Though I’ve been a great reader since childhood, I sometimes describe myself as an accidental writer—I came to this work later in my life, following the events that I write about in my first memoir Perfection. Before I became a writer, I did spend many years in the publishing business designing book covers, so I appreciate all sides of the work of bringing books to readers. My favorite books help me enter new worlds for a time and re-reading favorites is like visiting a faithful friend. My recommendations here are a mix of both memoir and fiction and include some of my “desert island” favorites. I hope you enjoy them!
This book was published years after mine, but I wish it had been around when I was going through my life upheaval. The author writes about relationships and has an intelligent and thoughtful take on marriage. You might not agree with her philosophy, but her book is eye-opening, will challenge your assumptions, and shares information that might help people as they rebuild their lives after widowhood, infidelity, and divorce.
Is there such a thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Why do people cheat? Can an affair ever help a marriage?
Infidelity is the ultimate betrayal. But does it have to be? Relationship therapist Esther Perel examines why people cheat, and unpacks why affairs are so traumatic; because they threaten our emotional security. In infidelity, she sees something unexpected - an expression of longing and loss.
A must-read for anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on, or who simply wants a new framework for…
Each book has its own story to tell, so there is not one particular book I love. Reading books that aren't my usual reads is something I enjoy doing. You may enjoy the following books, which I have listed. It made me think differently than I usually do, and as with most books I read, it will enhance your writing. Throughout my childhood, I always enjoyed reading to escape reality and get lost in a world of fantasy. As a result, I began writing science fiction that resembles me that is getting away.
It's all about the unlikely alliance between a woman and her clone in this gripping revenge thriller.
Evelyn Caldwell learns that her husband Nathan is cheating on her when she discovers that he has stolen her cloning technology and replaced her with a more docile substitute. They work together to conceal Nathan's murder and preserve Evelyn's scientific reputation.
However, Evelyn discovers her clone standing over Nathan's body and crying, "It was self-defense." Its juicy premise raises eerie questions about love, justice, and the nature of identity.
A dark and suspenseful novel of lies, betrayal, and identity - perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror.
It was meant to be an evening to honour and celebrate Evelyn Caldwell's award-winning, career-making scientific research - but Evelyn has things on her mind.
Things like Nathan, her husband, who has left her for a younger, better, newer woman. A woman who is now pregnant - but shouldn't be - and is strikingly familiar. Too familiar to be a coincidence.
A woman who shouldn't exist.
The Echo Wife is a propulsive new novel from an international…
I’m a Scottish writer who has lived in Edinburgh for over twenty years and feel a deep affinity for the city. Edinburgh is known for its festival and its castle, which are the parts of the city that the tourists flock to, but there is so much more to it than that. I like books that show the city in a different light: the ones in which Edinburgh itself becomes a character and not just a backdrop; the books that invoke the darker side of Edinburgh, the bits that stay hidden, the bits that only the locals know about.
This is the first book in the Skelfs series by Doug Johnstone. A Dark Matter introduces us to Dorothy, Jenny, and Hannah, three generations of women who run a funeral home and a private investigator business in Edinburgh. Each chapter is from the perspective of one of the three central characters and gives the reader a different take on what is happening. The crime elements of the story keep you guessing and make you want to read on, however these are interspersed with moments of introspection from the characters who meditate on issues such as science versus faith and the different ways people deal with grief. It is both uplifting and grim all at the same time as well as being darkly humorous, and it takes you to the parts of Edinburgh that the tourists don’t go to.
Three generations of women from the Skelfs family take over the family funeral home and PI businesses in the first book of a taut, gripping page-turning and darkly funny new series.
***Shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Best Scottish Crime Book of the Year*** ***Shortlisted for the Amazon Publishing Capital Crime Awards***
'An engrossing and beautifully written tale that bears all the Doug Johnstone hallmarks in its warmth and darkly comic undertones' Herald Scotland
'Gripping and blackly humorous' Observer
'I was addicted from the first page; gripping, gritty and darkly funny as hell' Erin Kelly
I am fascinated with romantic relationships and the way they work. I was in high school when I stumbled upon the romance novel Addicted by Zane. I remember reading about couples in her novels and being intrigued by the intimacy and sensuality between them. I loved reading about the ins and outs of the relationships between these characters. They helped me to gain some perspective about romantic relationships early on. I learned a lot through these characters, and I was able to use their experiences as a guide for myself. I began writing my own romance stories to explore relationships my way, and I fell in love with it.
Adultery takes a look at romantic relationships without judgment when a wife gets bored with the monotony of her life and decides to explore things outside of her marriage in search of the affection she was missing from her husband.
