Book picks similar to
It Wasn't Love by J.S. Lee


memoirs-or-based-on-true-stories
adult-fiction
korean
memoir

Leah's Children


Gloria Goldreich - 1985
    From the courageous struggle of the Hungarian revolution, to the dramatic strife of the civil rights movement in Mississippi…from Israel’s heroic fight for freedom, to the eve of the Six-Day War…Leah’s children confronted their own convictions and desires in an ever-changing world fraught with danger, idealism, and betrayal. Their uncompromising search for love and fulfillment carried them into dangerous emotional territory—where only the strength, courage, and imagination inherited from their mother could lead them to their own triumphant destinies.

Angel - A Short Story of Ruination


Shea Serrano - 2021
    

Freighter Captain


Max Hardberger - 1998
    Capt. Max Hardberger and his crew fought a non-stop battle against crooked charterers, treacherous agents, and the sea itself. They came face-to-face with bandits in Jamaica, violent stowaways in the Dominican Republic, and warring gangs in post-Duvalier Haiti. It was a world of desperation and danger, where only the captain's will and the loyalty of his crew stood between the ship and disaster.

A is for Abigail: Sixpenny Cross Series Book 1


Victoria Twead - 2016
    Abigail Martin has everything: beauty, money, a loving husband, and a fabulous house in the village of Sixpenny Cross. But Abigail is denied the one thing she craves... A baby. When a gypsy offers to change her life, will Abigail accept? Can she deal with the shattering consequences that threaten to send her world spinning out of control?

My Year Abroad


Chang-rae Lee - 2021
    Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion—on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.

The Mad Heiress Boxed Set: The Georgette Quinby Collection


Isabella Thorne - 2017
    The Complete Georgette Quinby Regency Romance Series Meet the Mad Heiress, Miss Georgette Quinby. Nearly a decade ago, when her fiancé jilted her, and married another, she threw herself down the stairs in a fit of passion. Or maybe it was a parapet or perhaps a cliff. The Ton isn’t too sure, but they certainly won’t forgive nor let her forget. Georgette is sure she will never love again. Now she is companion to her young cousin and chaperoning her coming out. She has no prospects herself. But one night in a garden, she smells cigar smoke and realizes she is not alone. Georgette turns to leave, but it is too late. He has seen her and knows her. Meet Charles, Duke of Eversley, and erstwhile British spy in the continuing war with France. The Duke swore never to love another after the tragic death of his first wife, and he is still haunted by her memory. Georgette certainly didn’t want to open that wound. Neither did the Duke, but a cipher in a potted plant, an English traitor, a young gambler and a pair of star-crossed lovers pull the jaded couple together. Now Georgette has overheard something of great importance and she and Duke the must join forces to catch a spy working against their beloved England. From the ballrooms of the English Aristocracy, to ices at Vauxhall, to gambling halls, and secret meetings at the British Museum, Georgette and the Duke will risk their lives and their hearts for King and country. Both have sworn they will never love again…but together they will find that even the most broken of hearts can heal. Enjoy the Complete Georgette Quinby Collection.

Son of a Midnight Land: A Memoir in Stories


Atz Kilcher - 2018
    He also learned how to lie in order to please his often volatile father and put himself in harm's way to protect his mother and younger, weaker members of the family. Much later in life, as Atz began to reflect on his upbringing, seek to understand his father, and heal his emotional scars, he discovered that the work of pioneering the frontier of the soul is an infinitely more difficult task than any of the back-breaking chores he performed on his family's homestead. Learning to use new tools--honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, acceptance--and building upon the good helped him heal and learn to embrace the value of resilience. This revised perspective has enabled him to tell an enhanced and more positive version of the legacy his father created and has him doing the most rewarding work of his life: mapping his own inner wilderness while drawing closer to his adult children, the next stewards of the land he helped his father carve out of the Alaskan frontier.

The Finger Trap


Johnny Worthen - 2015
    He’s had 12 years to prepare for his divorce and didn’t. He had his entire life to choose a career and hasn’t. Now time’s up, and he’s in a world of trouble. But all of that changes when Tony takes a first date to a drunken party and ends with him facing prison for the murder of a girl he hardly knew. To save himself, wise-cracking Tony must discover who the mysterious girl was, what she was involved in, and what the hell she saw in him in the first place.

Love's Winning Plays: A Novel


Inman Majors - 2012
    So head coach Von Driver will take his motivational magic and his Isosceles Triangle of Success on a Pigskin Cavalcade to the small towns in the state. Raymond Love, a young coach unfamiliar with the banquet circuit of big-shot boosters and chat-room gurus, will go along as his wide-eyed errand boy. Also on the trip is the athletic director 's daughter, whom Love has tried to win by joining her book club a dubious strategy at best. The football aspects of the Cavalcade will prove child 's play compared to the literary hazards he faces. Will Love master the art of coach-speak? Will he win the affection of the girl? Find out in this fist-bumping, high-fiving, all-out comedic blitz about the sublimely ridiculous world of college football.

