Play 2026 Book Bingo
Best Books From 2017
By: Angela & Melissa
Updated:
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we may earn a referral fee from qualifying purchases.Whether you are participating in our In Case You Missed It Backlist Reading Challenge or simply found this post searching for the best books of 2017, you’ve come to the right place! Our list includes a mix of the best-selling novels of 2017 as well as highly-rated books published that year that flew a bit more under the radar.
There are so many great books released each year that it’s impossible to keep up. The Book Girls typically read about 200 books a year between the two of us, but nonetheless, our TBRs (to-be-read lists) just keep getting longer. And we know we’re not alone! With that in mind, we decided to take a look back at some of the best books that we missed from past years.
In Case You Missed It…
We’ve compiled a list of highly-rated books from 2017, including a wide variety of genres, from contemporary and literary fiction to mystery and romance. Our goal was to make these recommendations much more than just a list of the 2017 best-seller books. In addition to popular titles, you’ll find hidden gems that we think should have been more popular.
While researching 2017’s best books, we also had fun reminiscing about some pop culture moments that defined the year.
Five Things We Were Talking About in 2017
- For the first time in Oscars history, the wrong Best Picture Award winner was announced. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway walked on stage with the wrong envelope and announced La La Land as the winner. Minutes later, Justin Horowitz, the producer of La La Land took the microphone and announced that the actual Best Picture winner was Moonlight.
- Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, was adapted into the Hulu series that premiered in April of 2017. The dystopian saga won five Emmy’s, including best drama.
- In October of 2017, a sniper opened fire on the crowd attending the final night of the Route 91 Country Music Festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800 from his hotel room window.
- Political science professor Robert E. Kelly earned the nickname “BBC Dad” after first his four-year-old daughter and then his eight-month-old son wandered into his office during his live interview on BBC. He continued the interview even as his wife frantically corralled the children in the background. We all laughed at the time, and just a few years later, many more parents could relate to these work-from-home struggles.
- On January 21, 2017, an estimated 5 million people took to the streets in 600 cities nationwide. Known as the Women’s March, it was the largest single-day protest in US history, and it was aimed at calling attention to numerous women’s issues, including ending violence against women and reproductive and healthcare rights. 2017 continued to be “The Year of the Woman” with the rise of the MeToo hashtag, which inspired women to speak out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment.
Best Books of 2017
The Indigo Girl
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In 1739 when she was 16, Eliza’s father left his three plantations in her hands as he pursued military ambitions. However, he also spent all the money from the estates, leaving her in a terrible position. Failure would have been fine with her mother, who would prefer they leave South Carolina behind and return to England.
Eliza finds hope for the plantations in an unlikely place. She has heard that the French will pay exorbitant amounts for indigo dye, one of the state’s largest exports. However, the process of making the dye is a closely guarded secret. Eliza will do just about anything to gain the knowledge she needs to save her family’s finances.
Based on a True Story
This historical fiction novel is based on the real story of Eliza Lucus, a very prominent figure in Charleston. She played a pivotal role in South Carolina’s agricultural history. When she passed away in 1793, President Washington was one of her pallbearers. The export of indigo dye was the foundation of extreme wealth for several South Carolina families, who continue to live in prosperity today.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Eleanor Oliphant was one of our favorite quirky characters of the last decade. She struggles with social interactions and thinks things are okay in her loner lifestyle. However, a chance encounter opens her eyes to the possibility of life being more than fine and better with friends instead of relying on frozen pizza and vodka.
While we still have a ways to go, an expanded understanding of the importance of mental health and a movement to de-stigmatize mental health care were positive shifts in the 2010s. Seeing Eleanor’s struggles and progression aligns with this overall shift in perception.
Our Thoughts on This Book
Eleanor is quirky and endearing despite her lack of social skills. We both enjoyed this one, but you should know going in that there are also some tough themes.
The Stolen Marriage
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Twenty-three-year-old nurse Tess is engaged to the love of her life; however, she finds out she is pregnant, and he is not the father. While staying with him would make her happy, she doesn’t want to trap him in a lie. So instead, she marries the baby’s father, Henry, and moves to the small town of Hickory, North Carolina.
