Book picks similar to
Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains by Susan Elderkin


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The Lovely Bones


Alice Sebold - 2002
    I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.

The Mirror World of Melody Black


Gavin Extence - 2015
    The protagonist, Abby, is a very different but equally likely and endearing hero as Alex Woods.

The Butcher Boy


Patrick McCabe - 1992
    Nugent all smiles when she met us and how are you getting on Mrs and young Francis are you both well? . . .what she was really saying was: Ah hello Mrs Pig how are you and look Philip do you see what's coming now -- The Pig Family!" This is a precisely crafted, often lyrical, portrait of the descent into madness of a young killer in small-town Ireland. "Imagine Huck Finn crossed with Charlie Starkweather," said The Washington Post. Short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award and the Man Booker Prize.

The Plague Dogs


Richard Adams - 1977
    Aided only by a fox they call ''the Tod,'' the two dogs must struggle to survive in their new environment. When the starving dogs attack some sheep, they are labeled ferocious man-eating monsters, setting off a great dog hunt that is later intensified by the fear that the dogs could be carriers of the bubonic plague.

The Radleys


Matt Haig - 2010
    Except, as Peter and Helen Radley know but their children have yet to find out, the Radleys happen to be a family of abstaining vampires. When one night Clara finds herself driven to commit a bloodthirsty act, her parents decide to explain a few things.

The Kissing Booth


Beth Reekles - 2012
    Meet Noah Flynn: badass, volatile--and a total player. And also Elle's best friend's older brother... When Elle decides to run a kissing booth for the school's Spring Carnival, she locks lips with Noah and her life is turned upside down. Her head says to keep away, but her heart wants to draw closer--this romance seems far from fairy tale and headed for heartbreak. But will Elle get her happily ever after?

It's All Your Fault


Paul Rudnick - 2016
    NO I DON’T!!!!IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT, HELLER HARRIGAN!!!!

All Your Twisted Secrets


Diana Urban - 2020
    Now you must do the selecting.What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

Beartown


Fredrik Backman - 2016
    A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

Mrs. March


Virginia Feito - 2021
    March. As a character, she is fascinating, complex, and deeply human and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into her.” ―Elisabeth MossWho is Mrs. March?A twenty-first-century Highsmith, Virginia Feito conjures the unforgettable Mrs. March, an Upper East Side housewife whose life is shattered by her husband’s latest novel.In this astonishing debut, the venerable but gossipy New York literary scene is twisted into a claustrophobic fun house of paranoia, horror, and wickedly dark humor. George March’s latest novel is a smash. No one is prouder than Mrs. March, his doting wife. But one morning, the shopkeeper of her favorite patisserie suggests that his protagonist is based on Mrs. March herself: “But . . . ―isn't she . . .’ Mrs. March leaned in and in almost a whisper said, ‘a whore?” Clutching her ostrich-leather pocketbook, she flees, that one casual remark destroying her belief that she knew everything about her husband―as well as herself. Suddenly, Mrs. March is hurled into a harrowing journey that builds to near psychosis, one that begins merely within the pages of a book but may uncover both a killer and the long-buried secrets of her past.

The One We Fell in Love With


Paige Toon - 2016
    Settle down and get married, or return to the French Alps to pursue her passion? Eliza is in love with someone who is no longer hers. In fact, he probably never was… And her dream of becoming a musician seems to be spiralling down the drain. Rose is out of a job and out of a boyfriend. To make matters worse, she’s been forced to move back in with her mother… But these very different girls have one thing in common. Angus. The one they fell in love with…

Coming Home


Lauren Brooke - 2000
    This powerful series follows Amy Fleming through the loss of her mother and her struggle to continue the work at Heartland-a refuge for abused and abandoned horses.

The Hiding Place


Trezza Azzopardi - 2000
    But The Hiding Place need not "hide" behind any ready-made comparisons; Azzopardi's astonishing, tension-filled debut stands assuredly on its own as a work of tremendous power and originality. The Hiding Place is narrated by Dolores, the youngest of six daughters born to a Maltese immigrant father and a Welsh mother. With one hand permanently disfigured by a fire when she was only one month old -- the hand is beautifully described by the author as "a closed white tulip standing in the rain; a cutoff creamy marble in the shape of a Saint; a church candle with its tears flowing down the bulb of wrist" -- Dolores has always been treated as an outcast. Her father, Frankie Gauci, is an incorrigible gambler who bets "more than he can afford to lose." On the day Dolores is born, he loses his half-share of a caf&eacute, as well as the apartment above it where his family lives. Everything in Frankie's life is potential currency, including his family; he even sells his second-oldest daughter Marina to gangster Joe Medora in exchange for a house and money to pay off his debts. Dolores's mother, Mary, is driven to the edge of insanity as she watches the world around her collapse, helpless to save even her children from her husband's vices. At times, The Hiding Place paints a phantasmagoric portrait of cruelty, but Trezza Azzopardi's gracefully exacting prose saves her tale from becoming a shock-fest of the sort you would expect on daytime television talk shows. Azzopardi forges profundity through delicately interwoven double-sided images: rabbits that are the children's playthings, until they are brutally slaughtered by their father; trunks, rooms, and cages that can either protect or ensnare; and most abundantly and most significantly, fire, which can warm as well as ravage. Even Dolores's older sister Fran is sent away to a home for being a pyromaniac, craving risk like her father, "gambling on how hot, how high, on how long she can bear it." While some readers may wonder how Dolores is able to relate events that happened when she was so young, it is easy to associate these stories with the phantom pains she feels in her missing fingers, her ability to "miss something [she] never knew." The story comes to us in a dreamlike tapestry, weaving together different times and perspectives. Consequently, the narrative is fragmented, leaving the reader with half-tellings, missing details, stories that unfold only in the retelling, and a sense that the only fact we can be certain of is the profound meaning she imparts through them. The Hiding Place is as much a portrait of a family's destruction as it is an exploration of how memory bends and buckles under the weight of ruin, and how "blame can be twisted like a flame in draught; it will burn and burn."

Hangover Square


Patrick Hamilton - 1941
    London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George. George is adrift in hell, until something goes click in his head and he realizes that he must kill her.

Liverpool Daisy


Helen Forrester - 1984
    In a Liverpool torn by the Depression, Daisy Gallagher grows to womanhood the hard way. She is the mainstay of her poverty-stricken family and the devoted friend of Nellie O'Brian, who is dying for lack of medical attention. Daisy's desperation for money leads her into the darkened streets and into the arms of drunken sailors willing to pay for their relief. Through her own strength and suffering, Daisy earns enough to pay for her friend's much needed medical attention. Her family know nothing of her occupation, but when her stoker husband returns from the sea Daisy realises, terror-stricken, that the moment of truth has finally arrived...