Books like 'Dusty Answer'
Readers who enjoyed Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann & Jonathan Coe also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical romance 20th century classics coming-of-age lgbtq literary-fiction bildungsroman rural female-mc
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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:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa]()
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLively reminiscences of bandit warfare in the sertao, the still primitive Brazilian back country, told by a wise, retired outlaw chief. ~Worldcat.orgGrande Sertão: Veredas (Portuguese for "Great Backlands: Tracks"; English translation: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical historical-fiction -
![Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett]()
Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPawn in Frankincense is the fourth in the legendary Lymond Chronicles. Somewhere within the bejeweled labyrinth of the Ottoman empire, a child is hidden. Now his father, Francis Crawford of Lymond, soldier of fortune and the exiled heir of Scottish nobility, is searching for him while ostensibly engaged on a mission to the Turkish Sultan... -
![Perfectly Ordinary People by Nick Alexander]()
Perfectly Ordinary People by Nick Alexander
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn occupied France, two people sacrificed everything. Now their granddaughter has come looking for the truth…Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late... -
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![Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar]()
Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAn aspiring photographer follows her dreams and faces her fears in a poignant novel about finding beauty, promise, and love amid the chaos of war-torn Kurdistan.It’s 1979. Olivia Murray, a secretary at a Los Angeles newspaper, is determined to become a photojournalist and make a difference with her work...Categorized as:
coming-of-age female-mc literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book drama -
![If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin]()
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsIn this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age female-mc lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook black-mc -
![Christy by Catherine Marshall]()
Christy by Catherine Marshall
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsChristy Huddleston left home at 19 to teach school in the Smokey Mountains. There she came to know and love the wild mountain people with their fierce pride, their dark superstitions, their terrible poverty, their yearning for beauty and truth...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age female-mc literary-fiction rural 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
![My Voice Because of You, by Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén]()
My Voice Because of You, by Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEnglish, Spanish... -
![Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery]()
Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAnne's children were almost grown up, except for pretty, high-spirited Rilla. No one could resist her bright hazel eyes and dazzling smile. Rilla, almost fifteen, can't think any further ahead than going to her very first dance at the Four Winds lighthouse and getting her first kiss from handsome Kenneth Ford... -
![Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust]()
Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 30 ratings'Flower and plant have no conscious will. They are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust's men and women . . . shameless. There is no question of right and wrong. Homosexuality . . . is as devoid of moral implications as the mode of fecundation of the Primula veris or the Lythrum salicoria... -
![Silver Wings by H.P. Munro]()
Silver Wings by H.P. Munro
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWINNER - 2014 Golden Crown Literary Society - Historical FictionWhen in 1943, twenty-five-year-old Lily Rivera is widowed, she finally feels able to step out of the shadows of an unhappy marriage. Her love of flying leads her to join the Womens Airforce Service Pilots, determined to regain her passion and spread her wings, not suspecting that she would experience more than just flying... -
![Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery]()
Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsAnne's own true love, Gilbert Blythe, is finally a doctor, and in the sunshine of the old orchard, among their dearest friends, they are about to speak their vows. Soon the happy couple will be bound for a new life together and their own dream house, on the misty purple shores of Four Winds Harbor.A new life means fresh problems to solve, fresh surprises... -
![Nuntă în cer by Mircea Eliade]()
Nuntă în cer by Mircea Eliade
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsNeîndoielnic, scriind această carte, autorul ei evadează: în trecut, în imaginaţie, în mit. Nuntă în Cer nu este, desigur, un roman fantastic, deşi misterul nu lipseşte, dar este, cu siguranţă, un roman realist-simbolic, axat pe un mit al iubirii. Un roman de idei, mai puţin livresc decât celelalte, şi un roman liric... -
![Be Still the Water by Karen Emilson]()
Be Still the Water by Karen Emilson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFinalist 2019 Canadian Book Club AwardsShortlisted for the 2017 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction2017 IPPY Silver Medal WinnerSet in 1906 along the unspoiled shores of Lake Manitoba, Be Still the Water brings us into the fold of the Gudmundsson Family—immigrants determined to begin life anew in the Icelandic farming and fishing community of Siglunes...Categorized as:
literary-fiction coming-of-age female-mc fiction historical-fiction historical outdoors family -
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![In the Shadow of Love by J.E. Leak]()
In the Shadow of Love by J.E. Leak
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsShe was prepared to lose her life. She was not prepared to lose her heart. Reporter Jenny Ryan didn’t believe in love at first sight. Until it happened to her. An encounter with a sultry nightclub singer led to a secret job at the Office of Strategic Services and an unlikely romance with the woman of her dreams.OSS agent Kathryn Hammond knows she doesn’t deserve love or happiness...Categorized as:
lgbtq wlw literary-fiction romance historical-fiction audiobook historical lesbian-mc -
![Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson]()
Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhere does David belong? David Kirke’s childhood is sheltered, his nature is gentle and peaceable; he is no hero of romance but a human being with faults and failings which lead him into trouble when he adventures into the world to seek his fortune... -
![Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery]()
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAnne Shirley has come a long way since her days as a mischievous orphan living in the house at Green Gables. She is now eighteen and headed to faraway Redmond College in Kingsport. Anne's college years are sure to be full of fun, but they will also be a time for soul–searching and big decisions... -
![Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham]()
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...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book drama -
![The Open Door by Latifa Zayyat, لطيفة الزيات]()
The Open Door by Latifa Zayyat, لطيفة الزيات
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Open Door is a landmark of women's writing in Arabic. Published in 1960, it was very bold for its time in exploring a middle-class Egyptian girl's coming of sexual and political age, in the context of the Egyptian nationalist movement preceding the 1952 revolution...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction university 20th-century adult africa audiobook -
![Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, Jane Urquhart]()
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, Jane Urquhart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsEmily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age female-mc literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book -
![A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich]()
A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Place: Nebraska.The time: the 1870's, when every day on the prairie brought its threat -of hostile Indians, of prairie fires, of blizzards, and the overwhelming threat of accident or illness to the little homesteading family, Will and Abbie Deal and their babies...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age female-mc literary-fiction 19th-century 20th-century action-adventure book -
![A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood]()
A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Great Gatsby meets I Capture the Castle in this gorgeously dreamy coming-of-age romance perfect for fans of A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.It is the summer of 1929. Lou Trevelyan is a small-town girl with big dreams of becoming a writer. Then she meets the Cardew siblings: the bubbly Caitlin and her handsome, enigmatic brother, Robert... -
![The Persian Boy by Mary Renault]()
The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratings“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–The Atlantic MonthlyThe Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, Michael Gallagher]()
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, Michael Gallagher
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
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![Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco]()
Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis landmark novella—one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times—offers a child’s-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in “the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction romance fiction historical-fiction 20th-century drama -
![Juliana by Vanda]()
Juliana by Vanda
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“An Absolutely Beautiful and Moving Novel!”--Philip Crawford, author of Mafia and the GaysReaders say, “I can’t wait for the next book in the series."She went looking for fame, and found her true self, instead.New York City, 1941. Alice “Al” Huffman and her childhood friends are fresh off the potato farms of Long Island and bound for Broadway... -
![Madeleine by Emma Nichols]()
Madeleine by Emma Nichols
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMadeleine isn’t like other grieving war widows. Claudette isn’t like other young French women. As their lives collide, Madeleine and Claude will discover a depth of connection and desire they never knew could exist... -
![Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas]()
Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA secret love affair on a faraway island. Seas crawling with Japanese spies. A terrible war creeping ever closer…India, 1940. and Rosie is devastated by the sudden death of her beloved mother. The parties, smiles and games disappear, and although Rosie is desperate to stay in her home, her father cannot look after her...Categorized as:
literary-fiction coming-of-age female-mc historical-fiction historical womens-fiction ww2 war -
![The Valley Of Decision by Marcia Davenport]()
The Valley Of Decision by Marcia Davenport
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOn the eve of World War II writer Marcia Davenport, best known for her biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, spent several years in Pittsburgh, her imagination caught by the drama of American industry. In 1942, Charles Scribner’s sons published her Pittsburgh novel, The Valley of Decision... -
![Precious Bane by Mary Webb]()
Precious Bane by Mary Webb
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages... -
![The Carnivorous Lamb by Agustín Gómez Arcos, William Rodarmor]()
The Carnivorous Lamb by Agustín Gómez Arcos, William Rodarmor
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe latest in the Little Sister’s Classics series resurrecting gay and lesbian literary gems: a viciously funny, shocking yet ultimately moving 1975 novel, an allegory of Franco’s Spain, about a young gay man (the self-described “carnivorous lamb”) coming of age with a mother who despises him, a father who ignores him, and a brother who loves him... -
![Ancient Tillage by Raduan Nassar]()
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... -
![Climates by André Maurois]()
Climates by André Maurois
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWritten in 1928 by French biographer and novelist Andre Maurois, Climates became a best seller in France and all over Europe. The first 100,000 copies printed of its Russian translation sold out the day they appeared in Moscow bookstores... -
![Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman]()