This novel taught me the importance of communication and understanding. Although the main character committed adultery to realize what was missing in her life, she came out on the other side with valuable lessons.
For instance, having it all doesn’t mean you will be happy, but you can create happiness with what you have. The husband demonstrates true love to his wife when he decides to forgive her indiscretions and give her another chance. Check out this novel to witness true love and compassion despite one’s poor choices.
The thought-provoking new novel from the international bestselling author whose words change lives.
Linda knows she's lucky.
Yet every morning when she opens her eyes to a so-called new day, she feels like closing them again.
Her friends recommend medication.
But Linda wants to feel more, not less.
And so she embarks on an adventure as unexpected as it is daring, and which reawakens a side of her that she - respectable wife, loving mother, ambitious journalist - thought had disappeared.
I have loved crime fiction since encountering it in college. After seeing the Bogart-Bacall version of The Big Sleep, I read the underlying Raymond Chandler novel and was hooked. I devoured Chandler’s other works and moved on to James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, John D. MacDonald, and others. Later I discovered the crime novels of Charles Williams, Day Keene, Gil Brewer, and other “pulp masters.” Loving those novels led me to try my hand at writing crime fiction, and Stark House Press has now published five of my novels with another on the way. My crime-writing career is an unusual path for someone whose M.A. thesis is on Jane Austen!
I admire this novel for its seamless blend of classic noir themes and, in an unusual aspect of such a novel, racial issues.
I find the narrator to be a near-perfect blend of intelligence, determination, and the fatal flaws of lust and greed. The femme fatale shares those qualities but adds more than a touch of ruthlessness. The novel features a number of compelling, even frightening scenes—for example, a late night burial, or re-burial, in a pet cemetery.
The plot is beautifully crafted, with a number of twists and turns that on my first read I did not see coming. And the ending is pitch perfect, a satisfying mix of death, sadness, and justice but with a glimmer of hope that contrasts effectively with the noir themes and at least partially resolves the racial issues.
Ed Edwards works in the dirty, tough world of used car sales,but feels sure he is destined for more in life.Dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed wants to get out of the game.
And when Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss, sends him to repossess a Cadillac, the better deal Ed has been searching for suddenly seems in reach.
The Cadillac in question belongs to Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Ed knows Nancy well - too well. In the throes of their salacious affair,…
I am a nonfiction writer who aims to bring heart to my writing. If I can move the reader and enable them to connect to their inner world, then I consider that I have been successful. As I consider my purpose is rehabilitating women whom history has mistreated, my way into these misunderstood women is to examine their inner lives. What moves them and how they manage to survive and surmount their own heartbreak is the question that I am most interested in.
I can not praise Edward St Aubyn highly enough. He is one of my favourite authors; I love his writing because it is heart-stoppingly true and affecting.
He portrays dysfunctional family dynamics with blistering accuracy, and I felt less alone reading this because I have been haunted by my own ancestral patterns repeating themselves through generations. I not only find St Aubyn laugh-out-loud funny, but he is also a brilliant observer of social mores.
Somehow, this book manages to be anti-spiritual while being one of the most spiritually aware books I have read. I love that St Aubyn does not try to make himself likable as a writer. There’s a ruthless fearlessness to his truth that I admire, which adds to his humanity.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mother's Milk is the fourth of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick.
The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife Mary consumed by motherhood, his mother in thrall to a New Age foundation, and his young son Robert understanding far more than he should. But even as the family struggles against the pull of its ever-present past, a new generation brings…
In second grade my teacher told me I should be a writer—I haven’t wavered in my path since. I was a voracious reader as a child and regularly snatched books off my mom’s night table. My love for flawed characters grew with each book I devoured. I felt a connection with these characters, which fueled my dream to become a writer. When I was twenty-one years old and studying writing, I wrote in my journal, “I want to write books that make people cry.” I love to explore the gray areas in life, and I’m honored that readers have told me my books do make them cry (and laugh).
I love this book because Edna Pontellier is perhaps the original flawed yet sympathetic heroine—a character ahead of her time and a symbol of the growing stirrings of feminism.
I underlined many passages in my dog-eared copy from college (my professor was the editor), including the line, “Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman,” a contrast with the other mothers summering on Grand Isle who doted on their children. She’s not what a woman and mother was supposed to be in 1899—she’s in love with a man other than her husband; she eschews the trappings of motherhood; and ultimately she escapes in the most heartbreaking way.
