Here are 100 books that The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry fans have personally recommended if you like
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry.
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I want to tackle the profound challenges some new mothers face. Who’s read a funny book about postpartum depression? Probably no one! My novel fills the gap. I suffered from postpartum in silence, afraid of the stigma it might bring. I hope this relatable story normalizes postpartum, sparks conversations, and drives change. I also wanted to write something with a Latina in the starring role. People of Latino descent suffer from many hurtful and inaccurate stereotypes. Increasing positively portrayed Latinos in fiction is personal for me. I’m exceedingly proud of my Latino roots and hope it comes through in my writing.
Bernadette can be difficult to like, but that's partly why I love her character. She's unapologetically authentic with sharp edges and a serious dislike of Seattle. Rather than grimace at her put-downs of my hometown, I laughed because she included inside jokes only Seattlites would understand, and there was a granule of truth in all of it.
I'm intensely interested in the challenges and rewards of motherhood. Portraying it as something emotionally draining and frustrating, utterly consuming and ultimately wonderful, Maria Semple captured what many of us experience using Bernadette as her medium.
A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle --…
As a young working mom, I occasionally longed to follow the example of columnist Erma Bombeck and hide from my family in the car. Instead, I channeled the mayhem of family life into a humor column called “The Mother Load,” which detailed the day-to-day challenges of running a business while caring for two daughters, one husband, two guinea pigs, and a dancing rabbit. When I decided to pursue my life-long dream to write fiction, my debut novel was a humorous story about a mother-daughter-grandmother road trip/chase from Boston to Memphis. Although my writing doesn’t shy away from serious issues, I choose to see the world through a humorous and ultimately hopeful lens.
While on a beach vacation, the forty-year-old mother/protagonist of this book, Delia Grinstead, walks away from her distant husband and three surly children – seemingly on a whim – to try out a new life.
Anne Tyler’s characters are unfailingly quirky, and Delia can be both frustrating and charming, but the book engagingly details the mid-life crisis of a woman eager to learn who she is.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons
"BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION."
The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran.
Exhausted with her routine and everyone else's plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to…
As a young working mom, I occasionally longed to follow the example of columnist Erma Bombeck and hide from my family in the car. Instead, I channeled the mayhem of family life into a humor column called “The Mother Load,” which detailed the day-to-day challenges of running a business while caring for two daughters, one husband, two guinea pigs, and a dancing rabbit. When I decided to pursue my life-long dream to write fiction, my debut novel was a humorous story about a mother-daughter-grandmother road trip/chase from Boston to Memphis. Although my writing doesn’t shy away from serious issues, I choose to see the world through a humorous and ultimately hopeful lens.
Louise’s kids think their 84-year-old mother needs a caretaker. They don’t know Louise has a secret past, and what she really needs is to skip town, fast.
Louise convinces her reluctant 21-year-old caregiver, Tanner, to drive her to California. Their comic road trip is both full of fun and heartwarming as the outrageous octogenarian on-the-lam shows the rule-following youngster how to live.
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick * A Marie Claire Book Club Pick for April * A Reader's Digest Book Club Pick for April * A LibraryReads Pick * One of Southern Living's Most Anticipated 2023 Releases * One of Today's Most Anticipated 2023 Releases
An unforgettable pairing of a college dropout and an eighty-four-year-old woman on the run from the law in this story full of tremendous heart, humor, and wit from the USA Today bestselling author of The Invisible Husband of Frick Island.
Twenty-one-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Preferably one where she can continue sitting…
When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.…
As a young working mom, I occasionally longed to follow the example of columnist Erma Bombeck and hide from my family in the car. Instead, I channeled the mayhem of family life into a humor column called “The Mother Load,” which detailed the day-to-day challenges of running a business while caring for two daughters, one husband, two guinea pigs, and a dancing rabbit. When I decided to pursue my life-long dream to write fiction, my debut novel was a humorous story about a mother-daughter-grandmother road trip/chase from Boston to Memphis. Although my writing doesn’t shy away from serious issues, I choose to see the world through a humorous and ultimately hopeful lens.
