Recommendations based on City of Womenby David R. Gillham

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Light Between Oceans

    by M.L. Stedman
    A lighthouse keeper and his wife make a heartbreaking decision that has lifelong repercussions.

    Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found, here, Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse ... (Goodreads)

  2. The Lost Wife

    by Alyson Richman
    A love story set in WWII Prague, where a young couple is separated by war and reunited decades later.

    There on her forearm, next to a small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers. 'Do you remember me now?' he asked, trembling. She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost. ... (Goodreads)

  3. The Storyteller

    by Jodi Picoult
    A storyteller's quest to restore faith in the power of storytelling and to mend the wounds of her past.

    25-year-old Sage Singer lives in the small town of Westerbrook, New Hampshire . , A couple of years before the story began, Sage and her mother were in a car accident while Sage was driving. Sage's ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The House at Tyneford

    by Natasha Solomons
    A story of forbidden love and self-discovery in the backdrop of a grand estate.

    It's the spring of 1938 and no longer safe to be a Jew in Vienna. Nineteen-year-old Elise Landau is forced to leave her glittering life of parties and champagne to become a parlor maid in England. ... (Goodreads)

  5. Between Shades of Gray

    by Ruta Sepetys
    A young girl's story of survival and resilience in the face of oppression during World War II.

    Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family ... (Goodreads)

  6. The Invention of Wings

    by Sue Monk Kidd
    A powerful story about a girl's journey to freedom, despite the limitations of slavery.

    Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now ... (Goodreads)

  7. One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

    by Jim Fergus
    In 1875, May Dodd and a group of women are sent to marry Cheyenne warriors. May's journal tells of her journey and the relationships she forms.

    Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this,, is the story of May Dodd—a remarkable woman who, in 1875, travels through the American West to marry the chief of the ... (Barnes & Noble)

  8. Cutting for Stone

    by Abraham Verghese
    A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.

    The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Code Name Verity

    by Elizabeth Wein
    Two female spies' harrowing mission during WWII and the secrets they discover.

    In 1943 Nazi-occupied France, a British Lysander spy plane crashes in the fictional town of Ormaie. On board are two best friends, a pilot (Maddie, code name: Kittyhawk) and a spy (Julie, code name: ... (Wikipedia)

  10. Beautiful Ruins

    by Jess Walter
    A romantic story of fate, secrets, and destiny, spanning from Italy in the 1960s to present day.

    "The best novel of the year." — Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air A #1 New York Times bestseller, this “absolute masterpiece” (Richard Russo) is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the ... (Goodreads)

  11. Defending Jacob

    by William Landay
    A father must defend his son who is accused of murder, unraveling the truth of a complex crime.

    Andy Barber is an assistant district attorney in Newton , Massachusetts. He is investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Ben Rifkin, who was a classmate of his son Jacob and was found stabbed to ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

    by Nadia Hashimi
    A young Afghan girl's struggle to break free from oppressive traditions and find her own path.

    Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel, The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural ... (Goodreads)

  13. Little Bee

    by Chris Cleave
    A Nigerian refugee's quest for survival and a British woman's search for redemption.

    Using alternating first-person perspectives , the novel tells the stories of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah O'Rourke (née Summers), a magazine editor from Surrey . After spending two years ... (Wikipedia)

  14. The Girl You Left Behind

    by Jojo Moyes
    A woman's search for answers and justice, despite the consequences of war-torn France.

    From the, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Giver of Stars, a sweeping bestseller of love and loss, deftly weaving two journeys from World War I France to present day London. Paris, World ... (Goodreads)

  15. Winter of the World

    by Ken Follett
    Epic saga of war, family, and love during the tumultuous times of the 20th century.

    The story follows characters from Germany , Britain , the United States and the Soviet Union , who become linked by events leading to World War II , and continues through the war and its immediate ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Shanghai Girls

    by Lisa See
    Two sisters navigate the turmoil of 1930s Shanghai, while struggling to protect each other.

    Shanghai Girls is divided into three parts: Fate, Fortune, and Destiny. Here See treats Chinese immigration from a personal view through Pearl's narration. In, On Gold Mountain, she objectively ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Life After Life

    by Kate Atkinson
    A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.

