Book picks similar to
The Girl From Number 22 by Joan Jonker


contemporary-fiction
historical-fiction
jonker-joan
romantic-drama

Greek Island Escape


Patricia Wilson - 2020
    I am searching for my daughter, born 1st November 1972. Can you help me?'On the beautiful beaches of Crete, an old woman is handing out scraps of paper. Sofia, eighty-five years old, unable to speak, is desperate to find a daughter she has never known. After a tragic childhood in Athens and a soaring career as a singer, the brutal treatment of the man she loved by a tyrannical regime forced her to give up her daughter mere days after her birth. Now she longs to be reunited with her child before it's too late.Meanwhile in London, Zoe is searching too. In the months since the disappearance of her teenage daughter, Zoe's life has crumbled apart. Her husband has left her, her son feels forgotten, and every day is a struggle. But Zoe is desperate to track her daughter down, even if she doesn't want to be found . . .

The Scout of Artemis


Gregg Horlock - 2017
    An escape from reality, a place of plentiful loot and dark powers, drawing would-be heroes from across the world. After his brother's accident, Chris is holding the family together. When he runs into money troubles, he finds an answer in an unlikely place. It's a land of adventure, fighting, spells, and skills. Most importantly, somewhere fortunes can be made. Chris is going to the new island of Artemis, but it won't be simple. The developers have created Artemis with the toughest of adventurers in mind, and nobody knows what happens there at night.... He chooses a less-popular class: scout. If he's to survive, he'll need to learn new powers, battle monsters, forge alliances, and most of all, discover how to master the game. Chris will need his wits and his courage if he's to beat the game and become the Scout of Artemis.

Out of the Mountain's Shadow


Rose Alexander - 2021
    The years of war will shape his life in unimaginable ways as Bekim grows to love Hannelore, doing everything in his power to protect her. But will he be enough to keep her safe?2019: Following a shock redundancy, Ruth is taking an extended holiday in southern Italy where she befriends local Zak. When Zak’s dying father asks them to solve a mystery from his past, Ruth leaps at the chance. Journeying through his homeland of Albania, Ruth and Zak race to find the sacred artefacts hidden in the mountains during the war. A stunning and emotional novel of love and danger, perfect for fans of Lorna Cook and Rachel Hore.

Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters


Emily Carpenter - 2020
    Only her granddaughter, Eve Candler, knows that Dove was a con artist. In the eight years since Dove’s death, Eve has maintained Dove’s charitable foundation—and her lies. But just as a documentary team wraps up a shoot about the miracle worker, Eve is assaulted by a vengeful stranger intent on exposing what could be Dove’s darkest secret: murder…Tuscaloosa, 1934: a wily young orphan escapes the psychiatric hospital where she was born. When she joins the itinerant inspirational duo the Hawthorn Sisters, the road ahead is one of stirring new possibilities. And with an obsessive predator on her trail, one of untold dangers. For a young girl to survive, desperate choices must be made.Now, to protect her family, Eve will join forces with the investigative filmmaker and one of Dove’s friends, risking everything to unravel the truth behind the accusations against her grandmother. But will the truth set her free or set her world on fire?

The Secret Child


Kerry Fisher - 2017
    And Danny, Susie’s husband, adores her, but has always sensed something wrong at the heart of their marriage.    When tragedy strikes the family, and a chance discovery threatens to bring the truth to light, the sisters’ relationship is put to the test as they are faced with an impossible choice…

The Winter Agent


Gareth Rubin - 2020
    A bitter winter grips occupied France, where Marc Reece leads a circuit of British agents risking their lives in order to sabotage the German war effort from within.But Reece has a second mission, secret even from his fellow agents - including Charlotte, the woman with whom he has ill-advisedly fallen in love. He must secure a document identifying a German spy at the heart of British intelligence. The fate of the Allied forces on D-Day is in his hands.But when his circuit is ambushed - with fatal consequences - Reece realizes there may be a traitor in its ranks, putting everything they've been fighting for at risk.Then Charlotte goes missing. Is she in danger, or has Reece been betrayed by the only person he thought he could trust?And with the clock ticking towards D-Day, can he find the truth before it's too late?A gripping and atmospheric thriller inspired by true events, this is the story of a deadly game of espionage, destined to change the course of the most crucial battle in the Second World War.