The runaway mom in The Sweet Spot is an entrepreneur and TV personality who sends the plot spiraling into mayhem when she takes off to film a reality show, leaving her infant son with her ill-prepared new husband, Russell.
At wit’s end, Russell begs the help of his still-fuming ex-wife, Melinda, who in turn ropes in the family on whom she’s been unfairly taking out her anger. What I love about this book is its humor (I laughed out loud several times) and overall good nature. Although all the characters are flawed, the author gives us something to love about all of them.
Amy Poeppel brings her signature "big-hearted, charming" (The Washington Post) style to this wise and joyful novel that celebrates love, hate, and all of the glorious absurdity in between.
In the heart of Greenwich Village, three women form an accidental sorority when a baby-belonging to exactly none of them-lands on their collective doorstep.
Lauren and her family-lucky bastards-have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive 70s wallpaper. Adding to the home's bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in,…
I’ve written almost one hundred historical romances, so when it comes to making a marriage in a book swoonworthy, I know the hard work that an author has to put in. Whether it’s enemies to lovers, instalove, grumpy/sunshine, whatever it is: I have a huge amount of respect for authors who spend the time crafting a love story that makes me absolutely desperate for the wedding.
"I can think of the perfect way to keep you occupied and your mind diverted," she murmured. "Come to my room. If you're not too tired..."
Lust flashed in his gaze and then he caught her face between his hands and kissed her. "For you, my beautiful Artemis, I'd stay up all night."
Artemis Jones-"respectable" finishing-school teacher by day and Gothic romance writer by night-has never lost sight of her real dream: to open her own academic ladies' college. When Artemis is unexpectedly called upon by a dear friend, a fellow Byronic Book Club member, to navigate her first London…
I’ve been an archivist at Canada’s national archives for more than twenty years. I love my job. Archives are, by their very nature, a collection of miscellany that weren’t created to be preserved or remembered. They are the scraps of paper and hurriedly sent emails produced while the world is out making history. As a result, they offer unselfconscious glimpses into the past. Archives are poorly understood, which means that the folks who decide to devote their professional lives to them are often a little quirky and a bit odd. This makes books featuring archivists celebrations of the off-kilter, the overlooked, and the frankly strange.
A dark meditation on guilt, love, and marriage, it intersperses the story of Matthias, the titular archivist with the life and work of T. S. Eliot, whose letters he’s charged with keeping. When a young scholar wants to read these letters ahead of their scheduled opening, Matthias must wrestle with his own repressed feelings about his past, with some incidents paralleling the poet’s. I enjoyed it for the meditation on how archives can bridge that gap between the past and the present.
A battle of wills between Matt, a careful, orderly archivist for a private university, and Roberta, a determined young poet, over a collection of T.S. Eliot's letters, sealed by bequest until 2019, sparks an unusual friendship and reawakens painful memories of the past
Always Orchid is the moving, award-winning finale to the Goodbye Orchid series that Glamour Magazine called "a modern, important take on the power of love." With themes of identity, disability, and the redemptive power of love, Always Orchid is perfect for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle…
When I was about 8 years old, I read a book called Tom and the Two Handles by Russell Hoban. It’s a children’s book designed to teach that every story has two sides. This book stuck with me for some reason. So, when I started writing novels, I always made sure my villains had pure motives. Remember, no well-written bad guy THINKS he’s a bad guy. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. This is true of all the classic Bond villains right up to Thanos in the MCU. Plus, and I’m sure most writers would agree, the bad guys are always more fun to write.
This is another book that I discovered after seeing the TV show. The Netflix adaptation is fairly faithful to the text, but I still really enjoyed the novel because the writing is witty, clever, and beautifully paced in a way that makes you want to keep reading when you know you should turn out the light and go to sleep.
The little character quirks add realism and some much-needed light relief to a pretty dark story. For me, the scariest thing about this book is, even though our lead character goes to extreme lengths most of us would never even consider, the roots of his actions come from thoughts we’ve probably all had.
*** NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES *** 'Thriller of the Year' Daily Mail 'Hypnotic and scary' Stephen King 'Examines the fine line between seduction and stalking . . . Ludicrously readable' Guardian
When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten.
