Books like 'The Upper Room'
Readers who enjoyed The Upper Room by Mary Monroe also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical historical-fiction drama female-mc black-mc family humor poc-mc
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Shipyard Girls in Love by Nancy Revell
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratings'the author is one to watch' Sun'A riveting read is just what this is in more ways than one.' The Northern Echo'I enjoyed The Shipyard Girls very much indeed . . -
Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA debut about three women whose lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient... -
In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe folk flavor of her storytelling has earned her constant comparison to Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but through four collections of short stories and two novels, J. California Cooper has proven that hers is a wholly original talent --one that embraces readers in an ever-widening circle from one book to the next... -
The Lost Song of Paris by Sarah Steele
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratings'For a moment she closed her eyes and imagined she was perched on the diving board at the Piscine Molitor, the sun beating down on her bare shoulders and the sound of Parisians at play beneath her. All she had to do was jump.'1941. Darkness descends over London as the sirens begin to howl and the bombs rain down. Devastation seeps from every crack of the city... -
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Shipyard Girls at War by Nancy Revell
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1941: It takes strength to work on the docks, but the war demands all hands on deck and the women are doing their best to fill the gap. Rosie is flourishing in her role as head-welder while still keeping her double life a secret. But a dashing detective is forcing Rosie to choose between love and her duty... -
The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsFrom the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal... -
Little Black Girl Lost by Keith Lee Johnson
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJohnnie Wise was just fifteen years old when her mother sold her virginity to an unscrupulous white insurance man named Earl Shamus. Stunningly beautiful, with long naturally wavy black hair, she possessed the voluptuous body of a thirty-year-old woman. Her skin was the color of brown sugar. Johnnie had heard about Earl Shamus and his escapades among the poor black women in New Orleans... -
Lancashire Legacy by Anna Jacobs
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAt eighteen Cathie longs for more than life as a settler in the Australian bush. She accepts her uncle's offer to send her to England and runs away from her family, not realising he is using her to get revenge on his sister Liza. Attacked at the docks in Liverpool, Cathie takes refuge with the man who saved her, a man who has his own troubles... -
Born a Colored Girl by Michael Edwin Q.
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the author of Pappy Moses' Peanut Plantation and A Slave's Song - Two slaves, a mother and daughter, separated during the Civil War never to see each other again. From her mother's diary, Etta Jean will learn to love the mother she never knew. And from the same diary, a mother will finally give of herself... -
Too Much of a Good Thing by Kimberla Lawson Roby
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the sequel to the enormously successful Casting the First Stone , Kimberla Lawson Roby brings back a character readers love to hate. Curtis Black might be a man of the cloth, but with his irresistible looks, seductive charm, and charismatic personality, he's particularly beloved by his female parishioners––and almost every other woman he's ever met. The trouble is, Curtis is married... -
Camellia by Lesley Pearse
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHow far would you go to discover your true identity? Camellia Norton is orphaned at fifteen when her mother's body is fished from a river in rural Sussex. And when she discovers a cache of letters amongst her mother's effects she realises that the past she has always been so sure of has been built on a tissue of lies... -
Beyond the Crushing Waves: A gripping, emotional page-turner by Lilly Mirren
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTwo generations face heartbreak and injustice in this poignant and emotional novel inspired by true events.Mary Roberts is a poor gutter child living in a council flat in 1950’s London. When she and her sister are left at an orphanage by their mother, they don't think their lives can get any worse... -
The Paper Bracelet by Rachael English
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEvery baby's bracelet held a mother's secret... Inspired by heartrending real events, the gripping new novel from No. 1 bestselling author Rachael English. Readers of Diane Chamberlain and Kathryn Hughes will love this book. 'A true storyteller who keeps you turning the pages' Cathy Kelly For almost fifty years, Katie Carroll has kept a box tucked away inside her wardrobe... -