Henry isn’t the best to Tess, and neither are the neighbors in her new home. When a polio outbreak begins and the town builds a polio hospital, Tess knows this is her opportunity to get back to work and create a life outside her unhappy home. However, Henry isn’t happy about her revitalized career, and his mysterious actions escalate.
Themes in This Book
While this is a fictional drama, it also provides insight into another defining feature of the 40s that you may not have read about as much – the explosive growth of polio cases in the mid to late 1940s.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Set in the marshlands of upper Michigan, The Marsh King’s Daughter is a thriller about Helena Pelletier, who was raised as a survivalist by her criminal father.
Helena’s mother was kidnapped as a teen and hidden away in a cabin deep in the marsh. Two years later, Helena was born. She loved her home and even her father until his brutality reached new heights one day.
Twenty years later, her father escaped prison and disappeared into the marsh. Helena is the only person with a chance to find him.
My Not So Perfect Life
Book Summary
Everyone around Katie seems to be living the life she wants, especially her boss, Demeter Farlowe. Demeter is brilliant, stylish, and creative with a perfect family and a fancy London townhouse. Meanwhile, Katie lives in a sad rental with odd roommates and at the office she’s dealing with tense politics. But she’s desperate to make her dad proud, so she puts up a less than truthful Instagram post.
Just when Katie is finally starting to turn things around for real, Demeter fires her. She retreats to her family farm in Somerset to help them set up a vacation business. London feels a world away until Demeter shows up. Suddenly secrets are spilled and relationships are upended.
Why This Book Made the List
After Sophie Kinsella lost her battle with brain cancer in 2025, we started exploring some of her backlist titles that we had previously missed. This is a gem of a rom com that we missed the first time around, and that’s exactly what the ICYMI Challenge is all about!
This Is How It Always Is
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Claude is the youngest son in a family with five brothers. And he firmly knows that when he grows up, he wants to be a girl. His parents see his sincerity and opt to move out of their smaller town to Seattle, where they expect people to be more accepting of others. However, despite being okay with Claude being whoever he is, they don’t want themselves or Claude to be targeted as weird. In their new city, Claude is Poppy. The entire family keeps the secret until everything explodes one day.
More About the Book
This story is a timely look at the inner workings of a family with a transgender child. While the book is about a fictionalized family, the author has first-hand experiences with the topic, giving authenticity to the parents’ perspectives.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during WWI and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
Our Thoughts on This Book
Angela found the story of the WWI Alice Network fascinating and enjoyed the writing style that intertwined the stories of the two women. Unlike many other stories told from two perspectives in two different time periods, Angela liked that the two female protagonists were together in the later time period, forming a unique relationship, which added another layer to the story.
Close Enough to Touch
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
For the last decade, Jubilee has lived in a world of solitude because of a rare allergy to human touch. Her last experience in the world led to a major anaphylactic shock during her first kiss, so it’s safest at home. However, when she loses her mother, she decides to reenter the world.
Now, at age 27, she finds employment as a librarian, and there she meets Eric. He’s a divorced father with custody of a troubled 10-year-old son, Aja, and a 14-year-old daughter who lives with her mom and won’t speak to him. Jubilee, Eric, and Aja bond over books at the library, and each begins to find their own healing.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Sara was the head housekeeper at a posh London hotel in 1884. Based on her background, this is more than she ever expected and the highest station she could rise to in life. But then she meets an American visitor, Theodore Camden. He is building the most luxurious residential building in New York, The Dakota, and invites her to come to manage the property. The job brings her to highs and lows she never could have expected.
Sara’s story is told in conjunction with a 1985 storyline of Bailey Camden, who is returning from rehab and gets the opportunity to start fresh with a job overseeing the renovation of an apartment in The Dakota.
The novel goes back and forth between these perspectives, weaving together a story of love, betrayal, and the quest for success within one of NYC’s most famous residences.