    The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Words in Deep Blue

    by Cath Crowley
    A story of love, loss, and second chances, set in a bookstore where books have a special place in people's hearts.

    Years ago, Rachel had a crush on Henry Jones. The day before she moved away, she tucked a love letter into his favorite book in his family’s bookshop. She waited. But Henry never came. Now Rachel has ... (Goodreads)

  19. Black Notice

    by Patricia Cornwell
    Dr. Kay Scarpetta investigates a series of murders linked to an art smuggling ring. The case becomes personal when her lover is targeted.

    Dr. Kay Scarpetta is still shocked by the tragic loss of Benton Wesley. She is trying to carry on, but she gets a letter from Benton, written before his death and left to Senator Lord, who had agreed ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Fall of Giants

    by Ken Follett
    Epic historical fiction recounting the tumultuous events of World War I and its aftermath.

    The novel begins with the thirteen-year-old Billy Williams, nicknamed 'Billy With Jesus', going to work his first day in the coal mine underneath the fictional Welsh town of Aberowen in 1911. Three ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Baker's Daughter

    by Sarah McCoy
    A woman reconciles with her past while exploring the meaning of family, faith, and home.

    Garmisch, Germania, inverno 1944. È un anello di fidanzamento, quello che un ufficiale nazista ha appena messo al dito della giovane Elsie. Un anello che potrebbe cancellare l'amaro sapore della ... (Goodreads)

  22. The Secret Keeper

    by Kate Morton
    A woman unravels her family's past, uncovering secrets and lies that span generations.

    During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a ... (Goodreads)

  23. The Lavender Garden

    by Lucinda Riley
    A tale of love, loss, and secrets set in the French countryside during World War II and present-day England.

    Note to readers: In the UK, this book is published under the title, The Light Behind the Window,. An aristocratic French family, a legendary château, and buried secrets with the power to destroy two ... (Barnes & Noble)

  24. Clara and Mr. Tiffany

    by Susan Vreeland
    The story of Clara Driscoll, head of the women's division at Tiffany Studios, and her collaboration with Louis Comfort Tiffany on iconic stained-glass lamps.

    Against the unforgettable backdrop of New York near the turn of the twentieth century, from the Gilded Age world of formal balls and opera to the immigrant poverty of the Lower East Side, bestselling ... (Goodreads)

  25. The Piano Teacher

    by Janice Y.K. Lee
    Set in Hong Kong during the 1940s and 1950s, a forbidden love affair between a British expat and a Chinese man unfolds.

    The novel is set in Hong Kong in the 1940s and 1950s, when it was still a British territory. Upon his arrival in Hong Kong, Will Truesdale meets Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite of ... (Wikipedia)

  26. The Light in the Ruins

    by Chris Bohjalian
    A haunting tale of a family's struggle to survive during WWII and the aftermath of a murder investigation in post-war Italy.

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls comes a spellbinding novel of love, despair, and revenge—set in war-ravaged Tuscany. 1943: Tucked away in the idyllic ... (Goodreads)

  27. The Lowland

    by Jhumpa Lahiri
    Two brothers in Calcutta take different paths in life, leading to tragedy and a search for redemption.

    Raised in Tollygunge in Calcutta , brothers Subhash and Udayan are inseparable; they find joy in fixing and listening to radios, learning Morse Code , and looking out for each other at school. When ... (Wikipedia)

  28. The Bone Bed

    by Patricia Cornwell
    Dr. Kay Scarpetta investigates a murder case involving a missing paleontologist and a mysterious bone bed.

    A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two ... (Goodreads)

  29. The Signature of All Things

    by Elizabeth Gilbert
    A woman's quest for knowledge and self-fulfillment, spanning through the 19th century.

    A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. In The Signature of All Things, ... (Goodreads)

  30. Vinegar Hill

    by A. Manette Ansay
    A struggling family moves in with the husband's parents in a small town, facing tension and secrets that threaten to tear them apart.

    In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilt and pain, and the tormented souls who ... (Goodreads)