Recommendations based on "When the Stars Go Dark: A Novel"

Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...'Pure heaven, from first word to last' Sunday Times'Utterly captivating' Elizabeth Day'A wonder' Daily Mail'A tour de force' Sarah Winman, author of Still LifeThis is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.But as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, they find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play.They raised themselves on stories. Now it's time for them to write their own...'One of those big chunky stories that swallows you whole' The Times'Beautifully compulsive ... The Whalebone Theatre will feel like a much-loved book even if you're reading it for the first time' Red Magazine'A book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long' Francis Spufford, author of Light Perpetual'Pure heaven, from first word to last' Sunday Times'Utterly captivating' Elizabeth Day'A wonder' Daily Mail'A tour de force' Sarah Winman, author of Still LifeThis is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.But as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, they find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play.They raised themselves on stories. Now it's time for them to write their own...'One of those big chunky stories that swallows you whole' The Times'Beautifully compulsive ... The Whalebone Theatre will feel like a much-loved book even if you're readi

'Compelling and fine and rich, I devoured it' TESSA HADLEY 'A writer to watch' FRANCIS SPUFFORD A stunning new novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry, from the acclaimed author of Nightingale, Marina Kemp. When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday home of famed novelist Don Travers, she feels that she has made it. And yet as the week unfolds it is not Don but his children and unknowable wife, Lydia, who come to intrigue Zoe most. On the fringes, Don's youngest, Nemony, watches as her older siblings begin to navigate the treacherous waters of the adult world. When her adored oldest sister makes a terrible mistake, the holiday ends suddenly, shattering the fragile balance of their parents' marriage and the siblings' lives. Many years later and in the wake of loss, the events of that summer continue to haunt. Nemony, now a lonely new mother herself, strikes up a chance friendship with Zoe. With her support, Nemony attempts to grapple with the casual damage enacted by her father. But as their relationship deepens, she is soon forced to question the true extent of Zoe's fascination with the Travers family. Tracing their lives through Sicily, London and the old mining towns of Appalachia, Nemony must uncover the stories untold - about her implacable father, her troubled mother, and the siblings she might still do anything for. 'Exquisitely written, subtle and transporting' SUSSIE ANIE, author of To Fill a Yellow House 'Ambitious, immersive' OLIVIA SUDJIC, author of Sympathy 'Complex and nuanced...I adored it' LUCY CALDWELL, author of These Days 'Unflinching, magnificent' KAREN POWELL, author of Fifteen Wild Decembers

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 stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.Dorothy’s story takes the reader from pre–WWII England through the blitz, to the ’60s and beyond. It is the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told—in Morton’s signature style—against a backdrop of events that changed the world.

In the rubble of a broken continent, a girl must solve a mystery whose answers could rebuild her family—or break her completely, in this New York Times bestselling, critically acclaimed tour de force historical novel from Monica Hesse, author of Girl in the Blue Coat.Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp say the war is over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal, her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.Zofia's last words to her brother were a promise: Abek to Zofia, A to Z. When I find you again, we will fill our alphabet. Now her journey to fulfill that vow takes her through Poland and Germany, into a displaced persons camp where everyone she meets is trying to piece together a future from a painful past: Miriam, desperately searching for the twin she was separated from after they survived medical experimentation. Breine, a former heiress, who now longs only for a simple wedding with her new fiancé. And Josef, who guards his past behind a wall of secrets, and is beautiful and strange and magnetic all at once.But the deeper Zofia digs, the more impossible her search seems. How can she find one boy in a sea of the missing?

After the men in an Arctic Norwegian town are wiped out, the women must survive a sinister threat in this "perfectly told" 1600s parable of "a world gone mad" (Adriana Trigiani).Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves.Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence.Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.One of the Best Books of the YearUSA TodayGood Housekeeping

WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWASHINGTON POST, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF THE YEARBased on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.

This bestselling and award-winning novel about a teenage girl in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam speaks powerfully to the realities of grief, heartbreak, and bravery, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah and Ruta Sepetys.Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person—a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary novel about courage, grief, and love in impossible times.