Historical Context
The Dakota is still standing, and it’s located at the corner of Central Park West and 72nd Street, directly across the street from Central Park. It was once home to John Lennon, who was murdered right outside the building gates in 1980, and it remains home to Yoko Ono. This building, dubbed New York’s most famous apartment building by Architectural Digest, has also been home to many other celebrities over the years.
The Radium Girls
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
The newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty and the wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of World War I.
Across the US, hundreds of girls toiled in the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covered their bodies from head to toe; they lit up the night like industrious fireflies.
With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive – until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. This shocking nonfiction book explores the radium craze and its lasting aftermath.
Our Thoughts on This Book
We have both read this book, and both highly recommend it! It is heartbreaking and, at times, hard to read because of the terrible illnesses that the women suffer. Still, it’s a riveting account of a little-known and important piece of American history.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
96% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Evelyn Hugo lived a glamorous and scandalous life, but doesn’t like to talk about it and has become reclusive after leaving her career. When the movie icon is finally ready to talk about her time in show business, she picks an unknown reporter to log her personal history, but why?
You’ll slowly unwrap Evelyn’s life from the 1950s – 1980s as she chronicles her past life and relationships, including the seven husbands she had along the way. As the book covers so much of her life, it moves quickly and will keep you engaged and entertained for hours.
If We Were Villains
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Oliver Marks was a young actor studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college. Both onstage and off, he and his friends played hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, and ingenue. But when secondary characters began to usurp the stars, their plays began to dangerously spill over into real life, and one of them was found dead. Oliver was found guilty.
Detective Colborne helped put Oliver in jail for a murder that he may or may not have committed. A decade later, Colborne is preparing to retire as Oliver is being released from jail. The detective wants to know once and for all what really happened, so he meets Oliver upon his release to ask just that.
Consider This Before Reading
Several of our readers highly recommend this book, but reviewers warn that it’s a book you will love to hate. If dark academia is your thing, this novel will pull you in and then rip your heart out.
If the Creek Don’t Rise
Book Summary
It only takes fifteen days for Sadie Blue to realize that her marriage to is a mistake. Her husband is a dangerous drunk, and she regrets not listening to everyone who warned her that he was trouble. Unfortunately, she doesn’t see a way out… until a stranger arrives in her Appalachian mountains town and knocks the world-off kilter.
Thoughts on This Book
Some readers find the local dialect distracting or difficult, but once they are absorbed into the story find it hard to put down.
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
The Akha people live in a remote mountain village in China, where, for generations, their lives have revolved around farming tea. Li-yan is one of the few educated girls in the village, and everything begins to change for her when a stranger arrives at the village gate driving a jeep—the first automobile any of them have ever seen. Little by little, Li-yan begins to reject the customs of her village.
When Li-yan becomes pregnant out of wedlock, local tradition calls for her to give her child over to be killed. Instead, she flees to a nearby city, where she leaves her baby at an orphanage. She then remains in the city and puts her experience and education to use by pursuing a career in the tea business outside of the fields.
Li-yan’s daughter is adopted by loving American parents and is raised in a life of privilege in California. As she grows, she continues to wonder about her origins, and back in China, the mother she never knew longs for her as well. The two remain connected across the continents by their family heritage of tea.
More About This Book
Many readers have assumed that Lisa See would write a sequel to this modern historical fiction, but the author has stated in numerous interviews that no sequel is planned.
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Looking for an eerie mystery that’s perfect for book lovers wanting to read something a bit haunting around Halloween?
This highly-rated debut novel follows a bookshop employee named Lydia, who ends up investigating the suicide of one of her bookshop regulars. As Lydia delves into his past, she also uncovers a buried memory from her own violent childhood.
This is a twisty crime thriller with a very creative puzzle element that will keep readers guessing.
Inspiration for the Novel
Colorado-based readers will recognize the Bright Ideas Bookstore as The Tattered Cover. The author was a bookseller at this Denver book institution during the 1990s and used the store as his inspiration.
