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Summaries of 9,843 books.

  1. Broken Throne

    Victoria Aveyard

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Return to the world of the Red Queen with this collection, featuring new tales of power, rebellion, and intrigue from familiar and new characters.

  2. The Distant Echo

    Val McDermid

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    Twenty-five years after finding a barmaid's body and being the sole suspects, four friends are haunted by a reopened cold case and a vengeful killer who believes they got away with murder.

  3. Colony

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    ★ 4.1 (11k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    A spirited Southern bride navigates a century of love, loss, and the unyielding traditions of her aristocratic in-laws' Maine summer colony, ultimately becoming its fierce, unconventional matriarch.

  4. On a Sunbeam

    Tillie Walden

    ★ 4.3 (11k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    In a future where space crews restore old structures, a new recruit joins to find her lost love, a mysterious girl she met in boarding school.

  5. Dance Hall of the Dead

    Tony Hillerman

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn must navigate the Zuñi people's sacred world, an ancient archaeological dig, and a modern drug operation to solve the disappearance of two boys and a pool of blood in the New Mexico desert.

  6. The Natural Way of Things

    Charlotte Wood

    ★ 3.5 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    Ten young women, victims of sexual scandals with powerful men, are imprisoned in a brutal, isolated desert facility where they must band together to survive their captors and the wilderness as their hope for rescue dwindles.

  7. Etta and Otto and Russell and James

    Emma Hooper

    ★ 3.7 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    An eighty-two-year-old woman walks across Canada to see the ocean, leaving her husband and a lifelong admirer to deal with her absence and their shared, complicated past, all while she travels with a talking coyote.

  8. The Wicked Day

    Mary Stewart

    ★ 4.1 (11k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    As Arthur's golden age ends, Mordred's shadow grows, destroying Camelot from within and leading to an inevitable, tragic end.

  9. Save Me a Seat

    Sarah Weeks

    ★ 4.1 (11k) average on GoodreadsChildren's

    A small-town boy whose best friends moved away and a new immigrant struggling to adapt find common ground and team up to outwit their class bully during one chaotic school week.

  10. Foundation

    Isaac Asimov

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    As a dying Galactic Empire crumbles, a lone visionary uses the science of psychohistory to establish a remote outpost of knowledge, hoping to shorten humanity's inevitable dark age amidst rising warlords and the threat of annihilation.

  11. The Lake of Dead Languages

    Carol Goodman

    ★ 3.8 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    Returning to the isolated, snow-bound boarding school where a trio of suicides shattered her youth, a Latin teacher confronts ominous messages and a resurfacing journal that threaten to expose the dark, watery truth of a twenty-year-old mystery as new deaths begin to mirror the past.

  12. Time Out of Joint

    Philip K. Dick

    ★ 3.9 (11k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    A puzzle champion in 1959 slowly uncovers the horrifying truth that his entire idyllic reality is a meticulously constructed lie, and he is its unsuspecting linchpin in a future war.

  13. Max Havelaar

    Multatuli

    ★ 3.5 (11k) average on GoodreadsFiction

    A Dutch idealist in 19th-century Java confronts the brutal hypocrisy of colonial rule and the corrupt coffee trade, sacrificing his own career to expose the systemic oppression of the native people.

  14. Talk Before Sleep

    Elizabeth Berg

    ★ 3.9 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    Facing terminal illness, two fiercely independent women, bound by decades of shared secrets and sundaes, confront the hardest test of their unconventional friendship.

  15. The Man Who Listens to Horses

    Monty Roberts

    ★ 4.1 (11k) average on GoodreadsPsychology

    A real-life horse whisperer, from rodeo corrals to royal stables, defies his violent father and old ways, showing a silent language that transforms wild mustangs in minutes and teaches powerful lessons in nonverbal communication for all relationships.

  16. The Grass is Singing

    Doris Lessing

    ★ 3.8 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    In the desolate Rhodesian veld, a white woman's descent into madness and her Black servant's silent resentment lead to a violent act that exposes colonial society's brutal realities.

  17. Summer

    Eden Maguire

    ★ 3.7 (11k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    After past tragedies, Darina, still mourning Phoenix, must investigate the year-old murder of singer-songwriter Summer Madison, using Summer's music to find a killer and achieve justice amidst her own lasting love.

  18. Mr Stink

    David Walliams

    ★ 4.2 (11k) average on GoodreadsChildren's

    A lonely girl's secret friendship with a kind, malodorous tramp hidden in her garden shed leads to unexpected revelations and a town's surprising transformation.

  19. Rent

    Jonathan Larson

    ★ 4.2 (11k) average on GoodreadsRomance

    In 1990s East Village, a year of love, loss, and the fight against AIDS connects a group of struggling artists, their lives set to a rock score.

  20. High Tide in Tucson

    Barbara Kingsolver

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsLifestyle

    Barbara Kingsolver, with the sharp eyes of a scientist and the lyrical voice of a poet, navigates family, community, and the natural world, all while relocating a desert tortoise named Buddy from Tucson to the Kentucky mountains.

  21. Life and Death in Shanghai

    Nien Cheng

    ★ 4.3 (11k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Imprisoned for over six years during China's Cultural Revolution, Nien Cheng's memoir recounts her solitary confinement, resistance, and quest for justice amid national chaos and ideological fanaticism.

  22. Home to Holly Springs

    Jan Karon

    ★ 4.2 (11k) average on GoodreadsFiction

    A retired Episcopal priest, Father Tim, returns to his Mississippi birthplace after receiving a mysterious note, uncovering long-held family secrets and finding new connections that change his idea of 'home'.

  23. The Ground Beneath Her Feet

    Salman Rushdie

    ★ 3.8 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    When reality breaks apart, a photographer tells the grand love story of a vanished rock star and her musical partner, a love like the Orpheus legend set against East-meets-West conflicts and a world literally coming undone.

  24. The Animators

    Kayla Rae Whitaker

    ★ 4.0 (11k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    Two animators, bonded by their working-class past and artistic drive, find their decade-long partnership and friendship strained when their successful film, based on one's traumatic past, forces them to confront the real cost of their creative bond.

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