But there's more to Joe than Beck realises and much more to Beck than her perfect facade. And the obsessive relationship quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences...
A chilling account of unrelenting, terrifying deceit, Caroline Kepnes' You is a thriller more perversely clever and dangerously twisted than any YOU have…
I began to escape into stories as a child because I was so often ill there wasn’t much else I could do. But that love of sending my mind on a little holiday to a world where everything is a little bit nicer has stuck with me. As a writer, that is what I want to do – to send my readers on a romantic adventure without them having to get out of their chair. And as I fell in love with the landscape of Regency England, through reading so many Heyer novels, that is where I enjoy setting the adventures of my characters.
The hero of this book, The Duke of Sale, has always wondered what it would be like to be plain Mr Dash of nowhere in particular.
He gets his wish after encountering Belinda, the foundling of the title, and goes on an adventure during which he learns a lot about himself and his own worth. As so often happens in a Heyer story, the comic interludes (often involving Belinda’s wish to own a purple dress) build to an ending which has an air of farce to it.
The Queen of Regency Romance, Georgette Heyer, delights readers with a charming tale of a duke who is tired of playing by the rules.
The Duke of Sale is out to prove himself
The shy, young Duke of Sale has never known his parents. Instead, his Grace Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, Gilly for short, has endured twenty-four years of rigorous mollycoddling from his uncle and valet. But his natural diffidence conceals a rebellious spirit.
A mysterious beauty provides the perfect opportunity
When Gilly hears of Belinda, the beautiful foundling who appears to be blackmailing his cousin, he escapes with glee.…
I’ve always loved magic and pirates. As I kid, I made up games incorporating the two. As a teenager, I wanted to read about them. But at the time, I couldn’t find anything that had both pirates and magic, so I decided to write one myself. As the years blurred past and the young adult book scene exploded, more and more books with pirates and magic have been published and of course, I try to read them all! I read them not only to study books similar to my own, but because I love them and I can’t get enough.
Imagine The Little Mermaid but the mermaid is actually a killer siren and the prince is actually a siren hunter/pirate, and you’ve got To Kill A Kingdom.
If you’re not sold by that alone (because I certainly was) well, this standalone fantasy also has seafaring action, a variety of vibrant kingdoms, strong character arcs, morally grey characters, dashing pirates, siren magic, and of course, a slow burn enemies to lovers romance (you may have noticed I’m a sucker for those.)
I only wish this was a series and not a standalone.
An unforgettable dark romantic YA fantasy about the siren with a taste for royal blood and the prince who has sworn to destroy her.
"Stellar world building and nonstop action will keep readers hooked on this twisted reimagining of 'The Little Mermaid'." Booklist Online
Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing…
When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she can't remember her past, is getting the cold shoulder from her best friend, and has no idea why she keeps repeating the same mistakes across her previous lives. Elliot just wants to move on, but first, she'll be forced to…
Men have always been attracted to young women, who possess a glow that their mothers have possibly lost. Girls are more vulnerable and impressionable and are more likely to believe what they are told. Their passionate desire to be loved, combined with their conviction that no one understands them, makes them uniquely vulnerable to predators. But there is another side to the story. Girls do not passively wait to be seduced or exploited. They thrill in actively testing their own sexual power and often put themselves in physical and emotional danger with no understanding of the long-term consequences of relationships where the power dynamic leaves them exposed to exploitation and abuse.
A nonfiction book that tells the story of three unrelated women and
their unique but universal struggles; I loved it because of the author’s
incredible talent for articulating the everyday lived experience of
being female, the subtle and overt judgments, and the fact that women
are held to different standards, even by other women.
"‘Even when women
fight back, they must do it correctly. They must cry the right amount
and look pretty but not hot." Many times while reading, I recognised
myself, my sister, my mother, and my friends.
All three stories are highly
engaging, but the truly compelling story is Maggie’s, a troubled girl
from a difficult family who is preyed upon by her teacher, a married man
with a family. The subsequent effect on her life is just devastating
(remember, folks: this is nonfiction.)
The International No. 1 Bestseller
A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
'Cuts to the heart of who we are' Sunday Times
'A book that begs discussion' Vanity Fair
All Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn't touch her?
All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town?
All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object…
