When you were in elementary or middle school, did you ever see that one kid in class who, whenever there was a break or the teacher was lecturing about something boring, would take out a book and start reading under the table? That was me. I thought I was being sneaky, but I got caught CONSTANTLY.
Even now, if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I read a lot of books – not just for class (which I do read entirely almost every time) but also independently through recommendations from friends, the internet and accidentally walking out of bookstores with about five new books at a more frequent rate than I should.
I also love recommending books to people, especially if they’re trying to get back into reading or branching into different genres. I pretty heavily favor fantasy (as this list might reveal), but I’m always down for a good romance, coming-of-age stories, sci-fi, historical fiction or literally any other genre. So I bring this list to you in hopes that you might find a book among these works that appeals to you, or at least seems worth checking out when you have the chance.
“Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters
Set in Victorian England, this book tells the story of Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly. Sue, born into a poor family of thieves, is recruited by a fellow con man named ‘The Gentleman’ to run a scheme on Maud, a young woman with a large fortune that she can only claim if she gets married. The plan? Sue works as Maud’s lady’s maid, slowly convincing Maud to fall in love with ‘The Gentleman,’ posing as a noble scholar, in order to claim her inheritance. Then, ‘The Gentleman’ and Sue will place her in a mental institution and run away with the money.
With plot twists galore and two young women trying to find their places in the world, “Fingersmith” had me hooked from the first page. With a hint of romance between the women and a pseudo-heist in the works, this story is sure to keep you guessing all the way through the last page.
“Adventures of Amina El-Sirafi” by Shannon Chakraborty
If you like pirates, found family and magic, this book is for you. Narrating her story to a scribe, the main character, Amina, recounts how she was pulled out of a quiet life of retirement with her daughter, Marjana. Her task: to find a kidnapped girl, Dunya, who is the daughter of Amina’s lost friend. At the beginning of the novel, Amina is already a famous pirate. She spends the beginning of the book gathering her crew, retrieving her ship and figuring out where the crew can find Dunya. The book gets supernatural in the second half, bringing in magic, mischievous peri (fairies in Persian folklore) and an ex-husband who was never quite what he seemed.
This book also feels like a heist without being a proper heist novel, with elaborate plans to rescue Dunya as well as a mysterious magical object known as the Moon of Saaba. There’s quite a bit of movement and a lot of supporting characters, so I don’t blame you if you read this and feel a little lost at times, but I promise the payoff is good. It’s also the first book in an anticipated trilogy, although we have no confirmation yet of when the next book will be released.
“In the Lives of Puppets” by T.J. Klune
If you’re worried about AI taking over the world, this might not be the book for you. “In the Lives of Puppets” follows Vic, the last living human, as he tries to rescue his android father Gio from the City of Electric Dreams after he gets kidnapped. What triggers his abduction? Vic stumbles upon a decommissioned robot named HAP and inadvertently brings the AI government’s attention to their home in the woods. Vic is joined by HAP and his two other companions, Rambo and Nurse RATCHED, as he sets off to find his father.
This retelling of Pinocchio made me laugh, cry and feel all the warm fuzzies of a found family story. The world-building within is also deeply believable, with modern pop culture references and geographic familiarity (at least for readers familiar with American geography) all asking the question of what would the world look like if robots did indeed take over everything.
A journey centered around self-discovery and love, “In the Lives of Puppets” will keep you hooked from the first page.
“A Day of Fallen Night” by Samantha Shannon
The book follows three different women in a fantasy world as they try to navigate the politics of different nations, all while facing an onslaught of evil dragons. Tunuva is a member of a secret order known as the Priory, a group of women who help protect and guide the world as secret advisors to those in power. Glorian is the daughter of Queen Sabran, and knows she will one day need to lead her people — but how can she step out of her mother’s shadow and into her own power? Dumai grew up in a monastery on top of a mountain but is soon ripped away from everything she’s ever known and placed in a court rife with complicated political structures and scheming advisors.
This world is one of my favorite ones out there. “The Priory of the Orange Tree” is another book set in this same world but a few hundred years later. I heavily recommend both books to anyone. Don’t let the 900-page count scare you; I promise it’s worth the time. To try and summarize “A Day of Fallen Night” in a short blurb would be a herculean task even for the most experienced of book reviewers, which I am not. Nevertheless, the book is worth a read as it is deeply immersive and infinitely full of twists you won’t see coming.
“The Briar Club” by Kate Quinn
If you’re a fan of vignette-style stories, “The Briar Club” is a must-read. Set in Washington, D.C., in the 1950s, the book opens on Briar House, a boarding house full of women who are brought together by their newest boarder, the enigmatic Grace March. We are given snapshots from their lives over the course of a couple of years, like experiences as a single mother struggling with depression, an archivist caught up romantically with a gangster and a former spy trying to make a new life for herself. All the characters within the book feel like real people living their lives to the point where I felt like I was intruding on their personal business while I was reading.
Historical fiction, drama, suspense: this book delivered everything I could have asked from this book. Quinn has a lot of really good books out there, but “The Briar Club” takes the cake for me. The personification of Briar House itself at times was also a major highlight.
“Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir
This series goes in all kinds of wild directions in later books, but the first book sticks true to the idea of space necromancers — the story is set on a group of small planets all part of a larger empire where the magic system is based on necromancy. We follow Gideon, an outcast tasked with protecting the heir of their home planet, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, as she enters a competition to become what is basically a general for the God Emperor. There’s lots of really intense body horror and the book can be somewhat gruesome at times, but the levels of sass and pining make up for some intense descriptive sequences.
You might have noticed from a lot of these other books, but I love strong women doing cool things regardless of the setting. Gideon and Harrow are both prime examples of this. While later books in this series can get confusing and convoluted, “Gideon the Ninth” delivers an intense narrative on competition, discovery and forming friendships to make it through even the most challenging of circumstances.