Heather O’Neill’s critically acclaimed debut novel, with a new introduction from the author to celebrate its ten-year anniversaryBaby, all of thirteen years old, is lost in the gangly, coltish moment between childhood and the strange pulls and temptations of the adult world. Her mother is dead; her father, Jules, is scarcely more than a child himself and is always on the lookout for his next score. Baby knows that “chocolate milk” is Jules’ slang for heroin and sees a lot more of that in her house than the real thing. But she takes vivid delight in the scrappy bits of happiness and beauty that find their way to her, and moves through the threat of the streets as if she’s been choreographed in a dance.Soon, though, a hazard emerges that is bigger than even her hard-won survival skills can handle. Alphonse, the local pimp, has his eye on her for his new girl—and what the johns don’t take he covets for himself. If Baby cannot learn to become her own salvation, his dark world threatens to claim her, body and soul.Channeling the artlessly affecting voice of her thirteen-year-old heroine with extraordinary accuracy and power, Heather O’Neill’s debut novel blew readers away when it was first published ten years ago. Now it’s sure to capture its next decade of readers as Baby picks her pathway along the edge of the abyss to arrive at a place of redemption, and of love.Featuring a new introduction from the authorCBC Canada reads winner, Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction winner, Orange Prize for Fiction finalist, Governor General’s Literary Award finalist, International Impac Dublin Literary Award finalistPraise for Lullabies for Little Criminals“A vivid portrait of life on skid row.”—People“A nuanced, endearing coming-of-age novel you won’t want to miss.”—Quill And Quire“Vivid and poignant. . . . A deeply moving and troubling novel.”—The Independent (London)“O’Neill is a tragicomedienne par excellence. . . . You will not want to miss this tender depiction of some very mean streets.”—Montreal Review of Books

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award * A Texas Bluebonnet Book“Perfect to be read late into the night.”—Stefan Bachmann, internationally bestselling author of The Peculiar“A spooky sisterhood mystery that is sure to be a hit with readers.”—School Library Journal (starred review)“Grab a flashlight and stay up late with this one.”—Kirkus ReviewsOnce there were two sisters who did everything together. But only one of them disappeared.New York Times–bestselling author Jacqueline West’s Long Lost is an atmospheric, eerie mystery brimming with suspense. Fans of Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces and Victoria Schwab’s City of Ghosts series will lose themselves in this mesmerizing and century-spanning tale.Eleven-year-old Fiona has just read a book that doesn’t exist.When Fiona’s family moves to a new town to be closer to her older sister’s figure skating club—and far from Fiona’s close-knit group of friends—nobody seems to notice Fiona’s unhappiness. Alone and out of place, Fiona ventures to the town’s library, a rambling mansion donated by a long-dead heiress. And there she finds a gripping mystery novel about a small town, family secrets, and a tragic disappearance.Soon Fiona begins to notice strange similarities that blur the lines between the novel and her new town. With a little help from a few odd Lost Lake locals, Fiona uncovers the book’s strange history. Lost Lake is a town of restless spirits, and Fiona will learn that both help and danger come from unexpected places—maybe even from the sister she thinks doesn’t care about her anymore.New York Times–bestselling and acclaimed author Jacqueline West weaves a heart-pounding, intense, and imaginative mystery that builds anticipation on every page, while centering on the strong and often tumultuous bond between sisters. Laced with suspense, Long Lost will fascinate readers of Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Secret Keepers and fans of ghost stories.

From the author of Girl One comes a spellbinding adventure about a strange power lurking in the Arkansas Ozarks, and the group of friends obsessed with finding it.Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, Arkansas, the small town they all fled after high school graduation. Each is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter that reads, You promised.It has been fifteen years since the summer that changed their lives, and they’re anxious to find out why Brandi called them back, especially when they vowed never to return.But Brandi is missing. She’d been acting erratically for months, railing at whoever might listen about magic all around them. About a power they can’t see. And about strange houses that appear only when you need them . . .Told in two enthralling timelines, The Wonder State is a gorgeous, immersive, speculative Gothic tale about searching for home. Sara Flannery Murphy has created another brilliant, genre-blurring novel―an adventure story laced with nostalgia, exploring belonging and the lasting power of community.