Books like 'A Simple Heart'
Readers who enjoyed A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAvailable in English for the first time, this best-selling Turkish classic of love and alienation in a changing world captures the vibrancy of interwar Berlin. A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade and discover life in 1920s Berlin...Categorized as:
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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Sally Beauman
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 80 ratingsLast night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Her future looks bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Max de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise...Categorized as:
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Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratings2011 Retailers Choice Award winner!The first in an epic two-book saga by beloved author Francine Rivers, this sweeping story explores the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters over several generations. Near the turn of the 20th century, fiery Marta leaves Switzerland determined to find life on her own terms... -
Never Kiss Goodbye by Laura Haley-McNeil
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA cowboy haunted by his past. A woman stalked by a deadly secret.Pregnant and on the run, Lily Harkin will do anything to protect her unborn child, but no one can know her secret – a secret so horrific it could destroy her and anyone she meets.Bronc rider Josh Merrick can’t forget the mistake that cost a woman her life...Categorized as:
spirituality literary-fiction romance mystery fiction historical western action-adventure -
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Condemned & Admired: The Earl's Cunning Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA French privateer’s daughter. A marquess’s son. And a chance encounter on the high seas. Twelve years ago, Lady Silcox fled England with her six-year-old daughter Violet to spare her the life she herself had been forced into: an arranged marriage to an older man...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult aristocracy book female-mc -
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, and Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook -
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe dons of Harriet Vane's alma mater, the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford, have invited her back to attend the annual Gaudy celebrations. However, the mood turns sour when someone begins a series of malicious acts including poison-pen messages, obscene graffiti and wanton vandalism. Harriet asks her old friend Wimsey to investigate...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction university 20th-century adult amateur-sleuth -
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA mesmerizing tale of love-from the author of The Bastard of Istanbul Elif Shafak, the most widely read female writer in Turkey, has earned a growing fan base all over the world with her bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction spirituality 21st-century action-adventure adult -
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsElla Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction spirituality 21st-century action-adventure adult -
A Daughter’s Dream by Cathy Sharp
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHeartache and hardship in London’s East End, from the bestselling author of The Orphans of Halfpenny StreetAmy Robinson and her fiance Matthew are struggling to resist the temptations faced by a soon-to-be-wed couple. To avoid these, Matthew throws himself into a new job and she goes to work in an exclusive new dress shop, where she meets Mary Maitland...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction female-mc psychological family romance 20th-century holidays -
Sacrificed & Reclaimed: The Soldier's Daring Widow by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA grieving widow. A tortured hero. And a fateful love. EDWARD DUNNING had it all: a beautiful home, two adorable children and a wife who was his other half. Only he wanted more. He wanted more than an ordinary life. So he went to war. And did not return. In the blink of an eye, MEAGAN DUNNING lost her husband, her future, her dreams...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction spirituality romance christian suspense regency -
Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom bestselling author Mary Ellen Taylor comes a story about profound loss, hard truths, and an overgrown greenhouse full of old secrets.Adrift in the wake of her father’s death, a failed marriage, and multiple miscarriages, Libby McKenzie feels truly alone. Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it’s also a distraction from her profound pain... -
Banished & Welcomed: The Laird's Reckless Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA reticent Highland laird. A banished woman with a powerful gift. And a love that was meant to be. Scotland 1808: As laird, CORMAG MACDRUMMOND knows his duty to his clan. All his life, he’s put their needs before his own, silencing his heart’s deepest desires. But then an allied laird makes a request that Cormag cannot refuse...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult ancient-civilization book british-isles europe female-mc -
Tamed & Unleashed: The Highlander's Vivacious Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA forgotten night. A stolen child. And a stranger who feels all too familiar. Waking up alone after a drunken night with a stranger in Gretna Green, CLAUDIA DAVENPORT, sister to Viscount Ashwood, finds herself still unmarried…and with child...Categorized as:
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Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsStefan's Zweig's Letter from an Unknown Woman and other stories contains a new translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell of one of his most celebrated novellas, Letter from an Unknown Woman , the inspiration for a classic 1948 Hollywood film by Max Ophüls, as well as three new stories, appearing in English for the first time.A famous author receives a letter on his forty-first birthday...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook epistolary feminism -
The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant and heartbreaking tale, based on the true story of one of World War II's quiet heroes - Dr Janusz Korczak.'You do not leave a sick child alone to face the dark and you do not leave a child at a time like this.'Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom...Categorized as:
historical-fiction spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book fiction -
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIt is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham," wrote Gore Vidal. "He was always so entirely there." Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom... -
The Woman in the Wood by Lesley Pearse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFifteen-year-old twins Maisy and Duncan Mitcham have always had each other. Until the fateful day in the wood . . . One night in 1960, the twins awake to find their father pulling their screaming mother from the house. She is to be committed to an asylum. It is, so their father insists, for her own good... -
The Secret by Kathryn Hughes
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom Kathryn Hughes, the author of the No. 1 Kindle bestseller The Letter, comes The Secret - a heartbreaking novel of tragedy, hope and second chances. Readers who treasure the novels of Lesley Pearse and Susan Lewis will adore this author. Mary has been nursing a secret. Forty years ago, she made a choice that would change her world for ever, and alter the path of someone she holds dear... -
Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsReturning from a visit to her daughter in Iraq, Joan Scudamore finds herself unexpectedly alone and stranded in an isolated rest house by flooding of the railway tracks. This sudden solitude compels Joan to assess her life for the first time ever and face up to many of the truths about herself...Categorized as:
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The Green Dress (True Colors) by Liz Tolsma
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFiction Based on Strange, But True, History True, riveting stories of American criminal activity are explored through a unique stories of historical romantic suspense. Collect them all and be inspired by the hope that always finds its way even in the darkest of times. In Boston, 1886, Harriet Peters commissions Sarah Jane Robinson to make her a new dress... -
Beatrix, the Baron and His Dog by G.L. Robinson
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Pair as Opposite as Opposite can be!After harrowing experiences in the Napoleonic Wars and suffering from what we would now recognise as PTSD, half-English, half-German Lukas is making a home for his mother and sister in the leafy green of England...Categorized as:
historical-fiction spirituality romance industrial-era regency fiction historical humor -
What You Promised by Adele Clee
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHe promised his name and his protection - but he never promised his love.Matthew Chandler built his fortune catering to the debauched antics of the ton. But one turn of the cards threatens everything he’s worked hard to achieve. Suspecting foul play at the gaming table, Matthew needs time and money if he has any hope of uncovering the plot to ruin him... -
The Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAgnes is on her way to Montpelier, when she sees a young man rescue a girl from a burning building. Agnes falls in love with this man, a local stonecutter, but the hero is also a betrayer, the apex of a triangle that eventually leads Agnes to commit murder... -
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Random Harvest by James Hilton
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCharles Rainier, a prosperous Briton, loses his memory as a result of shellshock in the First World War...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult amnesia -
Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape--from her husband's demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different... -
Ancient Tillage by Raduan Nassar
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor André, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of “the earth, the wheat, the bread, our table, and our family.” He loves the land, fears his austere, pious father, who preaches from the head of the table as if from a pulpit, and loathes himself as he begins to harbor shameful feelings for his sister Ana... -
The Ghost Tree by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBefore you follow the path into your family’s history, beware of the secrets you may find…The new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author.Ruth has returned to Edinburgh after many years of exile, left rootless by the end of her marriage, career and now the death of her father. She is now faced with the daunting task of clearing his house... -
Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win... -
The Alienist by Machado de Assis
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA classic work of literature by “the greatest author ever produced in Latin America.” (Susan Sontag) Brilliant physician Simão Bacamarte sacrifices a prestigious career to return home and dedicate himself to the budding field of psychology. Bacamarte opens the first asylum in Brazil hoping to crown himself and his hometown with “imperishable laurels...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies audiobook comedy -
Now, Voyager (The Vale Novels) by Olive Higgins Prouty
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Don't let's ask for the moon! We have the stars!" The film that concludes with Bette Davis's famous words, reaffirmed Davis's own stardom and changed the way Americans smoked cigarettes. But few contemporary fans of this story of a woman's self-realization know its source...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book family -
Destroyed & Restored: The Baron's Courageous Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA fearful lady. A shamed lord. And a hand at cards that will change both their lives. Terrified of her father’s temper, LADY ADELAIDE has lived a life of complete obedience. However, now, when her father threatens to gamble away her hand in marriage in the next card game, she turns to a trusted friend for help... -
सुम्निमा [Sumnima] by Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, विश्वेश्वरप्रसाद कोइराला
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSumnima a famous Nepali novel by B P Koirala, a former Prime Minister of Nepal is about the painful complications that arise in a man-woman relationship. The story is about the powerful attraction that exists between a Brahmin boy and an ordinary girl... -
