Book picks similar to
Swimming with a Dragon by Dawn McMillan


1st-grade
dragons-pirates-fantasy
english-fiction
reading-recovery

Diving Through Clouds


Nicola Lindsay - 1957
    She finds herself far from extinguished but rather in some sort of limbo. She travels freely back and forth into the lives of those she left behind--her cold unloving husband, William; his lover, Veronica; her best friend, Veronica (yes, you guessed it); her estranged daughter, Celia; and her adorable French grandson, Matt. His first words to her are "Bonjour, Grand-mère Kate. Are you a fantôme?" Readers will discover a most marvelous and memorable ghost indeed.

Rich Girl, Poor Girl


Val Wood - 2009
    Polly, living in grinding poverty, loses her mother in childbirth and finds herself alone on the streets of Hull. Rosalie, brought up in affluence and comfort on the other side of town, loses her own mother in similar circumstances and on the same day. Polly takes a job as scullery maid in Rosalie's lonely house, and the two girls form an unlikely friendship. Traveling to the North Yorkshire Moors they discover a new kind of life and find unexpected joy and fulfillment.

My Goat Ate Its Own Legs: Tales for Adults


Alex Burrett - 2008
    Always ready with an impeccable phrase or a sly wink, he shares tales of the most darkly ironic sort, including a field report from a human abattoir, a chronicle of dating Death, and, of course, the tale of the goat that ate its own legs. The thirty-one bizarre, insightful, and morbidly hilarious tales in My Goat Ate Its Own Legs: Tales for Adults will delight anyone who doesn't take life (or death) too seriously.

Battle at the River


Paul J. Bennett - 2017
    A skilled tactician. Only one can be victorious.The Norland raiders are at it again. When the Baron of Bodden splits their defensive forces, Sergeant Gerald Matheson thinks that today is a day like any other, but then something is different. At the last moment, Gerald recognizes the warning signs, but they are outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and out of luck. How can they win this unbeatable battle?Battle at the River is a stand-alone short story set in the World of Merceria that incorporates characters from the Heir to the Crown Series. If you like intense battle scenes and unexpected plot twists, then you will love Paul J Bennett's tale of a soldier who thinks outside the box.

The Promise


Lisa Clifford - 2005
    This time, I actually want Paolo to find someone else – perhaps a lovely Florentine girl who he can marry, someone who will make him happy by giving him children and a family of his own. He deserves it after waiting for more than a decade for me to make up my mind…'Lisa Clifford was sixteen when she arrived in Florence for the first time, keen to experience life beyond her Australian convent-school and work out what she wanted to do with her future. Falling in love with a local called Paolo was not part of the plan… The Promise is the story of Lisa's love affair with Paolo, and of her love for Florence and the Tuscan mountains – the landscapes, the people and the food. But far from settling into a contented life in Italy, Lisa soon realised that being an independent and ambitious Australian girl made it difficult to fit in with the age-old traditions of an Italian family. She was torn between her desire to stay with Paolo, and her need to return home – to her family, to the relaxed Australian way of a life, and to a career. Should she stay, or should she go? Written with humour and passion, The Promise is about loss and heartache and growing up. Above all, it is a story that proves love does find a way – and that some promises are made to be broken.

Nisha


Airin Efferin - 2020
    Nisha is a young princess that wakes up to find her kingdom in a mess. With the help of some friends and a lot of magic, she attempts to make sense of her life, her future, and her land.

Agnes of God


Leonore Fleischer - 1985
    A dead baby. An arrest. And now, if the court-appointed psychiatrist found her sane, a long, sensational trial. But Dr. Martha Livingston knew it was more complicated than that. How did you judge a twenty-one-year-old girl who wasn't sure where babies came from? Who didn't even remember having one . . . or what happened to him? Especially when a strong-willed Mother Superior is battling you every step of the way - and your own searing memories of a similar tragedy threaten to make you lose whatever objectivity you still possess.

Garfield Vol. 4


Jim Davis - 2014
    The good times continue to roll in this next collection of Garfield comic book stories! In this round, we see how the gang beats the heat, learn if Jon can finally stop being late, and if Nermal can set a world record! Also, Pet Force stops by!

Death by Dressage (She Rides, He Doesn't Mystery, #1)


Carolyn Banks - 1993
    Fellow horsewoman Robin Vaughan doesn't like the way the police investigation is going. In the perfect world of competitive dressage, Nika rode like a piece of luggage. So who arranged to have a horse kick her to death? As Robin mounts her own search for the killer, she rummages through Nika's untidy past--and finds a bizarre double life that someone might kill to keep secret.