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 77 ratingsA New York Times BestsellerA USA Today BestsellerA Los Angeles Times BestsellerA Vulture Book Club PickAn Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our TimeAndré Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera...Categorized as:
angst bildungsroman classics coming-of-age lgbtq literary-fiction university romantic-love -
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![The Bracelet of Garnets and Other Stories by Aleksandr Kuprin, Leo Pasvolsky]()
The Bracelet of Garnets and Other Stories by Aleksandr Kuprin, Leo Pasvolsky
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book fiction historical -
![At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill]()
At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsPraised as “a work of wild, vaulting ambition and achievement” by Entertainment Weekly, Jamie O’Neill’s first novel invites comparison to such literary greats as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Charles Dickens... -
![Lord Byron: Selected Poems by Lord Byron, Jane Stabler]()
Lord Byron: Selected Poems by Lord Byron, Jane Stabler
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsShe walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes... --From "She Walks in Beauty"Satirical, shocking, romantic and dramatic, Lord Byron remains a stellar figure as a poet and as a man...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies dark-academia fiction -
![Maurice by E.M. Forster]()
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsMaurice is heartbroken over unrequited love, which opened his heart and mind to his own sexual identity. In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century adult -
![Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters]()
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThis delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age female-mc lgbtq literary-fiction wlw 20th-century -
![Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, René Huigen]()
Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, René Huigen
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsBig, generous-hearted Benny and the elfin Eve Malone have been best friends growing up in sleepy Knockglen. Their one thought is to get to Dublin, to university and to freedom...On their first day at University College, Dublin, the inseparable pair are thrown together with fellow students Nan Mahon, beautiful but selfish, and handsome Jack Foley... -
![The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds]()
The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA captivating novel of love, art, food, desire and thwarted ambition, which builds propulsively over one scorching French summer in 1920s Provence.During a scorching summer in 1920s Provence, a young journalist, Joseph Adelaide, turns up at the farmhouse of reclusive artist Edouard Tartuffe, hoping to write an article about him...Categorized as:
literary-fiction coming-of-age female-mc romance historical-fiction fiction historical audiobook -
![The Passion by Jeanette Winterson]()
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsJeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel... -
![Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden]()
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 58 ratingsA literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha... -
![Longbourn's Songbird by Beau North]()
Longbourn's Songbird by Beau North
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSouth Carolina, 1948 - Elizabeth Bennet is looking forward to a life of few surprises on her family's farm. Longbourn is a place of comfort and quiet security, a haven from the heartache of her past, where she can sing to heart's content, comfortable in the cage she’s built for herself... -
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![Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall]()
Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsBerlin, 1938It is the summer before World War II begins, but Charlotte Kraus doesn’t know it yet. All she knows is the zing of electricity she feels every time her best friend, Angelika Haas, grabs her hand... -
![The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson]()
The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe blue sapphire is the gem which the Ancients called the hyacinthus and which Solinus described as ‘a gem that feels the influence of the air and sympathises with the heavens and does not shine equally if the sky be cloudy or bright...’ On a beautiful spring day Julia Harburn sat on a seat in Kensington Gardens enjoying the sunshine... -
![Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George]()
Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSix teenagers’ lives intertwine during one thrilling summer full of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals in this sparkling retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. After she gets kicked out of boarding school, seventeen-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island. But Hey Nonny Nonny is more than just a rundown old mansion... -
![Tūla by Jurgis Kunčinas]()
Tūla by Jurgis Kunčinas
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe unnamed narrator of Jurgis Kuncinas's Tula is our tour guide through the infamous poverty-stricken bohemian quarter of Vilnius known as Uzupis (literally, "beyond the river"), living his life on the fringes of society, including his journeys through various institutions for alcohol treatment... -
![The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza, Angelo Pellegrino]()
The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza, Angelo Pellegrino
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsGoliarda Sapienza's The Art of Joy was written over a nine year span, from 1967 to 1976. At the time of her death in 1996, Sapienza had published nothing in a decade, having been unable to find a publisher for what was to become her most celebrated work, due to its perceived immorality. One publisher's rejection letter exclaimed: 'It's a pile of iniquity... -
![Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser]()
Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJennie Gerhardt was Theodore Dreiser's second novel and his first true commercial success. Today it is generally regarded as one of his three best novels, along with Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. But the text of Jennie Gerhardt heretofore known to readers is quite different from the text as Dreiser originally wrote it...
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