Elizabeth Berg
Read-alikes:
Readers who enjoy Berg's exploration of women's relationships through the trying times in life may also enjoy the novels of Ann Hood. Hood's first novel, Somewhere off the Coast of Maine, recounts the friendship of three women from their college days in the idealistic 1960s to the materialistic 1980s. Suzanne has turned her back on her flower child past and is now a high-powered executive on Wall Street. Her daughter Sparrow wishes her mother had retained just a bit of her youthful idealism. Claudia is mired in grief since the death of one of her sons, and Elizabeth is trying to bring herself to tell her friends she is fatally ill.
Luanne Rice examines the lives of her female characters through their family relationships. Less lyrical in tone than Berg, Rice's stories offer deeper character and plot development and the occasional revelation of a dark family secret to explain character motives. There are two good choices for a starting point. Blue Moon tells the story of three sisters who run a locally known harbor restaurant and of their seafaring husbands. Stone Heart is a darker tale about a woman's return to her idyllic home town only to discover her sister's abusive family situation.
For a more light-hearted look at family situations, readers may want to try Elinor Lipman. Lipman's characters are a bit more broadly drawn and tend to look for the humorous side to all of life's unexpected twists and turns. In her break out novel, The Way Men Act, Lipman's protagonist, Melinda, is a college drop-out and former high school party queen who is now working as a floral designer in her college hometown. Next door is another "failed" high school classmate, Dennis, the football star who now owns a fly fishing shop. While designing bridal bouquets for the girls she snubbed in the halls, Melinda is trying to work up the courage to approach Dennis. Readers will enjoy Melinda's hapless attempts to put together a life without advanced education while trying to land the "guy next door."
Fans of Berg's Katie trilogy should try Object Lessons by Anna Quindlen. During a 1960s summer, young Maggie confronts a myriad of changes which affect her entire family. Her grandfather suffers a stroke; her cousin Monica and best friend Debbie make the leap into adulthood leaving Maggie behind; and Maggie discovers some harsh truths about her own family. Quindlen's writing is more dense than Berg's but she explores many of the same issues involving family and friendships.
Berg's protagonists are not all teenagers or women in their thirties. In The Pull of the Moon and Never Change, her characters are in their fifties and encountering life-changing experiences which are puzzling yet exhilarating. Jeanne Ray explores the same themes with her characters in Julie and Romeo. The titular characters own competing flower shops and have been engaged in a family feud that goes back three generations. While experiencing the power of love late in life, Julie and Romeo attempt to keep their families unaware of their new relationship while both search for the reasons behind the rift between the clans. Deftly mixing tenderness and humor, Ray presents a love story between seniors that will appeal to readers of any age.
Philippa Gregory
Read-alikes:
Before there was Philippa Gregory there was Jean Plaidy. One of the pen names of prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, who also wrote as Victoria Holt and Philippa Carr, Plaidy was one of the best known authors of Historical fiction of the twentieth century. Like Gregory, Plaidy was fascinated with the past, and she wrote a number of excellent novels featuring some of the most famous people in history as characters. Readers who loved the character-rich feel of Gregory's The Constant Princess will want to try Plaidy's trilogy: Katharine The Virgin Widow, The Shadow of the Pomegranate, and The King’s Secret Matter, which recounts in spellbinding detail the life of Katharine of Aragon and her struggles to remain Queen of England.
Elizabeth Chadwick's Historical novels have the same kind of excellent use of history, vividly detailed settings, and realistically complex characters found in Gregory's books. Chadwick often includes a generous measure of romance into her captivating stories, and thus her books are a particularly good choice for Historical Fiction readers who also enjoy Historical Romances. Suggest Chadwick's The Winter Mantle, the story of an English Earl who falls in love with the niece of William the Conqueror, to readers looking for a sweeping story of passion, intrigue, love and loss set in Medieval England.