Tree of Angels


Penny Sumner - 2004
    These are only some of the marvels of the Russian estate on which Nina Karsavina grows up, surrounded by her beautiful mother, her eccentric father, her sister Katya, and the housekeeper Darya. But when her father gradually loses his sanity after the death of her mother, Nina takes the difficult decision to leave her homeland behind and marry a complete stranger. Over the next 80 years, the family will scatter across the globe in the wake of the Russian Revolution and two World Wars. It is only when Nina’s own granddaughter Julia, an artist, begins a search for her roots that the family’s tragic history can be pieced together for the first time.

The Lightning Fart: A Parody of The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 1)


Steve Lookner - 2015
    He's just a normal kid, trying to have fun and make it through school doing as little homework as possible....until he finds out he's the son of a Greek god! And Percy's father isn't just any Greek god. He's Pooseidon, God of Farts!Percy's life is totally transformed as he travels to Camp Half-Wit, where he's trained to use his special farting powers. He's going to need these powers, because he soon learns it's up to him to save the universe by going on a quest to find Zeus's stolen iPhone!It'll be a dangerous quest, but Percy will have company: Grover, a weird kid who thinks he's a half-goat, and Annabeth, a super-hot girl who unfortunately doesn't want to date Percy. Yet.There'll be loads of action and tons of smelly farts as Percy's quest proceeds to its exciting conclusion: a showdown in the Underworld with Hades himself!The odds might be against Percy, but don't give up hope, because he'll have the ultimate weapon at his disposal: The Lightning Fart!Can a fart really save the universe?Find out...in this hilarious parody of the Percy Jackson books, THE LIGHTNING FART! ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steve Lookner is one of Amazon's top parody authors. He was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon, and has written for TV shows such as Saturday Night Live and MADtv. Be sure to check out his other parodies on Amazon, including The Maze Bummer: A Parody of the Maze Runner!

The First Human Rider


Ramy Vance - 2019
    They need a new hero to step up and turn the tide. Myrddin, the resistance’s leader, thinks he might have found that someone…on Earth, of all places. Word has just come from the east that the Dark One is launching his largest assault yet, but there is still time to stop him. If, that is, they can find someone good enough to take him on.  Alex Bound just might be the rider they need. But a human has never been accepted as a Dragonrider.  Let alone a blind human... Alex isn’t someone to step away from a fight.  Not now, not ever, and she has no plans to start—even if she needs to ride a real dragon to make it happen. Go up and click Read Now or Download for Free and find out what happens when you cross a desperate wizard, and a willing fighter accepting the call to be the best when she is needed the most.

The Wisdom of Crocodiles


Paul Hoffman - 2000
    Then she vanishes without trace. Across the Thames, on the morning that George Winnicott, former head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad, is to begin his new job in charge of the City of London’s most powerful anti-fraud body, he wakes from a nightmare screaming that he knows the meaning of life. Later that day, a huge bomb explodes in the centre of London. How are these events linked? What connects modern economics, a new take on the vampire concept, parachuting, pornography, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, financial fraud, terrorism, aliens, artificial intelligence, the meaning of life and the hardest crossword clue in the world? Thirteen years in the writing, this is a novel that engages with the way the modern world works — and in admitting that contemporary life is complex, impenetrable and often terrifying, it also asserts that there are ways to see the patterns emerging from the chaos.

East of Eden/The Wayward Bus


John Steinbeck - 1962
    The towering figure of Adam Trask dominates the story--a good man whose satanic wife revealed to him the shuddering ecstasies of lustful evilKate came into Adam's life unannounced, and left amidst the ringing echo of gunfire. Behind her were a shattered man and a shattered world, and two infant boys doomed to play out, once again, the tragic roles of another Adam's offspring. Ahead of her was a frenzied life of depravity and perversion, wealth..and terror.THE WAYWARD BUS traveled the back roads through lush California countryside. Its driver was a man of the land--lusty, hot-blooded, uninhibited. On the bus were a magnificent creature cursed with a heart of gold an an irresistible allure for men, a traveling salesman out strictly for laughs, a boy with the sweet sap of manhood urgent in him, a college girl pursuing a secret, passionate quest...In one climactic day--and night--the lives of these and all the other passengers on the wayward bus were changed. And the electricity that John Steinbeck creates in their relation ships provides both power and shock.--jacket description

The Book Boy


Joanna Trollope - 2006
    She thinks she ought to be happy, but he isn't. Instead she feels that she has vanished, that she is like something lost down the back of the sofa. Because Alice has a secret that is never spoken of in the family: she can't read. Now timid, quiet Alice must start out on her own brave journey, and for it she chooses the strangest companion. For the first time in her life, she knows what she wants and she is going to get it. With the help of the book boy.