Book picks similar to
Surrogate by Susan Spindler


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Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk


Kathleen Rooney - 2017
    While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.A love letter to city life—however shiny or sleazy—Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.

Vigilante


Shelley Harris - 2015
    Tired of her job and the domestic grind, and bewildered by her teenage daughter, one night Jenny stumbles into a vigilante rescue. Suddenly her world is exciting again - and she's a hero. In the costume, she can be anyone she wants. And so her secret life begins. But when a real villain appears, Jenny's need for adventure begins to cost her dearly. As she starts to see less and less clearly through the mask, she finds her fantasy life becoming frighteningly real.We all want to be extraordinary, and we all have a moment in our lives when we realise that we're not. Vigilante is about a woman who refuses to accept it gracefully...

All the Children Are Home


Patry Francis - 2021
    A harrowing incident years before left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, forever wary of the heartbreak and limitation of a girl’s life.Eleven years after they began fostering, the Moscatellis are raising three children as their own and Dahlia and Louie consider their family complete, but when the social worker begs them to take a young girl who has been horrifically abused and neglected, they can’t say no.Six-year-old Agnes Juniper arrives with no knowledge of her Native American heritage or herself beyond a box of trinkets given to her by her mother and dreamlike memories of her sister. Before long, this stranger in their midst has strengthened the bond in this unusual family, showing them how to contend with outside forces that want to tear them apart. Heartfelt and enthralling, All the Children Are Home is a moving testament to how love can survive in the face of devastating losses.

The Illumination of Ursula Flight


Anna-Marie Crowhurst - 2018
    Born on the night of an ill-auguring comet just before Charles II's Restoration, Ursula Flight has a difficult future written in the stars.Against the custom of the age she begins an education with her father, who fosters in her a love of reading, writing and astrology.Following a surprise meeting with an actress, Ursula yearns for the theatre and thus begins her quest to become a playwright despite scoundrels, bounders, bad luck and heartbreak.

The Pick-up (The Drop-off, #2)


Fiona Harris - 2021
    Newly divorced Sam is navigating the ‘delights’ of online dating. And Lizzie is flat out juggling four kids and an absent husband.As if that wasn’t enough, this year the trio have decided to embrace their inner parent helper and volunteer to go on the annual school camp.If they think their personal lives are chaotic, this camp’s going to teach them what chaos really means …The hilarious new novel from the popular authors of The Drop-off. Perfect for fans of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

The Girl from Widow Hills


Megan Miranda - 2020
    Strangers and friends, neighbors and rescue workers, set up search parties and held vigils, praying for her safe return. Against all odds, she was found, alive, clinging to a storm drain. The girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. Arden’s mother wrote a book. Fame followed. Fans and fan letters, creeps, and stalkers. And every year, the anniversary. It all became too much. As soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and disappeared from the public eye.Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, Arden goes by Olivia. She’s managed to stay off the radar for the last few years. But with the twentieth anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. Where is she now? Soon Olivia feels like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again, like she did long ago, even waking outside her home. Until late one night she jolts awake in her yard. At her feet is the corpse of a man she knows—from her previous life, as Arden Maynor.And now, the girl from Widow Hills is about to become the center of the story, once again, in this propulsive page-turner from suspense master Megan Miranda.

The Mountain's Morning Song


William Graney - 2019
    They know that a day of reckoning is approaching, but events in the United States, and around the world, cause an acceleration of the timeline.La Société de la Frontière Ouverte must awaken and prepare for the exodus.

The Keeper


Jessica Moor - 2020
    But the residents of the domestic violence shelter where Katie worked disagree. These women have spent weeks or even years waiting for the men they're running from to catch up with them. They know immediately: This was murder.Still, Detective Dan Whitworth and his team expect an open-and-shut case--until they discover evidence that suggests Katie wasn't who she appeared. Weaving together the investigation with Katie's final months as it barrels toward the truth, The Keeper is a riveting mystery and a searing examination of violence against women and the structures that allow it to continue, marking the debut of an incredible new voice in crime fiction.

The Memory Wood


Sam Lloyd - 2020
    Chilling, moving and unputdownable, The Memory Wood is a thriller like no other. ************* Elijah has lived in the Memory Wood for as long as he can remember. It’s the only home he’s ever known. Elissa has only just arrived. And she’ll do everything she can to escape. When Elijah stumbles across thirteen-year-old Elissa, in the woods where her abductor is hiding her, he refuses to alert the police. Because in his twelve years, Elijah has never had a proper friend. And he doesn’t want Elissa to leave.Not only that, Elijah knows how this can end. After all, Elissa isn’t the first girl he’s found inside the Memory Wood.As her abductor’s behaviour grows more erratic, Elissa realises that outwitting strange, lonely Elijah is her only hope of survival. Their cat-and-mouse game of deception and betrayal will determine both their fates, and whether either of them will ever leave the Memory Wood . . .