Readers who revel in the kind of expertly evoked settings found in Gregory's books, will definitely want to give Margaret George's Historical novels a try. Like Gregory, George is passionate about history and her vibrant, detail-rich, and frequently leisurely paced books, are an excellent suggestion for readers who enjoy immersing themselves in a past time and place. Suggest George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers, in which the English king recounts through his own diary the "true" story of his life, to those readers who enjoyed any of Gregory's books about the Tudors
Like Gregory, Rosalind Laker is an author who knows how to blend fact and fiction into a fascinating story. History forms the solid foundation for all Laker's novels, whose settings have ranged from 16th century Holland to 20th century France and Italy, to which Laker adds a mix of her own colorful characters and real historical figures, thus giving her books a similar sense of appeal to Gregory's entertaining style of Historical Fiction. Start readers off with either Circle of Pearls: A Novel, the story of a family of 17th century English women whose legacy is a beautiful gown of pearls, or To Dance with Kings: A Novel of Versailles, another sweeping saga of four generations of French women whose lives become caught up with those living in the glittering palace of Versailles during the reigns of Louis XIV to Louis XVI.
Australian author Posie Graeme-Evans is a newcomer to the Historical Fiction genre but she is quickly winning over readers with her engaging style of Historical novels. The Innocent and The Exiled, the first two books in a trilogy by Graeme-Evans, have already been published in the United States, where they soon found favor with readers who like their Historical Fiction served up with a strong measure of passion, intrigue, and lots of colorful historical detail. Readers will want to begin with The Innocent, which introduces Graeme-Evans' protagonist, a young peasant girl named Anne, whose knowledge of herbs will bring her to the attention of the queen of England, and whose beauty will capture the interest of King Edward IV.
Alexander McCall Smith
Read-alikes:
Seminal Mystery writer Agatha Christie is the inspiration and role model for Precious Ramotswe's private detecting. Though not a professional investigator like Mma Ramotswe, Christie's character Miss Marple has a likeable, inquisitive nature that should resonate with fans of Ramotswe. Miss Marple's amateur, busybody sleuthing should also appeal to fans of Isabel Dalhousie, McCall Smith's occasional gumshoe in the Sunday Philosophy Club series. Christie's other famous investigator, Hercule Poirot, might be a good character for fans of Professor von Igelfeld of Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Though merely an academic, not a detective, von Igelfeld has the same conceit and pompousness that make Poirot so endearing. All of Christie's Mysteries feature charming characters, minimal violence, and gentle sensibilities. The first Hercule Poirot book is The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which the detective must use his wits and observation to pinpoint a poisoner from a large circle of suspects. The first Miss Marple book is The Murder at the Vicarage, wherein Miss Marple uses her intuition and insight into human nature to find a killer.
Fans of McCall Smith's vivid settings and early twentieth century style should consider R. K. Narayan. His wonderfully detailed Malgudi books create a compelling vision of India; without Narayan, said his eminent author friend Graham Green, "I could never have known what it is like to be an Indian." Ordinary, interesting people do ordinary, interesting things in the Malgudi stories, much like the characters in McCall Smith's books, especially in the 44 Scotland Street series. Straightforward but thoughtful prose illuminates Narayan's investigation into human nature, and a gentle touch of humor and irony speaks to universal themes that transcend the fictional Indian town. As it is not necessary to read the books in series order, readers may wish to start with one of Narayan's most acclaimed books, The Guide, winner of India's most prestigious literary award, the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy. Attention to character drives The Guide, in which a newly-released prisoner is mistaken for a holy man and decides to act the part.
James Thurber, a prolific writer during the first part of the twentieth century, may be a good choice for those who love McCall Smith's subtle but constant humor. As a columnist for the New Yorker, Thurber became a master of short comedy. His characters will be familiar to McCall Smith fans for their peculiar perspectives and laughably human flaws. They manage to turn ordinary, trivial occurrences into comical interludes of giant proportion. Those who like the drawings in Portuguese Irregular Verbs and the 44 Scotland Street series might enjoy the lighthearted illustrations interspersed throughout much of Thurber's work. Fans of the linguistic humor in Portuguese Irregular Verbs may wish to try The Wonderful O, an absurdist fable about the dire consequences of outlawing a vowel. For a more general introduction to Thurber's lightly ironic humor, try the short stories in My World — And Welcome to It, populated by well-drawn characters with comic delusions.
Clyde Edgerton is a master at creating the sort of close-knit communities that characterize McCall Smith's novels. Normal people with normal problems form the heart of Edgerton's books, which study human nature with humor and compassion. Edgerton, like McCall Smith, writes books that are gentle but not spineless, warm but not bland. Mildly strong language is infrequent, though it does occur, especially for comedic effect, and difficult personal problems do crop up, albeit rarely. Edgerton shares McCall Smith's ear for dialogue, though his books are set in the American South, rather than Europe or Africa. Try starting with Lunch at the Piccadilly, set in a nursing home and starring several quirky elderly ladies, one eccentric preacher, and a long-suffering, able-bodied nephew. This lighthearted study of aging may especially appeal to fans of 44 Scotland Street for the sense of community shared by different people living in the same building.