Wicked and Weird: The Amazing Tales of Buck 65


Rich Terfry - 2015
    Born in a small town in Nova Scotia to a mother who begins yelling at him the moment he is born and a father who keeps his own counsel, Buck imbibes fear and insecurity like other kids guzzle milk. Hobbled by his fears and demons, Buck almost disappears into the “evil in the woods” that lurks just beyond the town's border . . . until he is saved by three gifts: baseball, romantic love and music. His epic journey­­—full of diversions, coincidences, and larger-than-life characters—out of the darkness of his suicide-plagued childhood and into the bright wide world begins with a killer pitching arm (Buck almost makes it to the pros) and continues with his transformation into hip hop artist Buck 65. Along the way, Buck develops into a hopeless romantic and an obsessively creative, shape-shifting man who both fears life and dives into it with abandon. Wicked and Weird is a lively, sometimes shocking portrait of a life lived on the edge, by turns funny and heartbreaking.

City of Tranquil Light


Bo Caldwell - 2010
    . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind." --Patricia Hampl, author of "The Florist's Daughter "Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng-- City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love--and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints--and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents--"City of Tranquil Light" is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation. A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes "vividly and with great historical perspective" ("San Jose Mercury News").

Outlaws: One Man's Rise Through the Savage World of Renegade Bikers, Hell's Angels and Global Crime


Tony Thompson - 2011
    Yet when he joined his local motorcycle club in a small British town during the early 1980s, he never thought that he would one day find himself in the middle of a vast criminal network that spanned 3 continents and had ties to drug trafficking and mass murder. More than 30 years later, Boone has broken the Outlaws’ code of silence and gave Thompson the real story of rivalries, showdowns, attacks, and the ins and outs of what it meant to give your life to the Outlaws. Once able to party with just about anyone, as the club got bigger they made more and more enemies, including the legendary Hell’s Angels, who they battled for control over international drug and sex trades, with confrontations erupting in an escalating series of drive-by shootings, airport ambushes, and truly medieval hand-to-hand combat where no one knew who would be the next to die.

Room for Two


Abel Keogh - 2007
    I didn't want to have another argument - at least not right away. Silence. "Sweetheart?" A gunshot echoed from our bedroom, followed by the sound of a bullet casing skipping along a wall. Everything slowed down. When a life is destroyed, when guilt says you played a role in its destruction, how do you face the days ahead? Twenty-six-year-old Abel Keogh chooses to ignore the promptings he receives concerning his wife's mental illness, and now he feels he is to blame for her choices. If only he had listened . . . At some point in our lives, each of us face devastating afflictions and must eventually cope with loss. Regardless of how it happens, the outcome is still the same - we are left isolated, alone, wondering what we could have done differently, and where we can turn for peace. This is Abel's story in his own words. His search for peace and the miracle that follows is proof that love and hope can endure, despite the struggles and tragedies that shape each of our lives.

Broken Crayons Still Color 2: Based on a True Story


David Weaver - 2018
    Addictive personalities are similar. If a person breaks an addiction, they then have to find something else to transfer their energy towards. With Ashlon's help, Devin has made major strides to change his life in order to be a better man. He gives up alcohol and drug addiction, but is now facing the toughest battles he's ever had to face: forgiveness and gambling. Coming from the streets, he only understood that penalties existed for those who offended him. But you can't walk with God and carry the work of the devil, and how can you ask for forgiveness from God when you yourself can't forgive those that have hurt you? Some people saw gambling as a harmless venture, they saw a gambler win big or lose big, but never saw the psychological side effects to winning and losing money at such a rapid pace. Devin gets the wake-up call of a life time, forcing him to embark on a dramatic journey towards finding and getting to know God on a level that he'd never known him before. A deep, emotional love story that is sure to make you feel every single emotion that exists.The sequel to the best-selling love story, "Broken Crayons Still Color" is a passionate drama that wins readers over one page at a time. One of the most important stories of the year with over 1,000 Amazon customer reviews in 5 months, this is a must-read for fans of powerful award-winning stories as well as members of Oprah's Book Club.

Behind Closed Doors


A.L. Smith - 2015
    Choosing significantly different paths, they struggle to deal with the psychological effects of abuse. The three are eventually driven apart and they transition into womanhood carrying a secret that would influence their lives and threaten to destroy their family. Through a series of unlikely circumstances, the three are reunited. The meeting would ultimately set the stage for atonement.