Belle of the Back Streets by Glenda Young
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA dramatically powerful and romantic saga of tragedy and triumph, perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin... -
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The Letter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWORDS HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL, REUNITE AND TO HURT... Isabel opened her bag and pulled the letter out, glancing at the address one last time before she slid it through the slot, hearing it land with a plunk. It was gone. She’d done it, and now she’d have to wait to see what happened next... -
The Colours of Love by Rita Bradshaw
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCan love survive when all is lost? England is at war, but nothing can dim land girl Esther Wynford's happiness at marrying the love of her life - fighter pilot Monty Grant. Their short honeymoon results in a baby, but on the birth of her daughter, Joy, Esther's world falls apart... -
The Tuppenny Child by Glenda Young
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings'Real sagas with female characters right at the heart' Woman's HourIf you love Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin, you'll LOVE Glenda Young's 'amazing novels!' (ITV's This Morning presenter Sharon Marshall)'In the world of historical saga writers, there's a brand new voice' My WeeklyWhat readers are saying about Glenda's dramatically powerful saga of secrets, friendship, motherhood, love and... -
A Royal Visit to Victory Street by Pam Howes
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom Amazon charts bestseller Pam Howes comes an emotional and uplifting saga about the power of family and a community trying to rebuild their lives after the terrible war that nearly destroyed everything…1956, Liverpool. With the shadow of the war looming over them and bomb craters littering the surrounding streets, hope feels far away for the residents of Victory Street... -
Hand Of Fate by Duane Boehm
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBestselling Western author Duane Boehm has written another western novel with enough humor, heartbreak, love, and outlaws to keep you turning the page.While the ranchers around Trinidad are circling like buzzards in wait for Flannery Vogel to fail, the downtrodden widow with a young daughter refuses to surrender as she struggles to run the ranch that cost her husband his life... -
From Wine to Water by Carolyn Brown
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAll Tyrell Fannin and his cousins Isaac and Micah Burnet want is to get out of a Texas jail and go home to Mississippi. Delia Lavalle didn't need three outlaws to escort her and her sisters to Louisiana but she doesn't really have a choice. The outlaws aren't happy about escorting nuns, but figure they might bring them luck, because not even Santa Anna would harm a holy woman... -
The Liverpool Matchgirl by Lyn Andrews
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTHE LIVERPOOL MATCHGIRL is a nostalgic and poignant saga of Liverpool in the years before the First World War from bestselling author Lyn Andrews, not to be missed by readers of Donna Douglas and Dilly Court. Liverpool, 1901. The Tempest family is all but destitute, barely able to put food on the table... -
New Shoes by Susan Lynn Meyer
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsElla Mae is used to wearing her cousin's hand-me-down shoes—but when her latest pair is already too tight, she's thrilled at the chance to get new shoes.But at the shoe store, Ella Mae and her mother have to wait until there are no white customers to serve first...Categorized as:
historical-fiction poc-mc family female-mc black-mc historical children-books fiction -
Tara by Lesley Pearse
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCan you ever be free from the past?In the East End, twelve-year-old Tara witnesses her villain of a father almost kill her mother. She forges a determination then and there to change her life.This is the story of three beautiful and talented women... -
This Bitter Earth by Bernice L. McFadden
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn This Bitter Earth, Sugar Lacey is on her way out of Bigelow, Arkansas, where she’d come to break with the past. With her worn leopard-print suitcase and her head held high, she walks past the prying eyes of its small-minded, cruel-hearted townsfolk, praying for the strength to keep going. She doesn’t stop until she arrives at her childhood home in Short Junction... -
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The Fire Blossom by Sarah Lark
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe bestselling author of the Sea of Freedom Trilogy returns with a sweeping family saga of two women in nineteenth-century New Zealand and their epic journey to survive in a world of their own making. It’s 1837, and immigrating to a small New Zealand fishing village is an opportunity for Ida Lange’s family to build a better future... -
