The most recommended women's fiction books

I loved everything about this book, from the story arc to Alison McGhee's turn of phrase and use of language.

Her descriptions of people and scenes range from hilarious to tear-inducing, with a side of quirky.

The best thing, though, is the story itself, Clara going back to the place she was never going back to, and dealing not only with her mother's dementia but with the things that made her leave town in the first place.

In this story, the dog is named Dog and he died before the story begins. The blue ceramic urn with his ashes is one of the very few things her mother kept for her – a talisman.

Soul-searching, gripping, and so very well written, this is one of my favorite books of this century. 

Carly is pregnant but her baby has a fatal heart defect. Her brother-in-law knows how to fix this: travel from 1970 to a future time where fetal surgery will save her child’s life. And the portals are all over the place! All you have to do is find one on his computer, go there and step off a roof or ledge. The scientific explanation for this is so believable I was half-convinced it’s real. Of course, it’s not that simple. What will a mother do to save her child? This brought back all the sleepless nights when my kids were sick or going through tough times. Mothers do what we have to do.

I adore Karice Bolton’s ability to weave romance and women’s fiction—a genre focused on telling the woman’s story.

I loved that these characters are mature and well-developed and found this to be a comfortable world for me to walk into. The emotions run high in this one, and it’s absolutely perfect. I liked the balance of character development mixed with romance. 

The primary setting is a hunting club in New York’s Adirondack Mountains that caters to rich and powerful men who secretly call themselves the Lost Boys.

Evie grew up nearby, and now, as an art restorer living in Paris, is remembering traumatic experiences involving club members. She returns to her childhood home to settle the matter and the action begins. The plot is multi-layered and the true nature of the characters is often a mystery, all of which appeals to me.

I also like the accuracy of the Adirondack setting (it’s where I grew up) and how the club itself captures the spirit of the areas Great Camps. But a favorite aspect is the fact that the author, a man like myself, so obviously detests the toxic masculinity of the Lost Boys. I applaud that.

It is a novel about a foundling girl growing up in Victorian London, scrabbling to make a living while under the gloom of a hidden secret in her past that seems like it will snatch any happiness she finds away at any moment.

I almost didn’t like it because it was so unrelentingly harsh, but the historical accuracy and quality writing (and a tiny bit of hope at the end) had me filing it away as a very memorable and well-written historical novel. 

I can’t sing. I never listen to music. I can’t remember where I heard about this book or why I tried the sample, but once I started reading, I could not stop.

Harmon is a master novelist. She invites us into a new world, wraps us up in the characters’ lives, and doesn’t let go. It’s the 1960s U.S., with mobs running the show, with racism running rampant, with lives in danger in so many ways, especially when a white songwriter and a black singer fall in love and decide to marry. 

I’m usually a fast reader, but this book took me a long time. I had to stop after every two or three chapters to give myself time to fully absorb the story. When I was done, I had a powerful urge to reread it, an urge I put aside with full intent to reread the book at a… show more.

This was the first historical romance I read where the hero’s an anti-hero bad boy on the wrong side of the law. It’s one of those books where it almost seems impossible for him to end up with the heroine at the end. But Elizabeth Hoyt excels at writing gritty love stories where the reader and heroine alike fall in love with the biggest scoundrel. Having read this story and seeing how Mickey O’Connor’s character was tackled helped me create Carlton Guthrie, a notorious crime lord, years later when I began writing The Forgotten Duke.

Many would point to Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café as her opus to rural America, but the broader scope of The Whole Town’s Talking pulled me in instantly.

She draws out a full history of a small town, its good and bad and the people that made their mark there, some from birth to death. Even after death, their voices remain an active part of her tale, remaining as unbashful observers from the cemetery on the hill.

So much of rural America has fallen into disrepair, as does Flagg’s fictional Elmwood Springs, but I hold out hope that the increase in telecommuting and simmering desires to leave urban (and suburban) lives behind can reinvigorate some of these sleeping villages that are spread across much of the nation. 

Every page of The Paper Palace is moving and evocative—the quintessential love triangle that had me torn between young, innocent love and mature, adult love. I’m a sucker for these tropes, so I sunk inside this story of then and now, shuffling through a range of emotions, just like the protagonist, Elle. That’s the best kind of book. When you feel alongside the characters. And the secret longing kept me turning pages until the climactic, tender ending. And that ending. It will keep you guessing. And discussing. And thinking about it. I still think about it.  

I used to think JFK Jr was better looking than Brad Pitt.

He had everything going for him–true love, wealth, and a family that was as close to American royalty as it gets. Meant To Be by Emily Giffin rewrites his real-life tragedy.

She gives those of us who hopefully and jealously gawked at him and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, a new ending–one that doesn’t involve their deaths in the cold waters outside of Martha’s Vineyard. It’s part romance, part fiction, part history, and all escapism.