The Smell of Other People's Houses


Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock - 2016
    Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger. Four very different lives are about to become entangled.

The Imperfects


Amy Meyerson - 2020
    Estranged siblings Beck, Ashley and Jake find themselves under one roof for the first time in years, forced to confront old resentments and betrayals, when their mysterious, eccentric matriarch, Helen, passes away. But their lives are about to change when they find a secret inheritance hidden among her possessions—the Florentine Diamond, a 137-carat yellow gemstone that went missing from the Austrian Empire a century ago.Desperate to learn how one of the world’s most elusive diamonds ended up in Helen’s bedroom, they begin investigating her past only to realize how little they know about their brave, resilient grandmother. As the Millers race to determine whether they are the rightful heirs to the diamond and the fortune it promises, they uncover a past more tragic and powerful than they ever could have imagined, forever changing their connection to their heritage and each other.Inspired by the true story of the real, still-missing Florentine Diamond, The Imperfects illuminates the sacrifices we make for family and how sometimes discovering the truth of the past is the only way to better the future.

The Debut


Anita Brookner - 1981
    Now Dr. Weiss, at forty, a quiet scholar devoted to the study of Balzac, is convinced that her life has been ruined by literature, and that once again she must make a new start in life.

A Petrol Scented Spring


Ajay Close - 2015
    The lonely days become weeks, months. Her husband Hugh, a prison doctor, will offer no explanation for their sexless marriage. She comes to suspect the answer lies with a hunger-striking suffragette who was force fed and held in solitary confinement. But what really happened between Hugh and his prisoner patient?A Petrol Scented Spring is a riveting novel of repression, jealousy and love, and the struggle for women’s emancipation.

Truth, By Omission


Daniel Beamish - 2019
    Alfred Olyontombo barely survived the violence of his desperate childhood in central Africa. Ripped from his village as a young orphan, Alfred persevered through turbulent years of lawlessness and civil war, eventually making his way to a refugee camp as Rwanda's genocide raged behind him. Alone amidst the chaotic conditions at the camp, Alfred's quick mind and gift for languages caught the attention of an idealistic young doctor who opened the door to a whole new life for Alfred. He seized that chance, moving forward with hard work, honor, and a conscious decision to leave the full truth of his past-and the boy he used to be-behind in Africa.Years pass and Alfred becomes a respected physician married to a beautiful lawyer, enjoying a privileged life in Colorado. But then his idyllic existence is shattered by the terminal illness of his young daughter. As he and his wife struggle to come to terms with their unfathomable loss, Alfred is publicly accused of a long-ago war crime in Africa. The mere accusation threatens to destroy everything he has built-including his marriage. But as he struggles to defend himself, Alfred realizes he is culpable and that omitting his sins did not absolve them.His future hanging in the balance, Alfred is forced to face all the misdeeds he'd hoped time and his carefully crafted version of the past had buried forever. But is it too late for the truth to matter?

Shine Shine Shine


Lydia Netzer - 2012
    Her house and her friends are picture-perfect. Even her genius husband, Maxon, has been trained to pass for normal. But when a fender bender on an average day sends her coiffed blonde wig sailing out the window, her secret is exposed. Not only is she bald, Sunny is nothing like the Stepford wife she’s trying to be. As her facade begins to unravel, we discover the singular world of Sunny, an everywoman searching for the perfect life, and Maxon, an astronaut on his way to colonize the moon. Theirs is a wondrous, strange relationship formed of dark secrets, decades-old murders and the urgent desire for connection. As children, the bald, temperamental Sunny and the neglected savant Maxon found an unlikely friendship no one else could understand. She taught him to feel -- helped him translate his intelligence for numbers into a language of emotion. He saw her spirit where others saw only a freak. As they grew into adults, their profound understanding blossomed into love and marriage. But with motherhood comes a craving for normalcy that begins to strangle Sunny’s marriage and family. As Sunny and Maxon are on the brink of destruction, at each other’s throats with blame and fear of how they’ve lost their way, Maxon departs for the moon, where he’s charged with programming the robots that will build the fledgling colony. Just as the car accident jars Sunny out of her wig and into an awareness of what she really needs, an accident involving Maxon’s rocket threatens everything they’ve built, revealing the things they’ve kept hidden. And nothing will ever be the same.