This book was so explosive at the time, that it was pulled from shelves and didn’t enjoy success and a rightful place in the literary cannon until it was reissued in 1966. There’s a reason it’s had a treasured place on my bookshelf for nearly…
e Awakening, originally titled A Solitary Soul, is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics.The novel's…
I confess I was a serious little boy and used to be an excessively serious writer. Stoning the Devil, which is about desperate Gulf Arab women, was longlisted for major prizes and hailed by the feminist press. Poignant, even heart-breaking, but hardly a barrel full of laughs—though even then I couldn’t resist some black humour. But when I became a professor of Creative Writing at an American university, I found I’d fallen into a world madder than Wonderland, and realised that the best way to tackle woke insanity was through humour—as the great comedians are doing. Nearly all the best British fiction is humorous, so I started letting out my own zany side.
One of the rare successful tragicomedies. Starting as a witty sendup of the decadent British upper classes, it turns deadly serious in the middle, when John, the young son of Brenda, has an accident while fox-hunting. Because her lover is also called John, she imagines, on being told, that it is her lover who is hurt—and thanks God when she discovers that it is her son. Brenda’s distraught husband Tony, the one noble character, mounts an expedition to South America, but instead of finding meaning and redemption, as the reader hopes, a nightmarish fate awaits him. With this novel, Waugh proved himself the greatest British novelist of the inter-war years—and inspired me, showing me how to mix elements of gravity and tragedy with comedy.
Evelyn Waugh's celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, now in a beautiful hardback edition with a new Introduction by Philip Eade
After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. Brilliantly combining tragedy, comedy and savage irony, A Handful of Dust captures the irresponsible mood of the 'crazy and sterile generation' between the wars. This breakdown of the Last marriage…
When writing about sexuality it is important to me to write about true intimacy. Especially for those who have broken their wedding vows and for those who have been betrayed, who still long for real intimacy with spiritual and sexual maturity. My book, False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction (1992), was the first Christian book published on the subject of sexual addiction.I have for over thirty years counseled 1000s of sexually broken people from all across the U.S. who came to see me for a week of intensive counseling. I have taught on the subject of sexuality in all fifty states as well as over twenty foreign countries. No subject is more important to our spiritual maturity and sexual maturity.
The marriage vows say, “until death do us part.” In our divorce culture, that commitment often doesn’t translate into “happily ever after.” That being the case, we must ask ourselves, is it worth getting married? Before we answer that question, we must first ask, what is the purpose of getting married? It is not primarily about sex! Christopher Ash presents the radical concept that marriage is a union for us to effectively get God’s work done. I have found that in helping couples rebuild a broken marriage, they need this understanding.
What was particular helpful in counseling sexually broken and sinful people, was to understand that therapeutic spirituality doesn’t address the heart, the heart that is deceitful. Jesus clearly states that “For out of the heart come all the evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matt. 15:19, 20). No other…
The 'way of a man with a maiden' was too wonderful for the writer of Proverbs to understand. Preoccupying so many thoughts and dreams, the subject of countless songs, films and fairytales, the love between a man and a woman has always been a profound and perplexing mystery. And yet we do not live happily ever after. Four out of ten marriages will end in divorce. Couples now choose to live together rather than marry, and those relationships are even less likely to last. People are having fewer children, later, and with a succession of partners. Ironically, just when so…
When we authors name our characters, we gift them with meaning—a single word that somehow encompasses everything they will experience on the page. The name of my heroine, Akmaral, hails from Kazakhstan and means “white deer.” It resounds with the sound of hooves on the ancient Central Asian steppes and the deep connection to the natural world of the nomadic people who once lived there. Names bear unconscious expectations—hopes for strength and wisdom, dreams of triumph, beauty, and love. I hope that someday, hearing “Akmaral” will bring to mind vast, windswept steppes and a strong woman on horseback, head held high, contemplating her journey from warrior to leader.
Well, perhaps her name isn’t unfamiliar anymore, and it wasn’t historical fiction when it was written. But this luscious, complex, and moving classic is about more than the titular Anna and her ill-fated romance. For me, the best parts were about Levin and his longing for a simpler life.
Maybe I’m projecting, but when compared with Moscow society's social climbing and deep disillusionment, it’s hard not to want to turn away and opt for an admittedly idealized simple life working the soil. Yes, I know it’s long, but it’s well worth reading—or rereading!
In 1872 the mistress of a neighbouring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy's home. This gave Tolstoy the starting point he needed for composing what many believe to be the greatest novel ever written.
In writing Anna Karenina he moved away from the vast historical sweep of War and Peace to tell, with extraordinary understanding, the story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself. Anna's tragedy is interwoven with not only the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin but also the lives of many other characters. Rich in incident, powerful in characterization,…