Literary Fiction writer Jon Hassler writes remarkably funny books that explore the human experience, from personal minutiae to shared universal problems. As in McCall Smith's books, the characters tend to be likable, though they have their share of failings. Hassler's tone can be darker and his topics more serious than what is typically found in McCall Smith, but he always treats his subject with compassion and grace. Over the course of several books he has established a community of such richness to rival anything by McCall Smith. The first book about this small Minnesota community is Hassler's debut novel, Staggerford. Taking place over the course of a week, Staggerford examines lives of ordinary, richly-flawed people and the difficult things that can happen to them.
John Grisham
Read-alikes
Obviously, other Legal Thrillers make good suggestions for Grisham's fans. However, not every Legal Thriller works. Scott Turow's stories do not move at the same rapid pace as Grisham's, and readers who like both either enjoy Legal Thrillers across the board or appreciate each author's strengths. By the same token Richard North Patterson, who also writes in this subgenre, matches Turow's larger, more leisurely paced novels more closely than Grisham's page-turners. (In Turow and his ilk, pacing increases at the end, but the books do not start out fast from the first.)
There are many Legal Thriller writers who follow the Grisham pattern more closely and satisfy his many fans. Steve Martini writes page-turning Legal Thrillers that feature lawyers as underdogs, fighting for justice. His titles also have a cinematic quality that characterizes Grisham's books. Sympathetic protagonists, especially series character Paul Madriani and his colleagues, people the stories, and investigation plays an important role, with actual courtroom drama often taking second place. In The Jury, Madriani defends genetic researcher, Dr. David Crone, accused of murdering his assistant. The evidence places blame compellingly on Crone, but skilled investigation brings the true villain to justice.
Lisa Scottoline, sometimes called the "distaff Grisham," offers the legal focus, sympathetic characters, fast pacing, and a plot full of unexpected twists. There's more humor and sarcasm in Scottoline's stories, especially in smart-mouthed heroine/attorney Bennie Rosato, but they offer a similarly suspenseful story. In Mistaken Identity, Rosato represents a woman accused of killing a cop: a woman who also claims to be Bennie's twin. The implications of the latter resonate through this story of personal issues and legal corruption.
Brad Meltzer, like Grisham, likes to portray young, vulnerable lawyers caught in difficult situations, pitted against powerful but corrupt enemies. Fast pacing, provocative storylines, suspense and danger, along with sympathetic characters make satisfying books for Grisham fans. In Dead Even, legal skullduggery abounds as husband and wife face each other in court, forced into this situation by blackmail and politics. How they extricate themselves from the threats of their powerful foes and effect justice makes exciting, satisfying storytelling.
Beyond the boundaries of Legal Thrillers there are a number of authors who might appeal to readers not precisely tied to the law. David Baldacci is a solid suggestion for Grisham fans. Writing intricately plotted stories of conspiracy and corruption, Baldacci offers sympathetic protagonists, multiple plot twists, ethical dilemmas, and more, in these novels which focus on such themes as corporate corruption, financial manipulation, and abuse of power in the presidency. Like Grisham, Baldacci offers down-to earth heroes, caught up in impossible situations. In Absolute Power, he presents a complex puzzle with multiple, intertwining plot lines -- even though we know what happened and who is responsible, we keep turning the pages to discover how the story will play out, as a likable professional cat burglar on his last case witnesses the murder of the president's mistress and becomes the one piece the subsequent cover-up can't seem to eliminate or control.
Also known for his provocative stories and relentless pacing, Stuart Woods has much to offer Grisham fans. New York Dead is a good place to start. The first of the novels featuring detective (later retired) Stone Barrington, this one finds him seeking the murderer of a New York newscaster, who fell -- or jumped -- from her apartment, survived the fall, but disappeared when the ambulance transporting her was hit by a fire truck. While there are suspense, action, and plot twists, there's also more sex and violence than one finds in Grisham. Readers who can tolerate this might find Woods a good choice.