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Recommendations based on The Light in the Ruinsby Chris Bohjalian
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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)
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)
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)
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
A detective investigates a murder case in a ghostly housing estate, uncovering a web of secrets.
Mick “Scorcher" Kennedy is the star of the Dublin Murder Squad. He plays by the books and plays hard, and thatʼs how the biggest case of the year ends up in his hands. On one of the half-abandoned ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Double Bind
by Chris Bohjalian
A young woman working at a homeless shelter becomes obsessed with the photographs of a former client. A psychological thriller that explores the nature of memory and trauma.
In Chris Bohjalian's astonishing novel, nothing is what it at first seems. Not the bucolic Vermont back roads college sophomore Laurel Estabrook likes to bike. Not the savage assault she suffers ... (Goodreads)
The Sandcastle Girls
by Chris Bohjalian
A love story set during the Armenian Genocide, exploring the complexities of human relationships and the horrors of war.
The Sandcastle Girls is a sweeping historical love story steeped in Chris Bohjalian's Armenian heritage. When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash ... (Goodreads)
Those Who Save Us
by Jenna Blum
A woman's journey of self-discovery, uncovering the secrets of her mother's past.
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
The Art Forger
by Barbara A. Shapiro
An aspiring artist embarks on a daring mission to forge a stolen masterpiece.
A Barbara A. Shapiro tour de force. On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest ... (Goodreads)
Secrets of Eden
by Chris Bohjalian
A minister's murder-suicide reveals a web of secrets and lies in a small Vermont town.
From the bestselling author of The Double Bind , Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice. "There," says Alice ... (Goodreads)
The Girl in the Spider's Web
by David Lagercrantz
A hacker teams up with a journalist to battle a criminal organization and save the world.
Computer scientist Frans Balder abandons a prestigious job in Silicon Valley and returns to Sweden to take custody of his autistic son August. Balder is informed by several law enforcement agencies ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Obituary Writer
by Ann Hood
Two women, decades apart, navigate love and loss in their lives. Their stories intertwine in unexpected ways.
On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, a young wife and mother obsessed with the glamor of Jackie, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless but secure marriage or to ... (Goodreads)
Blood & Beauty: The Borgias
by Sarah Dunant
A historical fiction novel about the infamous Borgia family, their rise to power, and their scandals and betrayals.
By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys ... (Goodreads)
City of Women
by David R. Gillham
A woman in Nazi Germany struggles to survive and protect her family in a dangerous world.
NEW YORK TIMES, BESTSELLER, Whom do you trust, whom do you love, and who can be saved? A gripping tale of Berlin in the Second World War, from the author of, Annelies., It is 1943—the height of the ... (Barnes & Noble)
Can't Wait to Get to Heaven
by Fannie Flagg
A Southern small-town woman's life is changed by mysterious events that open her eyes to a larger world.
Elner Shimfissle, an octogenarian who doesn't know her own age since her sister Ida buried the family Bible to conceal hers, is known and liked by a large circle of friends and admirers. One morning ... (Wikipedia)
The Forgotten Garden
by Kate Morton
A woman's quest to uncover the secrets of her family's past, leading to a mysterious garden.
At Nell's joyous 21st birthday party her world falls apart when her father tells her she was adopted as a 4-year-old in 1913, seemingly abandoned on an Australian wharf and unable to remember her ... (Wikipedia)
This Body of Death
by Elizabeth George
Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his team investigate a murder in London.
"George explores her characters' dreams and fears with a penetrating grace that makes reading her books a joy." — Washington Post Book World "Elizabeth George reigns as queen of the mystery genre. ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Chaperone
by Laura Moriarty
A woman's journey of self-discovery while escorting a young dancer to New York City.
The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a ... (Goodreads)
The Stars Are Fire
by Anita Shreve
A woman’s struggle to survive devastating wildfires in the post-WWII era.
In October 1947, after a summer-long drought, fires break out all along the Maine coast from Bar Harbor to Kittery and are soon racing out of control from town to village. Five months pregnant, Grace ... (Goodreads)
W is for Wasted
by Sue Grafton
Detective Kinsey Millhone investigates the death of a young woman whose life was ruined by drugs and alcohol.
The narrative is set in Santa Teresa, a small fictional town near the California coast where Kinsey lives and spends time with her elderly landlord. The story, however, takes place in the very real ... (Wikipedia)
Orphan Train
by Christina Baker Kline
A story of two women's intertwined lives, spanning generations and crossing continents.
The #1 New York Times Bestseller “A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Beautiful.”—Ann Packer Moving ... (Barnes & Noble)
Still Life with Bread Crumbs
by Anna Quindlen
A photographer moves to a small town and finds unexpected love and inspiration in the beauty of everyday life.
Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an ... (Goodreads)
The Valley of Amazement
by Amy Tan
A woman's story of resilience, navigating two different cultures and the struggles of motherhood.
In the first part of the story, Violet tells the story of growing up in Hidden Jade Path, a courtesan house in Shanghai that is run by her mother, an American woman named Lulu Minturn. Violet grows ... (Wikipedia)
Whistling Past the Graveyard
by Susan Crandall
A young girl's journey of self-discovery, overcoming challenges on a journey to be reunited with her family.
The summer of 1963 begins like any other for nine-year-old Starla Claudelle. Born to teenage parents in Mississippi, Starla is being raised by a strict paternal grandmother, Mamie, whose worst fear ... (Goodreads)
And the Mountains Echoed
by Khaled Hosseini
Interconnected stories of family and love, tracing the consequences of decisions made throughout life.
The novel opens in the year 1952. Saboor, an impoverished farmer from the fictional village of Shadbagh, decides to sell his three-year-old daughter Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. ... (Wikipedia)
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
by Mitch Albom
A sweeping musical journey through the life of a Spanish guitar prodigy.
“Talent is a piece of God’s shadow, and under that shadow, human stories intersect.,”, A Spanish war orphan born in a burning church and raised by a blind guitar teacher, Frankie Presto was gifted ... (Barnes & Noble)
Before the Fall
by Noah Hawley
A mysterious plane crash leads to a tangled web of secrets, lies, and betrayal.
On a foggy summer night, eleven people—ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter—depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Orchardist
by Amanda Coplin
A story of a reclusive orchardist and his unlikely friendships that help him find redemption.
Set in the untamed American West, a highly original and haunting debut novel about a makeshift family whose dramatic lives are shaped by violence, love, and an indelible connection to the land. You ... (Goodreads)
