Recommendations based on Miss Janeby Brad Watson

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. News of the World

    by Paulette Jiles
    Captain Kidd travels through Texas in 1870, reading the news to townspeople. He is tasked with returning a young girl to her family.

    The book opens in 1870 on the wild border between Texas and Indian Territory , where a 10-year-old girl has been released after four years of captivity. Kiowa raiders had killed her family and taken ... (Wikipedia)

  2. Sing, Unburied, Sing

    by Jesmyn Ward
    A family's journey through the Mississippi Delta, confronting a traumatic past.

    It is Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to bravely help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. Jojo ends up throwing up at the sight although Pop is sympathetic. ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Play It As It Lays

    by Joan Didion
    A woman's search for identity amidst the glamour and emptiness of 1960s Hollywood.

    The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine

    by Alexander McCall Smith
    Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's finest detective, takes a vacation and finds herself solving a mystery in the heart of Botswana's Okavango Delta.

    In this latest installment of the beloved and best-selling series, Mma Ramotswe must contend with her greatest challenge yet—a vacation! Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, so ... (Goodreads)

  5. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café

    by Alexander McCall Smith
    A tale of the accidental proprietor of a small café in an African country.

    Mma Makutsi has decided to start a new venture: The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café. She envisages this to be place for fashionable men to hobnob, and in her excitement ignores the various warning signs, ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Perfect Nanny

    by Leïla Slimani
    A captivating and chilling story of a nanny's descent into madness.

    This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780143132172. When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for ... (Goodreads)

  7. Those Who Save Us

    by Jenna Blum
    A woman's journey of self-discovery, uncovering the secrets of her mother's past.

    For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier ... (Barnes & Noble)

  8. Our Man in Havana

    by Graham Greene
    A humorous tale of espionage in Cold War Cuba, as a vacuum cleaner salesman attempts to outwit the British Secret Service.

    Graham Greene's classic Cuban spy story, now with a new package and a new introduction, First published in 1959,, Our Man in Havana, is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a ... (Goodreads)

  9. Grief is the Thing with Feathers

    by Max Porter
    A family's journey of dealing with the death of a loved one, discovering hope and comfort along the way.

    In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and ... (Goodreads)

  10. The Kitchen House

    by Kathleen Grissom
    A young Irish girl is taken in by a plantation family in Virginia and becomes entangled in the lives of the slaves who work there.

    When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship ... (Goodreads)

  11. Winesburg, Ohio

    by Sherwood Anderson
    Portrayal of small town life, exploring its inhabitants' inner struggles and struggles with conformity.

    Winesburg, Ohio depicts the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented ... (Goodreads)

  12. Year of Wonders

    by Geraldine Brooks
    A small English village grapples with the effects of the bubonic plague.

    When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of ... (Goodreads)

  13. The Signature of All Things

    by Elizabeth Gilbert
    A woman's quest for knowledge and self-fulfillment, spanning through the 19th century.

    A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. In The Signature of All Things, ... (Goodreads)

  14. Angle of Repose

    by Wallace Stegner
    A man's search for his ancestors and their stories, leading to a journey of self-discovery.

    Lyman Ward narrates a century after the fact. Lyman interprets the story at times and leaves gaps that he points out at other times. Some of the disappointments of his life, including his divorce, ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The End of the Affair

    by Graham Greene
    A man's obsession and journey of love, struggling with faith, hatred and forgiveness.

    "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..." "This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening ... (Goodreads)

  16. The Sunshine Sisters

    by Jane Green
    Three estranged sisters reunite to care for their narcissistic mother, confronting their past and present struggles along the way.

    The, New York Times, bestselling author of, Falling, presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life. ... (Goodreads)

  17. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

    by C.A. Fletcher
    A post-apocalyptic tale of a boy's journey to find his stolen dog in a world with few humans left.

