a substantial amount of plot to romance; for example, Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White or Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon. In recent years, this tradition has eroded to the point where romantic mysteries are primarily written by women. I think romance spices up mysteries. In Death is Potential, Kate Swift is more invested in solving the murder mystery because she is protecting her lover.
I like this series because it is well written and the author – J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith – always features clever plot twists.
The Cormoran Strike series features an on again, off again romance between private investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner, Robin Ellacott. In the latest installment, The Running Grave, Cormoran and Robin are hired by a wealthy man whose son has joined a cult.
Robin joins the cult and moves into its rural Norfolk headquarters. The chapters devoted to her cult experience are well-written and creepy. Too bad there’s not more sex.
'The work of a master storyteller' Daily Telegraph
'One of crime's most engaging duos' Guardian ________
Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.
The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.
In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner Robin Ellacott decides to infiltrate the cult and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito…
I spent 7 years in a commercial cult. I was indoctrinated into, rose to the top of, and finally escaped from a multilevel marketing company. When I started my exit, I wondered how I had become so brainwashed, which led me to do research into coercive control. I started to understand that different types of authoritarian control; behavior, information, thought, and emotional, drove me further into the cult and away from my outside friends and family. I read as many cult books and watched as many documentaries as I could find, and became fascinated with uncovering why people find themselves in the same situation I was in.
Amanda is a language whiz, and does an amazing job showing how cultism is a spectrum; that we are all victims of undue influence.
She talks about the language that communities and organizations use as the key to gaining undue influence over people, and that this influence pervades everything from startups to skincare to workout programs.
It’s well researched and fascinating to read, and will make you question your strong affiliations to the most basic things.
The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.
What makes "cults" so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we're looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join-and more importantly, stay in-extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell's…
Locked room thrillers are what I like to read and write best. Out of my four published novels, two include locked rooms. Gatedtakes place in a community with an apocalyptic bunker and Flight 171 takes place on a plane. The characters must face their antagonists head-on because there is no escape. I love that these settings challenge me to dig deep into character and plot inventively. Exposing my characters’ darkest secrets as they face their foes becomes part of the fun. The books I chose for this list all have excellent “locked rooms” and speak to the girl in me who gobbled up Murder on the Orient Expressand became instantly obsessed.
Anyone who knows me well or has read my first two books knows I’m a sucker for a thriller about a cult.Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett is my young adult Midsommardream novel. The main character, Ash Larkin, goes looking for the commune her mother escaped only to find herself physically trapped there by the cornfield (and cult) from hell. As a child I used to play hide and seek in cornfields. This book brought me back to those moments spent listening for my friends, worrying that they wouldn’t find me. Kim’s writing is beautiful and lyrical. I will literally read anything she writes. Besides, she has the coolest author bio ever. She spent the eighties singing backup for rock bands.
Determined to find her mother when she disappears, Ash follows her to Quivara, Kansas, the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.
Her mother is nowhere to be found, but Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town's history of unrequited love, murder, alchemy, and immortality. Charming traditions give way to a string of deaths. And Ash feels herself drawn to Dane, a mysterious, forbidden boy with secrets of his own.
I spent 7 years in a commercial cult. I was indoctrinated into, rose to the top of, and finally escaped from a multilevel marketing company. When I started my exit, I wondered how I had become so brainwashed, which led me to do research into coercive control. I started to understand that different types of authoritarian control; behavior, information, thought, and emotional, drove me further into the cult and away from my outside friends and family. I read as many cult books and watched as many documentaries as I could find, and became fascinated with uncovering why people find themselves in the same situation I was in.
Once again I became interested in a book thanks to a documentary!
When I watched the documentary about Sarah Lawrence College, I wanted to know more. Daniel Barban Levin’s story really demonstrates how a fragile young mind can be influenced by someone with sinister intentions.
He vividly describes his time spent with a manipulative cult leader (Larry Ray), and his narrative disturbingly shows us just how easily something like this could've happened to us. Very sadly relatable, for people who lose their voice when they fall victim to gaslighting or abusive friends, mentors, or partners.
An “extraordinary” (Nylon) firsthand account of the creation of a modern cult and the costs paid by its young victims: a group of college roommates
“Intense . . . [a tale] of hard-won survival, and creating a life after the unimaginable.”—Salon
The inspiration for the Hulu docuseries Stolen Youth, directed by Zach Heinzerling and co-produced by Daniel Barban Levin
In September 2010, at the beginning of the academic year at Sarah Lawrence College, a sophomore named Talia Ray asked her roommates if her father could stay with them for a while. No one objected. Her father, Larry Ray, was just…
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