Keeping the House


Ellen Baker - 2007
    Like Whitney Otto’s How to Make an American Quilt in its intimate portrayal of women’ s lives, and reminiscent of novels by Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Keeping the House is a rich tapestry of a novel that introduces a wonderful new fiction writer. When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, in 1950, she discovers all too soon that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life by keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, and fretting about dinner menus. She even gives up her dream of flying an airplane, trying instead to fit in at the stuffy Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon, though, her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by the vacant house on the hill. As Dolly’s life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the story of three generations of Mickelson men and women: Wilma Mickelson, who came to Pine Rapids as a new bride in 1896 and fell in love with a man who was not her husband; her oldest son, Jack, who fought as a Marine in the trenches of World War I; and Jack’s son, JJ, a troubled veteran of World War II, who returns home to discover Dolly in his grandparents’ house. As the crisis in Dolly’s marriage escalates, she not only escapes into JJ’s stories of his family’s past but finds in them parallels to her own life. As Keeping the House moves back and forth in time, it eloquently explores themes of wartime heroism and passionate love, of the struggles of men’s struggles with fatherhood and war and of women’s conflicts with issues of conformity, identity, forbidden dreams, and love.Beautifully written and atmospheric, Keeping the House illuminates the courage it takes to shape and reshape a life, and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another person’s desires. Keeping the House is an unforgettable novel about small-town life and big matters of the heart.

Commonwealth


Ann Patchett - 2016
    Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.#1 New York Times Bestseller

French Braid


Anne Tyler - 2022
    They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close--yet how unknowable--every family is to itself.

The Dublin Girls: A powerfully heartrending family saga


Cathy Mansell - 2020
    To save them from the workhouse, Nell returns to the family home - a mere two rooms at the top of a condemned tenement.Nell finds work at a biscuit factory and, at first, they scrape through each week. But then eight-year-old Róisín, a delicate from birth, is admitted to hospital with rheumatic fever and fifteen-year-old Kate, rebellious, headstrong and resentful of Nell taking her mother's place, runs away.When Liam finds work in London, Nell stays to struggle on alone - her unwavering devotion to her sisters stronger even than her love for him. She's determined that one day the Dublin girls will be reunited and only then will she be free to follow her heart. Look for more gripping, heartwrenching page-turners from Cathy Mansell - don't miss A Place to Belong, out now.

The Sisters O'Donnell


Lyn Andrews - 1990
    New lives. New troubles. Throughout County Tipperary the three sisters were known as the Sisters O'Donnell. They all have red hair, but little else in common. Together they move to Liverpool in the 1920s to make a new life for themselves - although each sister intends to go about it in her own sweet way. Gina wants to be a star of the theatre, Mary-Kate wants to find a husband, and Bridget, shy, gentle Bridget, just wants to escape the Troubles.But when they get to Liverpool they realise that fame and fortune are thin on the ground as, indeed, is work. And their money is running out fast... The sisters have a long way to go before they fulfil their dreams - will the bonds of sisterhood be enough to hold them together?

Forget Me Now


Alana Terry - 2019
    including who it is that wants her dead. Mia's trapped in a nightmare inside her own mind. After a brain injury leaves her unable to form new memories, all she knows is that entire months of her life are missing. Those closest to her are dead, and someone's on their way back soon to finish the job. Heart-gripping, page-turning Christian suspense from the author whose books are called "intense," "life-changing," and "impossible to put down," Forget Me Now will keep you reading ... and guessing ... late into the midnight hours. If you like intense psychological dramas, surprising twists and turns, and a powerful message of faith, then you’ll love Alana Terry’s riveting thriller.Download your copy today for a fast-paced adrenaline rush you'll never forget.

The Gallery of Vanished Husbands


Natasha Solomons - 2013
    It's the eve of the sexual revolution, but in Juliet Montague's conservative Jewish community where only men can divorce women, she ­finds herself a living widow, invisible. Ever since her husband disappeared seven years ago, Juliet has been a hardworking single mother of two and unnaturally practical. But on her thirtieth birthday, that's all about to change. A wealthy young artist asks to paint her portrait, and Juliet, moved by the powerful desire to be seen, enters into the burgeoning art world of 1960s London, which will bring her fame, fortune, and a life-long love affair.

What Rosie Found Next


Helen J. Rolfe - 2015
    She thinks she knows exactly what she needs to make her life complete – the stable job and perfect house-sit she’s just found in Magnolia Creek. The only thing she wants now is for her long-term boyfriend, Adam, to leave his overseas job and come home for good. Owen Harrison is notoriously nomadic, and he roars into town on his Ducati for one reason and one reason only – to search his parents’ house while they’re away to find out what they’ve been hiding from him his entire life. When he meets Rosie, who refuses to quit the house-sit in his parents’ home, sparks fly. Secrets are unearthed, promises are broken, friendships are put to the test and the real risk of bushfires under the hot Australian sun threatens to undo Rosie once and for all. Will Rosie and Owen be able to find what they want or what they really need?

Like Father, Like Son


Diane Allen - 2015
    . . From birth, Polly Harper seems destined for tragedy. Raised by her loving grandparents on Paradise Farm she is unknowingly tangled in a web of secrecy regarding her parentage. When she falls in love with Tobias, the wealthy son of a local landowner of disrepute, her anxious grandparents send her to work in a dairy. There she becomes instantly drawn to the handsome Matt Dinsdale, propelling her further into the depths of forbidden romance and dark family secrets. But tragedy strikes, Polly is forced to confront her past and decide the fate of her future. Will she lose everything, or will she finally realize that her roots and love lie in Paradise?