    A "suspenseful, atmospheric tale. . .punctured by a gut-punch twist" (,Entertainment Weekly,),, A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, is a story of survival, courage and hope amid the ruins of ... (Barnes & Noble)

  18. Nine Women, One Dress

    by Jane L. Rosen
    A little black dress becomes the center of attention, weaving together the stories of nine women and their romantic adventures in New York City.

    A charming, hilarious, irresistible romp of a novel that brings together nine unrelated women, each touched by the same little black dress that weaves through their lives, bringing a little magic ... (Goodreads)

  19. The Party

    by Elizabeth Day
    A psychological thriller that explores the dark side of privilege and the destructive power of secrets.

    A gripping story of obsession and betrayal, privilege and hypocrisy, set in the unassailable heart of the British establishment. As the train pressed on, I realised that my life was in the process of ... (Goodreads)

  20. A Little Life

    by Hanya Yanagihara
    A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.

    The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)

  21. Pachinko

    by Lee Min-jin
    A saga spanning four generations of a Korean family living in Japan, struggling to survive and thrive amidst prejudice and poverty.

    The novel takes place over the course of three books: Book I Gohyang/Hometown, Book II Motherland, and Book III Pachinko. In 1883, in the little island fishing village of Yeongdo , which is a ferry ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Life After Life

    by Kate Atkinson
    A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.

    The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)

  23. The Wicked Girls

    by Alex Marwood
    Two women, once childhood friends, reunite as adults after being involved in a gruesome crime as children. Secrets and lies unravel as they confront their past.

    “The suspense keeps the pages flying, but what sets this one apart is the palpable sense of onrushing doom.” —Stephen King, “The Best Books I Read This Year”,The Edgar Award-winning psychological ... (Barnes & Noble)

  24. The Last Woman Standing

    by Thelma Adams
    In 1880s New York, two ambitious women compete for the love and attention of a wealthy businessman. A tale of love, betrayal, and female empowerment.

    Two decades after the Civil War, Josephine Marcus, the teenage daughter of Jewish immigrants, is lured west with the promise of marriage to Johnny Behan, one of Arizona’s famous lawmen. She leaves ... (Barnes & Noble)

  25. The Girlfriend

    by Michelle Frances
    A psychological thriller about a mother's obsession with her son's girlfriend, leading to a dangerous game of manipulation and deceit.

    A mother. A son. His girlfriend. And the lie they’ll wish had never been told.,, Laura has it all. A successful career, a long marriage to a rich husband, and a twenty-three-year-old son, Daniel, who ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. After Her

    by Joyce Maynard
    Two sisters grow up in the shadow of their father's obsession with catching a serial killer. A haunting exploration of family, loss, and resilience.

    The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and The Good Daughters returns with a warm and haunting novel of sisterhood, adolescence, sacrifice, and suspense It's the summer of 1979, and a ... (Goodreads)

  27. Bitter Orange

    by Claire Fuller
    A tale of love, obsession, and betrayal set in a dilapidated English country mansion.

    From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 ... (Goodreads)

  28. Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I

    by Hazel Gaynor
    A heart-wrenching love story set during World War I, told through letters exchanged between a soldier and his sweetheart.

    An unforgettably romantic novel that spans four Christmases (1914-1918), Last Christmas in Paris explores the ruins of war, the strength of love, and the enduring hope of the Christmas season., New ... (Barnes & Noble)

  29. Raymie Nightingale

    by Kate DiCamillo
    An unlikely trio of girls embark on an adventure to win a beauty pageant, learning valuable life lessons along the way.

    Raymie Clarke has come to realize that everything, absolutely everything, depends on her. And she has a plan. If Raymie can win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition, then her father, who ... (Goodreads)

  30. Pretty Baby

    by Mary Kubica
    Psychological thriller of a mysterious woman and her hidden past, and the family that takes her in.

    “Thrilling and illuminating…[,Pretty Baby,] raises the ante on the genre and announces the welcome second coming of a talent well worth watching.” —,LA Times,Heidi Wood has always been a charitable ... (Barnes & Noble)