The following list includes personal favorites in recent years, along with a few old-time winners. Listed by genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Non-Fiction and Simple Pleasure Reading.

I update and add newer 4.5 / 5-star picks on a quarterly basis. My page, Book Recommendations, also provides other lists with bookish gift ideas, selections for Women in History, book club choices, and book series developed from polls I’ve run through Facebook to obtain wider opinions.

Each review page links the title to Amazon for ease of reading other reviews or to purchase. I’d love to share my picks with you, too. Let me know if you’d like me to pass one along. I can mail out hardcovers, email links to Audible versions and “loan” my Kindle e-books. Just send me a note through my Contact page.

Janis Robinson Daly’s Picks For…

Historical Fiction

• Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin (Biographical HF: Lewis Carroll)

• America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie (Biographical HF: Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph)

• Answer Creek by Ashley Sweeney (Oregon Trail saga, HF account of the Donner Party)

• The Artic Fury by Greer Macallister (1859 Boston / Artic Expedition)

• As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner (1918 Spanish Influenza, Philadelphia)

• The Beantown Girls by Jane Healy (World War II England/France)

• Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan (World War II Italy)

• Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera (1920s South Carolina)

• Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict (1860s US) – guest review by Laurie Brown

• Daughter of the King by Kerry Chaput (1700s, France / Cananda)

• The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett (Middle Ages, England) – guest review by Brendan Daly

• The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline (late 1800s England / Australia)

• The Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner (New York, dual time line 1911 / 2011)

• Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (Biographical HF: Maude Gage Baum, wife of L. Frank)

• Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (Civil War & Reconstruction period saga)

• Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell (England, 1580s)

• The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman (1950s Canada)

• The Huntress by Kate Quinn (1940-1949 Boston / Poland)

• The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See (Before and After Korean War, dual time line)

• Landscape of a Marriage by Gail Ward Olmsted (United States, Biographical HF, late 1800s)

• Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (World War II Germany)

• The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (London, 1780s / present day dual timeline)

• Monster – The Story of a Young Mary Shelley by Mark Arnold (Biographical HF)

• The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (Vietnam, mid 1900s)

• The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner (1906 San Francisco Earthquake)

• News of the World by Paulette Jiles (Late 1800s Texas)

• Painting the Light by Sally Cabot Gunning (Martha’s Vineyard/Cape Cod, 1893)

• Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (Religious Fiction)

• The Point of Vanishing by Maryka Biaggio (Early 1920s, Biographical HF)

• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Religious-Biblical Times)

• The River by Starlight by Ellen Notbohm (Late 1800s Montana)

• The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve (1940s Maine)

• Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly (US Civil War Maryland / New York)

• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (1930’s Depression, Minnesota)

• What the Wind Knows (1918-1920 Ireland) and Where the Lost Wander (1850s Overland Trail) by Amy Harmon

• The Widow’s War by Sally Cabot Gunning (Colonial New England)

Jump to: Literary Fiction | Mystery/Thriller | Non-Fiction | Simple Pleasure Reading

Literary Fiction

• American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins (Also file under Mexican Cultural Fiction)

• Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay

• Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

• The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Drugoni (Also file under Coming-of-Age)

• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare (Also file under Coming-of-Age, African Cultural Fiction)

• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Also file under Dystopian Fiction)

• Mercy House by Alena Dillon

• Sea Wife by Amity Gaige

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes (Also file under Mystery/Thriller)

• The Sound Between the Notes by Barbara Linn Probst

• Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Also file under Coming-of-Age, Mystery)

Jump to: Historical Fiction | Mystery/Thriller | Non-Fiction | Simple Pleasure Reading

Mystery / Thrillers

• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

• Origin by Dan Brown

• Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

• The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Jump to: Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction | Non-Fiction | Simple Pleasure Reading

Non-Fiction

• The Answer Is… by Alex Trebek (Autobiography)

• The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (Sociology / Race)

• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

• Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibgazia (Memoir, Rwanda Genocide)

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berndt (Also file under mystery/thriller/ crime non-fiction)

• Radium Girls by Kate Moore (Medical, Legal)

• Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs, and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway by Peter Zheutlin

• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Memoir, Vietnam War)

Jump to: Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction | Mystery/Thriller | Simple Pleasure Reading

Other – Simple Pleasure Reading

• The 13th Gift – A True Story of a Christmas Miracle by Joanne Huist Smith

• The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers by Terri-Lynne DeFino

• The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

• Holes by Louis Sachar

• An Irish Country Practice by Patrick Taylor

• A Secret Gift by Ted Gup

Jump to: Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction | Mystery/Thriller | Non-Fiction

I invite you to follow my blog for further updates on my journey toward writing and publishing my first historical fiction which releases August 25, 2022. More information about my debut novel is available on my About page. You can sign up to follow from this page with the pop-up, or send me a note through the CONTACT page and I’ll email you an invitation.

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