Staff Pick - The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Have you ever read a book that consumes you so much that it’s all you can think about? Whatever you're doing, you're wondering what's going to happen next? I hope you as readers have felt this way. This was my experience with The American Heiress (M) by Daisy Goodwin.

Goodwin tells the tale of Cora Cash a rich American whose overbearing social-climbing mother takes her to Europe to find the one thing all her American dollars won’t buy - an aristocratic title. Once they arrive in England, an unfortunate accident on the fox hunt causes Cora to meet the Duke who will eventually become her fiance. Cora has her title but is plunged into a foreign world. With a caustic mother-in-law, Princes and aristocrats, fans of the television series Downton Abbey (M) are sure to enjoy The American Heiress.

Once I finished The American Heiress I knew it would be difficult to find something that would rank as high in my estimation but I pulled some read-a-likes together all the same.

Wideacre (M), the first book in the Wideacre trilogy by Phillipa Gregory, is a good place to start. Wideacre concerns Beatrice's love for the estate she can never inherit since she is a woman. The first in the trilogy is a character-driven story of obsession with inheritance and legacy. This moody story may be gruesome at times so proceed with caution.

Coral Glynn (M) by Peter Cameron brings us to more modern times than either The American Heiress or Wideacre being set in the 1950s. This character-driven tale shows Coral nursing the mother of a WWII veteran who is grappling with coming to terms with his war experience and sexuality. Fans of the romantic side of The American Heiress are sure to enjoy Coral Glynn.

Mistress Shakespeare (M) by Karen Harper tells a moody story of William Shakespeare's broken engagement to Anne Whateley. Shakespeare is forced into marriage when Anne Hathaway becomes pregnant. Shakespeare continues a clandestine affair with Anne Whateley when he goes to London to work. This novel of historical fiction illuminates one of the mysteries of the Bard's life.

The Dream of Scipio (M) by Iain Pears is a character-driven tale set in three different historical periods. Characters from the fourth, fourteenth and the twentieth centuries are all studying a neo-Platonic document called The Dream of Scipio written by Manilus Hippomanes. The novel presents each character's interpretation of the document and the influence it has on their lives and romantic relationships.

Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed - Read-a-likes

Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail (M) recounts Cheryl Strayed’s personal struggle after the sudden death of her mother and her painful divorce. These life events led to a decision to undertake a grueling three month solo hike of over a 1,000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. This haunting memoir is sure to please biography fans. If you liked Wild, here are some read-a-likes for you.


Blazing along again on the Pacific Crest Trail is A Blistered Kind of Love: one couple’s trial by trail (M) by Angela Ballard. This atmospheric memoir details a suburban couple’s trek from Mexico to Canada along the trail and recounts the challenges they faced, including unique encounters with wildlife and the beautiful scenery on the trail.


Another moving memoir is Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: my years of magical reading (M) by Nina Sankovitch. Sankovicth’s book recounts her grief after the death of her older sister. She became determined to live a better life to make up for the painful loss. She decided to read a book a day for a year in hopes that literature would ease her pain. This moving memoir is sure to be a treasure for any book lover.


This Boy’s Life: a memoir (M) is a reflective memoir that recalls Tobias Wolff’s early life after his parents’ divorce. This book discusses the nomadic nature of his life after his mother decided to move them to the Northwestern U.S. Wolff remembers the adults in his life with a candid objectivity that biography aficionados are sure to enjoy.


The Year of Magical Thinking (M) is another haunting autobiography that recounts Joan Didion’s grief after the death of her husband while her daughter was already gravely ill. The book movingly follows Didion through the clinical stages of grief as she deals with life without her husband of forty years.

11/22/63 by Stephen King - Read-a-likes

The assassination of American president John F. Kennedy shocked the world in 1963. What if you could travel back to 1963 and prevent that tragedy? Stephen King contemplates that in his latest suspense novel 11/22/63 (M). Jeff Eppings a teacher from Maine receives an essay from one of his GED students about a horrific personal event that triggers a turn of events that takes Eppings spiraling back to 1963 in this intricately plotted story. This fast-paced novel takes readers on a nostalgic journey to the fabled age of the Kennedys.

As with most King books, this book is popular and you may want something to read while you wait to move up the library holds list. We’ve compiled a list of read-a-likes to keep you entertained in the meantime.


Set in the 1950s, Pale Horse Coming (M) by Stephen Hunter brings back gritty Arkansas cop Earl Swagger. Swagger brings together a group of gunslingers in this fast paced suspense story. Violence reigns when they set off to search for a friend who’s gone missing investigating a secret African American prison in Mississippi.



In The Legacy (M), author Stephen Frey explores the conspiracy theory of a second shooter on the “grassy knoll.” This fast-paced suspenseful tale takes us from a surprise inheritance of a safety deposit box key that contains a video of the JFK assassination from another angle.



In The Shot (M) by Philip Kerr, the mob decides to pick up the CIA’s work of assassinating Fidel Castro. They hire a hitman, but the reader finds the target is not the one they expected in this suspenseful story. This fast-paced, plot-driven story provides a new perspective on the Kennedy-Castro assassination conspiracies.



In Penumbra (M), Carolyn Haines tells the story of two half sisters - one white and one biracial - growing up in the south in the 1950s. When one sister is beaten and her daughter kidnapped, this suspenseful story tells the parallels of two half-sisters as they live separate lives.

Graphic Novels - 3 "Sure Bets" for Adult Readers

With the first year of the Graphic Novel Book Club at Woodlawn Public Library behind us, the members thought it they would take the opportunity to share some Sure Bets from the format with fans of TheReader.ca. We’ve picked three Sure Bets which we think are good starting points for adults interested in reading graphic novels.

Our first Sure Bet is Marjane Satrapi’s autobiography of growing up in Iran before and after the Islamic revolution. This graphic novel is drawn in black and white and has been translated into several languages. Persepolis (M) was written and drawn by Satrapi and was later made into an animated film (M) featuring the same style as the graphic novel. Volume 1 concerns Satrapi’s childhood while Volume 2 concerns her time in Europe as a teen and young adult.

Our second Sure Bet is Watchmen (M) by Alan Moore. Considered a classic in the art of graphic novels, Watchmen is the only graphic novel on Time magazine’s 100 Greatest Novels list. Superheroes who were once renowned are now mostly in retirement until they mysteriously start being murdered one by one.

Our third Sure Bet is the only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (M) by Art Spiegelman. Maus is the biography of the author’s father who was a holocaust survivor from Poland. Spiegelman shows creativity by depicting the characters using animals; the Jews in the graphic novel are depicted as mice while the Germans are cats.

For more information on the Graphic Novel Book Club, contact the Woodlawn Public Library at 490-2636.