The Hate U Give
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
While 16-year-old Starr attends a fancy suburban prep school, it’s a far cry from the poor neighborhood where she lives. When a police officer shoots her childhood best friend from the neighborhood, Khalil, her two worlds collide and are turned upside down.
Khalil’s death becomes national news, with everyone making assumptions about what really happened. Khalil was unarmed, but sides are drawn, with some calling him a thug and others protesting in his name. Starr is the only one who knows what happened that night, but what she says could endanger her life.
The Book Girls Say…
This hit YA novel was the 2017 Goodreads winner for Best Debut Author and Best YA Fiction. Author Angie Thomas was born and raised in Mississippi.
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This debut novel, written by Ruth Emmie Lang, is magical in story and language.
Weylyn Grey was raised by wolves after being orphaned. After surviving on his own in nature, he has developed some supernatural abilities. His story is told by those who have encountered him throughout many years.
Thoughts on This Book
Even if you’re not usually a fan of fantasy, we think you’ll love this interesting character!
Little Fires Everywhere
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In the Shaker Heights suburb of Ohio, the life of the picture-perfect Richardson family becomes intertwined with the lives of Mia and her daughter Pearl, who rent a house from the Richardsons when they arrive in town.
All four of the Richardson children befriend Pearl and are drawn in by artist Mia. As their relationships become more intertwined, the bonds that tie them will ultimately unravel both families.
This story is about complex family dynamics, small-town politics, and white privilege. When a local family decides to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle divides the town, with Mrs. Richardson and Mia on opposite sides. Mrs. Richardson becomes suspicious of Mia’s motives and digs into her past. The secrets she uncovers will change everything.
Page to Screen Adaptation
We both enjoyed this book and felt it did a great job capturing suburban life in the 90s.
The Hulu adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere, starring Reese Witherspoon as Elena and Kerry Washington as Mia, premiered in 2020 as a limited series with one season and eight episodes. While much of the series’ plot mirrors the novel, the ending differs. Additionally, the series adaptation expands, and sometimes alters, the characters’ backstories.
Autoboyography
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Tanner Scott’s family relocated from progressive California to conservative Utah three years ago. Life in Provo (home to BYU) is complicated enough as a half-Jewish, half-lapsed Mormon teenager, so Tanner, who was openly bisexual at his previous school, decides to go back into the closet at Provo High. Now, in his senior year, he is looking forward to attending an out-of-state college next year, where he can once again feel free to be himself.
He fully intends to coast through his final semester of high school classes until his best friend, Autumn, dares him to take a prestigious honors seminar where students draft an entire book in just four months. And his final semester plans are pushed even further off track when Tanner finds himself falling in love with Sebastian Brother, the class mentor who sold his seminar novel to a major publishing house the year before. He’s also the son of an LDS Bishop.
Thoughts on This Book
This young adult novel is a mostly closed-door romance. Some reviewers say it felt too much like a predictable romance in the initial chapters, but multiple points of conflict make it a very engaging read as the plot moves forward.
About the Authors
Christina Lauren is the pen name for long-time writing partners Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. Christina is a former middle school counselor in her home state of Utah, and Lauren, a Ph.D. and mother of two in California, identifies as bisexual. In an interview, the authors described doing extensive research for Autoboyography, including reading the diaries of a friend who came out as gay after his LDS mission.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
96% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Killers of the Flower Moon is a nonfiction story with a plot that seems like it should be fiction.
Finding oil within their land, the Osage Indian Nation became the richest people per capita in the world. The wealth attracted a whole host of bad characters, leading to murders and other vicious crimes.
This story also represents the first time we see J. Edgar Hoover show up in the history books, as a young FBI director leading the first major homicide investigation in the organization’s history.
Page to Screen Adaptation
This book is a great companion to the 2023 Martin Scorsese film by the same name, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, and Lily Gladstone. Scorsese worked closely with the Osage Tribe and filmed in Oklahoma to authentically share this tragic piece of history.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
91% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In the early 1900s, teenage Sunja meets a wealthy man near her seaside home in Korea and becomes pregnant, only to discover that the man is married. He attempts to buy her off, but she instead accepts another man’s offer and follows him to Japan, where they are discriminated against both for being Korean and Christian.
