Books like 'Glittering Images'
Readers who enjoyed Glittering Images by Susan Howatch also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Girl Behind the Gates by Brenda Davies
Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her.1981... -
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome stories live forever . . .Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship... -
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen... -
Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsBestselling author Diane Chamberlain delivers a breakout book about a small southern town fifty years ago, and the darkest—and most hopeful—places in the human heartAfter losing her parents, fifteen-year-old Ivy Hart is left to care for her grandmother, older sister and nephew as tenants on a small tobacco farm... -
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Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsCan a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be... -
The Key by Kathryn Hughes
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the #1 bestselling author of The Letter Kathryn Hughes comes The Key, an unforgettable story of a heartbreaking secret that will stay with you for ever. 'Riveting' Lesley Pearse on The Letter. 'Gripping' Good Housekeeping on The Secret. 1956 It's Ellen Crosby's first day at work as a student nurse at Ambergate County Lunatic Asylum... -
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsInspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword by Geoff Wilkes, as well as facsimiles of the original Gestapo file which inspired the novel. Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt is 1965, and Charles Ashworth has attained the plum position of bishop of Starbridge, an honor that keeps him in a heady whirl of activity that would exhaust the most seasoned corporate executive. With the invaluable support of his minions and his attractive, unsinkable wife, Ashworth stands against the amorality and decadence of the age—"Anti-Sex Ashworth...Categorized as:
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Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century...Categorized as:
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Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family romance fiction historical audiobook mystery -
Her Last Promise by Kathryn Hughes
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA mysterious letter from Spain. A surprising new beginning... Fall in love this summer with Her Last Promise, a gripping, heartwrenching story of how hope can blossom in the ruins of tragedy and of the redeeming power of love. From No. 1 bestselling author Kathryn Hughes. Tara Richards was just a girl when she lost her mother... -
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... -
Mystical Paths by Susan Howatch
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen Nicholas Darrow follows his father into the Anglican priesthood in 1968 at the age of twenty-five, he is fleeing a troubled past. But when his fascination with his own psychic powers results in a near-tragedy, Nicholas must face the truth about his relationship with his father before he can find his way out of the seemingly impenetrable darkness that engulfs him... -
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... -
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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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Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Doll by Cora Taylor
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsWhile Meg is recovering from rheumatic fever her grandmother gives her the old-fashioned family doll named Jessie, and when Meg falls asleep holding Jessie, she wakes up to discover that she has gone back in time and is now Morag, a girl traveling the Canadian prairies by covered wagon...Categorized as:
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Poison at the Village Show: The start of a BRAND NEW cozy murder mystery series from Catherine Coles for 2022 by Catherine Coles
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWestleham Village 1947. It’s the Westleham village show and with the war finally over, everyone is looking forward to a pleasant day.But newcomer, Martha Miller doesn’t share the excitement. Because since her husband Stan left for work one day and never returned, Martha has been treated as somewhat of an outsider in Westleham. The village gossip is that Martha must be to blame…...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction religion spirituality 19th-century 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of , is a powerfully eloquent tribute to the arduous demands of rural America, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder...Categorized as:
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The Lake House by Kate Morton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsAn abandoned house...June 1933, and sixteen-year-old Alice Edevane is preparing for her family's Midsummer Eve party at their country home, Loeanneth. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.A missing child..Categorized as:
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Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsOne of the most important and controversial writers of the 20th century, Knut Hamsun made literary history with the publication in 1890 of this powerful, autobiographical novel recounting the abject poverty, hunger and despair of a young writer struggling to achieve self-discovery and its ultimate artistic expression...Categorized as:
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You Let Me Go by Eliza Graham
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA secret family history of love, anguish and betrayal.After her beloved grandmother Rozenn’s death, Morane is heartbroken to learn that her sister is the sole inheritor of the family home in Cornwall—while she herself has been written out of the will...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family literary-fiction europe british-isles united-kingdom england fiction -
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:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book classics -
The Mansion by William Faulkner
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Mansion completes Faulkner’s great trilogy of the Snopes family in the mythical county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, which also includes The Hamlet and The Town. Beginning with the murder of Jack Houston, and ending with the murder of Flem Snopes, it traces the downfall of this indomitable post-bellum family, who managed to seize control of the town of Jefferson within a generation... -
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The Wedding Tree by Robin Wells
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNational bestselling author Robin Wells weaves a moving epic that stretches from modern-day Louisiana to World War II-era New Orleans and back again in this multigenerational tale of love, loss and redemption. Hope Stevens thinks Wedding Tree, Louisiana, will be the perfect place to sort out her life and all the mistakes she’s made...Categorized as:
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The Glass Château by Stephen P. Kiernan
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the critically acclaimed author of Universe of Two and The Baker’s Secret, a novel of hope, healing, and the redemptive power of art, set against the turmoil of post-World War II France and inspired by the life of Marc Chagall.One month after the end of World War II, amid the jubilation in the streets of France, there are throngs of people stunned by the recovery work ahead... -
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... -
