100 books like The Three Miss Allens

How can you not love Bridget? How she stumbles through life, all the while trying so hard to be cool. Searching for a second chance at love despite betrayals and humiliations.

Meanwhile, she notes her days and nights in her diary–the fluctuating weight, cigarette and cocktail counts, and the worry about ending up alone and being eaten by wild dogs. The result is a character so human and funny that it hurts. Write on, Bridget. 

This book is the perfect read for a rainy day and I quickly fell in love with the main female protagonist, Georgina. Spirited, brave, and a bit foolhardy, she fulfills all the hopes you might have for a heroine in a historical romance, yet she will surprise you too. The river settings in Australia’s southeastern river belt in the 1890s are pure escapism and leave plenty of scope for adventure. Highly recommended.

Rachael Johns has a very chatty, familiar way of writing that has you soon forgetting that you are sitting at home, reading a book. The Art of Keeping Secrets is transportive, funny, and intimate and I particularly loved the lead character, Felicity, although I was equally invested in the lives of her BFFs Emma and Neve. ‘Secrets’ is indeed the key theme of this novel and, as they slowly unravel, you’ll find yourself hooked as to the outcome. Love the romantic twists and you’ll be turning the pages fast at the end! (No spoilers!)

Yes, she is one of ‘the’ Moriartys, and this surprise shift away from her usual young adult fiction works is more than worthy of her famous surname. This book is sublime, whimsical, dreamy, chatty, fun, sad, joyous, and all with a sense of surreality that you strangely and completely enjoy. I found myself swept away as the lead character, Abigail, seeks to find answers to the tragedy that has haunted her since she was young and oh, how I walked that path with her. The strange retreat she is on will keep you guessing and the sweetness of her story will stay with you long after the final page.

I love this novel for its beautiful imagery, its character development, and its deeply sensitive portrayal of the clash of civilisations that was to prove so devastating to the countryside as well as to its original inhabitants. Salt Creek tells the story of the European settlers’ incursion in the mid-1850s into a remote coastal region of South Australia, and it focuses on one particular family’s struggles with establishing themselves in a land that already belonged to others. 

Indigenous populations too have had a raw deal: from settlers who took their land and from those who felt they knew what was best for them. Although among the lesser sinners, sports historians have disregarded their traditional sports and focussed on their participation in sports imposed on them by invading powers. In contrast, Australian Aborigines feature in Roy Hay’s book as sportspersons in their own right. Hay shows that they were human beings who performed a constructive role in Australia’s sporting history. He does this not as a woke, bleeding heart academic but as a historian determined to unearth the ‘true’ story of Aboriginal participation in Australian Rules Football. As an Australian citizen I wanted to read this story.

This book should not be out of print. It is beautifully written – economical, witty yet discreet, and joyful. Bowen was a young woman from Adelaide, in South Australia, who set off to London to be an artist and landed there during the Great War. She had a long affair and daughter with writer Ford Madox Ford, painted and partied in Paris, moved her daughter back to England in time to watch German bombers fly overhead during the Blitz. This book became another guide for how to live the creative life, the bohemian life, a life full of honesty and art. Like Hemingway’s memoir, it’s full of anecdotes of other writers and artists that were her friends for a time. It reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman artist, an artist and mother, ideas that still hold true as they are about the inner life of… show more.

Third in the Mark Ariti series, Broken Bay is still a great stand alone, and especially awesome in terms of having an unusual weaponised setting. Sinkholes. Who would have thought that beautiful and mysterious environment could be so innately deadly?

South Australian farmers have apparently been popping in rubbish, (down the sinkhole chute), for decades, cluttering up what are already such dangerous places. Margaret Hickey has weaponised one of them further to make it the perfect murder implement, and I loved the originality.

War Brides is a work of historical fiction that explores the lives of five young women from differing backgrounds who meet in a small English village in 1939. I love World War II stories about ordinary people on the Homefront. Despite a slightly misleading title, I was drawn to the strong characters who face the horrors surrounding them with the unwavering support of one another. Bryan has done extensive research into the time period and the traumatic effect the war had on British citizens. What sets this story apart is the inspiring friendship the women develop that endures over time despite the challenges of their differences, the terror of bombing raids that cause the deaths of their neighbors and friends, and an unforgivable deception.

Inceptio starts as a psychological thriller, then becomes much more. Karen thinks of herself as an all-American girl. Trying to carve a career in New York’s cutthroat advertising world, she’s on the brink of success when she attracts a stalker. This is where the plot segues into alt-history, military strategy, and politics. It transpires that Karen’s late mother hailed from the technologically advanced state of Roma Nova, and Karen has access to dangerous secrets. Finding herself at the centre of a diplomatic incident, Karen is spirited away to Roma Nova and an uncertain future.

Author Alison Morton writes beautifully and has constructed engaging characters and settings. This is Book 1 of a series and can be read as a standalone, but I feel the others are too good to miss.