Sunja’s decision to leave her home and reject her son’s powerful father sets the stage for this epic novel that follows four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family in 20th-century Japan. It is a history of one family and a political history of the relationship between the Japanese and Koreans throughout the 1900s.
Thoughts on This Book
This book is a bit slow to start, and it can take some time to become familiar with all of the characters, but the investment pays off for most readers! This epic deals with many challenging issues that some readers might find triggering.
Before We Were Yours
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
99% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This book is based on the true story of Georgia Tann’s “adoption” agency that claimed to help orphans, but instead kidnapped poor children and trafficked them to wealthy families.
Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings have a wonderful life aboard their family’s shanty boat on the Mississippi River. But on a stormy night when their father has to take their mother to the hospital, Rill is left in charge. Unfortunately, strangers arrive, and the kids are thrown into the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. They are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents – but quickly realize the dark truth.
In present-day South Carolina, Avery Stafford returns home to help her father during a health crisis. When she stumbles upon the possibility that her grandmother may be harboring a dark family secret, Avery becomes obsessed with her mission to uncover the truth.
Our Thoughts on This Book
Melissa read this heartbreaking tale and hated that it was based on true events. It was worth reading, but she recommends grabbing your tissues and keeping them handy!
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Cyril Avery was born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community before being adopted by a well-off couple from Dublin. His adoptive parents tell him that he’ll never be a real Avery, but if that’s true, then who is he?
As a boy, he becomes friends with Julian, but this is complicated when Cyril realizes he loves Julian as more than a friend. Keeping this secret comes with great costs.
Over the course of 70 years, Cyril struggles to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. Through his eyes, readers also see the history of Ireland and LGBTQ rights from the 1940s to the 2010s.
More About This Book
In addition to the phenomenal Goodreads rating of 4.52 with over 150,000 readers, The Heart’s Invisible Furies has won numerous awards, including being the 2017 Book of the Year for Book of the Month.
This character-driven work is long at 582 pages, with reviewers saying it will make you laugh and cry. It includes a lot of talk about sex and covers some difficult topics, so check trigger warnings if necessary.
The Identicals
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
The Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard are only 2.5 hours apart on the ferry, but they have different vibes and provide for very different lives for identical 40-year-old twin sisters who have been estranged for years.
However, when a family crisis strikes, the women start to remember the importance of banding together and that their bond is stronger than the rivalry that separated them for too many years.
Thoughts on This Book
While most of Elin Hilderbrand’s books transport you to Nantucket, we love that this one lets you compare two different New England islands while also enjoying a summery sister story that ranges from charming to scandalous.
We Were the Lucky Ones
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In 1939, the Kurc family of Radom, Poland, was doing their best to continue with their normal lives. While the talk around the Seder table was of new babies and budding romances, the family is well aware of the looming shadow of war and the growing threat to Jews throughout the region. Soon, however, it becomes impossible for them to escape the horrors overtaking Europe.
Before long, the family is driven apart. One sibling is forced into exile while another attempts to flee the continent. Some family members work long hours in factories in the ghetto, and still others try to hide in plain sight by passing as gentiles.
Despite their fear that they may never see one another again, the Krucs demonstrate hope, ingenuity, and strength, demonstrating that even in the darkest moments, the human spirit can endure and thrive.
Praise for This Book
This novel was a Goodreads Choice Nominee for both Best Historical Fiction and Best Debut Author in 2017 and remains extremely highly rated.
Stillhouse Lake
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Midwestern housewife Gina has two children and a happy marriage. Everything changes when her husband is in a car accident that reveals his horrific secret – he’s a serial killer.
Gina is forced to reinvent herself as Gwen. With her ex in prison, she’s starting over in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. While internet stalkers still think Gina had something to do with her husband’s crimes, she hopes the rural lake town will bring them peace.
Then, a body turns up in the lake, and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. But now she knows how to fight evil, and she won’t stop until her kids are safe.