Little Black Girl Lost 4: The Diary of Josephine Baptiste by Keith Lee Johnson
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRevealing the roots of Johnnie Wise's family tree, the author takes readers to Nigeria where a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, preparing to marry a much older man, escapes with her young lover on the night before the arranged marriage is to take place on a Dutch slave ship bound for America where she becomes Josephine Baptiste... -
Whistledown Woman by Josephine Cox
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn 1898, Kathleen Wyman lies in labor at Bessington Hall, her husband Edward sure that she has been unfaithful to him. In his blind, jealous rage, he gives away the baby to gypsy Rona Parrish, summoned to help with the delivery. Kathleen, frenzied with grief, is soon locked away in an asylum... -
Things Past Telling: A Novel by Sheila Williams
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratings“This is a truly character-driven novel that explores how people define themselves, the creation of family and home, and the importance of memory and language. . . . Fans of historical epics won’t be able to put this book down.”—Historical Novel Society“Emotionally satisfying. . . . A remarkable character portrait... -
An Artificial Light by Petra Durst-Benning, Edwin Miles
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA defiant woman in pre–World War I Germany carves out her own unconventional destiny as the enthralling Photographer’s Saga continues.Germany, 1911. Certain things are expected of a woman. Defiant Mimi Reventlow has chosen to be the woman she wants to be. For now, that’s the resident, if temporary, photographer in Laichingen...Categorized as:
drama family female-mc historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
God Ain't Through Yet by Mary Monroe
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEven though her life has its ups and downs, Annette Goode Davis feels lucky. Most of all, she's grateful that her husband, Pee Wee, took her back after he discovered she was having an affair. The trouble is, Annette isn't sure his heart is really in it. Her best friend Rhoda is quick to point out that Annette got herself into this mess, so she has to be patient with Pee Wee... -
'Til Morning Light by Ann Moore
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsShe crossed an ocean to escape the suffering of famine-torn Ireland. Haunted by loss, but determined to build a life in the New World, Gracelin O'Malley then crosses the country with her young children to accept a San Francisco sea captain's practical proposal of marriage. But when she arrives, he is not there, and the City of Gold is no place for widows and children... -
The Granny by Brendan O'Carroll
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe New York Times Book Review praised Brendan O'Carroll's first novel, The Mammy, as "Cheerful...as unpretentious and satisfying as a home-cooked meal...with a delicious dessert of an ending... -
Gabrielle by Marie Laberge
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsQuébec, 1930. Gabrielle est mariée avec Edward depuis bientôt dix ans. Entre la maison de l’île d’Orléans et celle de la Grande-Allée, elle mène une vie bien remplie, entourée de ses cinq enfants. De toute évidence, il s’agit d’un mariage heureux. Mais cette chose qui devrait être si simple fait pourtant froncer bien des sourcils dans l’entourage de Gabrielle... -
Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDiane McKinney-Whetstone's lyrical first novel, Tumbling, vividly captures a tightly knit African-American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the forties and fifties. Its central characters, Herbie and Noon, are a loving but unconventional couple whose marriage remains unconsummated for many years as Noon struggles to repossess her sexuality after a brutal attack in her past... -
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Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNow, in her first novel, repercussions are felt for decades in a dozen lives after a racist beating turns to cold-blooded murder in a small 1950s Mississippi town.Chicago-born Armstrong Tood is fifteen, black, and unused to the ways of the segregated Deep South, when his mother sends him to spend the summer with relatives in rural Mississippi... -
Homecoming by Beverly Jenkins
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA historical holiday story of homecoming and second-chance romance by NAACP Image Award Nominee, Beverly Jenkins. In 1883, Lydia Cooper is happily traveling back home to celebrate the simple joys of the holidays when an unexpected complication appears in the all-too-distracting form of Gray Dane, the man she loved as a girl; the man she left behind... -
Tame the Savage Heart by Michael Edwin Q.