The Missing Daughter by Emily Gunnis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the author of the runaway bestseller The Girl in the Letter comes a heartwrenching, twisting novel of betrayal, tragedy and a shocking family secret buried for decades.1960. Thirteen-year-old Rebecca lives in fear of her father’s temper. As a storm batters Seaview Cottage one night, she hears a visitor at the door and a violent argument ensues...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book coming-of-age crime -
Mysteries by Knut Hamsun
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMysteries (1892) is the story of Johan Nilsen Nagel, a mysterious stranger who suddenly turns up in a small Norwegian town one summer-and just as suddenly disappears. Nagel is a complete outsider, a sort of modern Christ treated in a spirit of near parody...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century anthologies classics europe existentialism fiction -
The Lobotomist's Wife by Samantha Greene Woodruff
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn enthralling historical novel of a compassionate and relentless woman, a cutting-edge breakthrough in psychiatry, and a nightmare in the making.Since her brother took his life after WWI, Ruth Emeraldine has had one goal: to help those suffering from mental illness. Then she falls in love with charismatic Robert Apter—a brilliant doctor championing a radical new treatment, the lobotomy...Categorized as:
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The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLEROn a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard’s only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden’s greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book coming-of-age -
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:
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Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsRamsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him... -
Forest of the Hanged by Liviu Rebreanu
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsDuring the First World War, just behind the eastern front, there was a forest, where Austrians and Hungarians used to hang deserters. To this place came Apostol Bologa, a young Romanian officer eager to serve his country. Born in a Romanian region of Transylvania which was then under Hungarian rule, he had naturally enough joined the Austro-Hungarian army...Categorized as:
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The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBy chance, John and Jean--one English, the other French--meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared...Categorized as:
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The Summer of Katya by Trevanian
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the golden summer of 1914, Jean-Marc Montjean, recently graduated from medical school, comes to the small French village of Salies to assist the village physician. His first assignment is to treat the brother of a beautiful woman named Katya Treville. As he and her family become friendly, he realizes they are haunted by an old, dark secret . . -
Winter Journey by Diane Armstrong
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHalina Shore is a Polish-born forensic dentist who lives in Australia. When she travels to Poland to take part in the investigation of a war crime, she finds herself at the centre of a bitter struggle in a community that has been divided by a grim legacy...Categorized as:
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The Survivors by Kate Furnivall
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDiscover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage and betrayal, from the internationally bestselling author of The Betrayal.Germany, 1945. The Allied Military Government has set up Displaced Persons camps throughout war-ravaged Germany, to house the millions of devastated people throughout Europe who have lost everything. Klara Janowska is one of these... -
Famous Last Words by Timothy Findley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceilings of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers of the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament - the sordid truth that he alone possessed...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult alternate-history book classics fiction -
The Pearl Locket by Kathleen McGurl
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWe’ll Meet Again… When Ali inherits her great-aunt’s house she immediately moves her whole family in, despite the warnings that there is something strange about the place. Unfazed Ali begins redecorating, going through the rooms, making each one her own with the help of her daughter, Kelly... -
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:
christian historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality 20th-century adult book -
In My Father's House by Ernest J. Gaines
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA compelling novel of a man brought to reckon with his buried past...In St. Adrienne, a small black community in Louisiana, Reverend Phillip Martin—a respected minister and civil rights leader—comes face to face with the sins of his youth in the person of Robert X, a young, unkempt stranger who arrives in town for a mysterious "meeting" with the Reverend...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality 20th-century adult black-mc -
Deadly Communion by Frank Tallis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDetective Inspector Oskar Reinhardt finds that young women are being slain in an unnerving—and ingenious—manner, with a small, almost undetectable, hat pin. For Dr. Max Liebermann, the killer is unique in the annals of psychopathology, one who murders in the midst of consensual love...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction europe western-central-europe austria urban mystery fiction -
A Whispered Name by William Brodrick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA hugely moving and intelligent novel from the bestselling author of The Sixth Lamentation and The Gardens of the Dead, A Whispered Name reaches into the mysteries of one man's past and casts light on the long shadows war leaves... -
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The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsRuth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . -
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsFrom acclaimed author Ellen Marie Wiseman comes a vivid, daring novel about the devastating power of family secrets--beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s. On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century abuse action-adventure animals audiobook -
The Girl in the Letter by Emily Gunnis
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA heartbreaking letter. A girl locked away. A mystery to be solved.1956. When Ivy Jenkins falls pregnant she is sent in disgrace to St Margaret's, a dark, brooding house for unmarried mothers. Her baby is adopted against her will. Ivy will never leave.Present day. Samantha Harper is a journalist desperate for a break. When she stumbles on a letter from the past, the contents shock and move her... -
The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA spellbinding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood.Lexie Sinclair is plotting an extraordinary life for herself. Hedged in by her parents' genteel country life, she plans her escape to London...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook book -
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAround a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels. Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, The Deptford Trilogy provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished'...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book classics coming-of-age -
المجنون by Kahlil Gibran
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsالترجمة الوحيدة التي أقرها جبرانThis thought-provoking collection of strange, subtle, but meaningful parables casts an ironic light on the beliefs, hopes, and vanities of humankind...Categorized as:
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