About the Series
Stillhouse Lake was a 2017 Goodreads Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller.
It is the first book in a series of seven, and all are currently included with Kindle Unlimited. Keep in mind that this book ends with somewhat of a cliffhanger, so be prepared to become invested in the series.
The Garden of Small Beginnings
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Young widow Lili is three years past the car accident that unexpectedly made her a single mom of two small children.
She works as an illustrator and has been chosen to create the drawings for a prestigious boutique vegetable guide. But that means she’s also been assigned to attend a 6-week vegetable gardening class for some real-world veggie experiences. Despite convincing her kids and sister to join her in the class, she’s still not overjoyed with this required course. However, one patient instructor and a cast of quirky classmates later, she’ll realize the class isn’t so bad.
Our Thoughts on This Book
While there is a minor romance thread, this is not a romance novel. Instead, it’s somehow both funny and emotional, with themes of sister relationships, family, and healing.
If you enjoyed this author’s novel The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, we think you’ll enjoy The Garden of Small Beginnings.
The Child Finder
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
95% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This atmospheric thriller will take you right to the forests of Oregon, where five-year-old Madison disappeared as her family was choosing a Christmas tree. It’s been three years, and the Culver family is still desperate to find their now eight-year-old daughter.
The Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator known as the “Child Finder” with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. She understands lost children because she was a lost girl too. As her search takes her into the icy forest, she has to come to terms with her own past as well.
What to Expect in This Book
This book is a bit more literary than your average thriller. It’s told in alternating voices between Naomi and a deeply imaginative child.
Be aware that this book involves child molestation and abuse, making it a difficult read at times. The author is herself a victim of molestation and abuse, has worked with victims, and has raised foster children with their own traumas, so the story is very raw and real.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
90% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Five female office colleagues are reluctantly on a corporate retreat that is supposed to encourage teamwork and resilience. They all head out on the muddy track through the rugged Giralang Ranges together, but only four come out on the other side of the trail.
Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk arrives to investigate the disappearance of Alice, who knew secrets about her company and co-workers. As he learns more about the days spent in the remote Australian bushland, he discovers stories of fear, violence, and fractured trust.
About the Series
This is the perfect ICYMI pick if you previously enjoyed book #1, The Dry, as part of our Book Voyage Read Around the World challenge.
While this is the 2nd book in the Aaron Falk series, the main character is investigating a different case, so it can be read as a stand-alone if you’re looking for a mystery to read this month!
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
96% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Pino is a typical Italian teenager who wants nothing to do with the war. He’s much more interested in music, food, and girls. But when Allied bombs destroy his home in Milan, his innocence is lost. He joins an underground railroad that helps Jews escape over the Alps on skis.
Then, his parents force him to enlist as a German soldier to avoid being drafted. This is a move they think will protect him, but he is injured nonetheless. No longer able to be in combat, Pino is recruited to become the personal driver to one of the Third Reich’s top commanders in Italy. This new role gives him the opportunity to aid the Allies from the inside as a spy.
Historical Context
The author based this novel on the true experiences of Pino Lella, whom he interviewed extensively. Since its publication, some have questioned whether Pino Lella was actually involved with the boys of Casa Alpina, who skied refugees across the Swiss border. In either event, the underground railroad described in the book did exist, whether the real-life Pino was a part of it or not.
This novel is a bit on the longer side, coming in just over 500 pages.
You are welcome to choose any book you’d like to read for the challenge, but we hope this list of books has given you a good starting point.
Printable Version of This Book List
Readers who support The Book Girls’ Guide through our Buy Me a Coffee (BMAC) membership site can access printable versions of the reading challenge book lists. As we update each book list throughout the year – following the monthly reading challenge schedule – each list will be available in a single-page printable format for our BMAC members.
We offer two membership levels. Both our BFF members and our Inner Circle members get access to the single-page printables for the year-long reading challenges. Visit our Buy Me a Coffee membership page for a full list of benefits for each level.
Our BMAC members help cover the cost of running the challenges so we can keep them free for everyone!
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