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the best selling author of BUT HAVE NOT LOVE and BORN A COLORED GIRL comes a love story like no other. She was a young slave girl. He was an African warrior purchased at a slave auction with the intent he would father a new breed of stronger slave. Despite all odds, a language barrier and the disapproval of her family and friends, the two fight for a life together... -
The Wake of the Wind by J. California Cooper
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South.The Wake of the Wind , J. California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families... -
Gullah Secrets by Susan Gabriel
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA family legacy in danger. A stranger in their midst. Do they have the strength to survive the gathering storm of secrets? For the Temple women, the winds of change are blowing. And if they’re not careful, it could sweep them all away…After rising from Temple servant to tea shop owner, Violet finally feels in charge of her destiny... -
Speedwell by Alex Martin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSpeedwell Living in the fast lane tests everyone's limits Katy and Jem enter the 1920's with their future in the balance. How can they possibly make their new enterprise work? They must risk everything, including disaster, and trust their gamble will pay off... -
The Last Card by Ruth Saberton
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEscape to Cornwall this Christmas ... From the bestselling author of The Letter, Ruth Saberton’s beautiful new novella is the perfect seasonal blend of nostalgia, secrets and long-lost love, set against a backdrop of the stunning Cornish landscape. A lifetime apart. A love never forgotten... -
The Traveller's Daughter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsROSA’S PAST IS HER PANDORA’S BOX, AND THE LID IS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED … ‘If you lie down with dogs you’ll rise with fleas’ – Irish Proverb Rosa Sorenson’s conversation was often peppered with sayings from her homeland. It was these conversational clangers that gave her daughter Kitty the only clue as to a childhood her mother refused to speak of... -
Peace Lily by Alex Martin
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPeace Lily is the sequel to DAFFODILS and book two of the 'Katherine Wheel' series. After the appalling losses suffered during World War One, three of its survivors long for peace, unaware that its aftermath will bring different, but still daunting, challenges. Katy trained as a mechanic during the war and cannot bear to return to the life of drudgery she left behind... -
Overground Railroad by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA window into a child's experience of the Great Migration from the award-winning creators of Before She Was Harriet and Finding Langston . Climbing aboard the New York bound Silver Meteor train, Ruth Ellen embarks upon a journey toward a new life up North-- one she can't begin to imagine...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family poc-mc female-mc black-mc children-books historical fiction -
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People of the Nightland by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt has been a thousand years since Wolf Dreamer lead his people up through the dark hole in the ice to a rich, untouched continent bursting with game. But the world has changed. Most of the magnificent animals are gone, and the last of the great glaciers is melting, forming a huge freshwater lake in the middle of the world. Over the centuries the People of the Wolf have split into two clans... -
Cinderella Sister by Dilly Court
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLily Larkin is the youngest of six and the least important member of her talented, argumentative, temperamental family. With their father dead and their mother a stranger to them, she must stay at home and keep house whilst her elder siblings go out to work. As she goes about her daily chores, and minds her ailing grandfather, her head is full of dreams... -
Assassins by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvoking a fraternity of political assassins and would-be assassins across a hundred years of our history, Sondheim and Weidman daringly examine success, failure and the questionable drive for power and celebrity in American society. "Dark, demented humor, as horrifying as it is hilarious... -
Song of the Skylark by Erica James, Nathalie van Gent
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLizzie has an unfortunate knack for attracting bad luck, but this time she's hit the jackpot. Losing her heart to her boss at the radio station where she works leads directly to losing her job, and with no money in the bank she's forced to swallow her pride and return home to her parents... -
Coming Apart by Karen Heenan
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNo one knows you like a sister.Ava has always been poor, so she doesn't think the Great Depression will change anything. But when her mother dies and her coal miner husband loses his job, Ava's certainty falters. The last thing she needs is a letter from her estranged sister, asking for the impossible.Claire has everything she could ever want, except the child she promised her husband... -
Toward the Sea of Freedom by Sarah Lark
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, charming Kathleen and dashing Michael harbor secrets and dreams. Imagining a life beyond the kitchen and fields of the wealthy family they both work for, they plot to leave their homeland, marry, and raise the child Kathleen is secretly carrying. The luck of the Irish, however, is not on their side...
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