Ruined & Redeemed: The Earl's Fallen Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsShe was the victim of a heinous crime. Then, she sought revenge. He seeks to punish his father And finds more than he bargained for. Once Lady Charlotte Frampton had been a young debutante, hoping to find a husband who would win her heart. Then, one night shattered everything and turned her life into a nightmare and herself into a monster... -
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My Mother's Shadow by Nikola Scott
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAddie thinks she knows everything about her mother. But when a stranger appears claiming to be her sister, she realises that her life so far has been a lie. But why? Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Santa Montefiore. Hartland House has always been a faithful keeper of secrets...1958... -
In Love by Alfred Hayes
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNew York in the 1950s. A man on a barstool is telling a story about a woman he met in a bar, early married and soon divorced, her child farmed out to her parents, good-looking, if a little past her prime. They’d gone out, they’d grown close, but as far as he was concerned it didn’t add up to much. He was a busy man. Then one day, out dancing, she runs into a rich awkward lovelorn businessman... -
Dina's Book by Herbjørg Wassmo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOn the scale of Gone with the Wind and War and Peace, this grand, sweeping epic will enthrall readers just as Dina bewitches everyone she meets.Set in Norway in the mid-nineteenth century, Dina's Book presents an extraordinary heroine. Beautiful, eccentric, and tempestuous, Dina carries a terrible burden: at the age of five she accidentally causes her mother's death...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Charioteer by Mary Renault
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAfter enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance... -
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIn 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century audiobook book -
Embers by Sándor Márai
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAs darkness settles on a forgotten castle at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, two men sit down to a final dinner together. They have not seen one another in forty-one years. At their last meeting, in the company of a beautiful woman, an unspoken act of betrayal left all three lives shattered - and each of them alone...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Dreams of Falling by Karen White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Night the Lights Went Out comes an exquisite new novel about best friends, family ties and the love that can both strengthen and break those bonds.It's been nine years since Larkin fled Georgetown, South Carolina, vowing never to go back... -
The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtenay
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBryce Courtenays latest novel , The Persimmon Tree, is a big sweeping saga, set among the Pacific Islands and in the Indian Ocean. In the style of Jame Clavell and Jame Michener, it tells the very personal and often romantic stories of men and women caught up in much larger events - in this case starting with the Japanese invasion of Java and the Dutch exodus of the region... -
The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction drama romance fiction civil-war historical audiobook -
半生缘 by Eileen Chang, 张爱玲
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom one of twentieth-century China's greatest writers and the author of Lust, Caution, this is an unforgettable story of a love affair set in 1930s Shanghai. Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory, where she meets Shujun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
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The Wonder Worker by Susan Howatch
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe inhabitants of a small community are interlinked by the healer at its heart, Nick Darrow. There is Alice, the romantic but also an outcast; Lewis the priest, an irascible traditionalist; Francie, who has a desire to be loved; and Stacy, a young trainee looking for faith and direction...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction spirituality 20th-century adult book christian epic -
When I Ran Away: A Novel (Random House Large Print) by Ilona Bannister
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to moneyed London a decade later, revealing a story of loss, motherhood, and love.As the Twin Towers collapse, Gigi Stanislawski flees her office building and escapes lower Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry... -
Abandoned & Protected: The Marquis' Tenacious Wife by Bree Wolf
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHe forced her hand. Now, she will deny him her heart. After what her father did to her mother, Henrietta’s worst fears are to be realised when her uncle decides to marry her off to a Scot. Gentleman or not, Henrietta knows that at his core he is still a barbarian...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult arranged-marriage audiobook book cozy female-mc -
Portrait of a Marriage by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBuck follows one woman's journey through a long-term marriage; its romanticized beginning, jolts of disillusionments and losses, and peace through acceptance and faith; as a metaphor for life...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction romance fiction historical 20th-century marriage -
Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis classic bestselling novel about a man who encounters a woman whose power to destroy is as strong as her power to love evokes Hemingway in its naturalistic portrayal of elemental forces in both nature and humanity. Ellen’s beauty was radiant, and Harland had been so struck with her personality and the strength of her character that he knew he could never leave her... -
A Heart Deceived by Michelle Griep
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMIRI BRAYDEN teeters on a razor’s edge between placating and enraging her brother, whom she depends upon for support. Yet if his anger is unleashed, so is his madness. Miri must keep his descent into lunacy a secret, or he’ll be committed to an asylum—and she’ll be sent to the poor house. ETHAN GOODWIN’s been on the run all of his life—from family, from the law...from God...
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