2026 Reading Challenge Crossover Books

Book Summary

Misia Sert was a brilliant pianist and one of the most influential patrons in Parisian artistic circles. She is married to renowned muralist José María “Jojo” Sert, who prizes his wife’s iconoclastic vision and independence. And her closest confidante was none other than the iconic Coco Chanel. Together, these two women are unstoppable: bold, unconventional, and fiercely loyal to each other.

But even the most powerful women have their vulnerabilities, and when a captivating newcomer enters their world, a Russian émigré sculptress with ambitions that reach further than anyone suspects, Misia’s carefully built life is suddenly on uncertain ground.

Book Summary

One spring, Theo, an 86-year-old Portuguese man with a gentle manner and a past he won’t discuss, arrives in the town of Golden, Georgia. A chance stop at a coffee shop introduces him to a display of ninety-two framed pencil portraits of local residents. Compelled by the faces on the wall, Theo begins purchasing the drawings one by one, then tracking down each subject to return their portrait.

As deliveries multiply, Theo befriends the shop’s regulars, the artist behind the sketches, and a widening circle of townspeople whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. Meanwhile, curiosity about his identity and motives spreads through Golden, and Theo’s careful routine is tested by practical obstacles, community skepticism, some eager to help, others wary, and the risk of being discovered.

Book Summary

For most New Yorkers, Grand Central Terminal is a masterpiece of architectural design, but for Clara and Virginia, it represents something entirely different.

For Clara, in 1928, teaching at the Grand Central School of Art was the stepping stone to her future. In a time when there was public disdain for a woman artist, Clara is determined to succeed in her dream of creating cover art for Vogue. But she and her friends will soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression that may destroy the entire art scene.

By 1974, Grand Central had declined to a dangerous place full of pickpockets and drug dealers, and it was at the center of a lawsuit that would decide if the terminal should be preserved or demolished. Virginia, who had recently taken a job in the Grand Central information booth, stumbles upon an abandoned art school within the terminal and discovers a striking watercolor that opens her eyes to the elegance beneath the decay. She sets out to find the artist and finds herself drawn into the battle to save Grand Central.

Book Summary

In 2001, Caroline Grant’s marriage was falling apart when her beloved great-aunt Lettie passed away, leaving Caroline a sketchbook, three keys, and the request that her ashes be spread in Venice. Key by key, Caroline will learn the secrets that Lettie kept for more than 60 years – secrets of impossible love, loss, and courage.

In her younger years, Lettie traveled to Venice numerous times as an art teacher, providing a wealth of art history to her students and allowing her to visit the man she loves, even though his future cannot include her.

Book Summary

Inspired by several notebooks discovered at Frida Kahlo’s Mexico City home, this novel provides a fictional account of the famous artist’s life. The author begins with the premise that, after Frida nearly died in a streetcar accident, she received a notebook as a gift from her lover, Tina Modotti, and used the notebook to collect memories, ideas, and recipes.

This reimagined tale of Kahlo’s passionate life and the development of her art also details her relationships with many famous characters, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Nelson Rockefeller, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Salvador Dali, and more.

Book Summary

At fifty, Leonardo da Vinci is at the peak of his career, but in this novel, his personal life is falling apart. He loses the David commission, can’t finish projects, obsesses over his flying machine, and watches his engineering designs fail. Then he becomes fixated on Lisa, a merchant’s wife, and paints the Mona Lisa.

Meanwhile, twenty-six-year-old Michelangelo is a temperamental sculptor desperate to prove himself. When he wins the David marble statue commission, he must work against an impossible deadline.

Leonardo despises Michelangelo for his youth and lack of sophistication. Michelangelo both loathes and worships Leonardo’s genius. Their rivalry pushes them to create their most famous masterpieces.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel is based on the true story of Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law who inherited his paintings. They weren’t worth anything at the time, but despite barely speaking French, she managed to introduce Van Gogh’s legacy to the world.

Hollywood auctioneer Emsley comes across an old diary while cleaning out her famous grandmother’s New York brownstone. But it turns out that the diary didn’t belong to her grandma. It was written by Johanna, and it provides Emsley the inspiration she needs at just the right time.

Book Summary

Sadie is a talented portrait artist who is finally getting the recognition she deserves as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition. Before her death, her mom was a finalist in the same competition, so Sadie is full of emotions about the new painting she must produce as part of the contest.

However, in one moment, everything changes for Sadie. The only constant is her beloved dog, Peanut. With both her work and her family in chaos, how will Sadie overcome the hardest period in her life?

Book Summary

Jules Roth is a rising young journalist who persuades a famed investigative reporter named Dan Mansfield to give her a job at the Chicago Chronicle. He assigns her to the secret and urgent task of locating a painting stolen by the Nazis more than 75 years earlier.

The artwork, “Woman on Fire,” was created by a fictional German Expressionist painter and depicts a woman engulfed in brilliant color; it has become a legendary lost masterpiece.

Shoe designer Ellis Baum has deeply personal reasons for wanting the painting found before he dies. Jules and Dan pursue leads across the US and Europe, but they find themselves contending with Margaux de Laurent, a powerful and cunning gallery owner who also wants the painting for herself.

As the search for the looted artwork intensifies, Jules gains unexpected help from Adam Baum, Ellis’s grandson, who is also a struggling contemporary artist.

Book Summary

Lily has been waiting her whole life for a chance to make an impact in the art world, and that opportunity comes when she is promoted to assistant to the keeper of the Modern Collection at the Tate Museum in London, just in time to help plan a world-class exhibit to honor the passing of Picasso. The opening of the exhibit is going perfectly – the lighting, the champagne, and the glittering crowd – until Lily notices that one of the Picassos on display appears to be a forgery. Her declaration shocks everyone in the gallery.

Lily’s boss, Diana, has worked hard to become one of the most trusted voices, both in London’s modern art scene and across Europe. The Picasso exhibit that she’s curated is supposed to be her crowning achievement, topped off by the newly discovered Picasso painting that she’s advised an investor to purchase. But Lily’s accusation that the painting is a forgery throws the art world into chaos amid already swirling concerns about post-war acquisitions.

With just one comment, Lily has jeopardized her career and that of her mentor. The clock is ticking for her to prove that she’s right, but clues are starting to stack up against her.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel is based on the remarkable true story of J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, a Black woman who became one of the most powerful women in NYC at the turn of the century.

Belle da Costa Greene was working at Princeton University Library when J.P. Morgan’s nephew recommended her for a position curating a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artbooks for his uncle’s newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. This position of prominence made her one of the most influential people in the art and book world. She became a fixture on the New York social scene.

But Belle had a secret that could change everything. She led people to believe that her dark complexion was the result of her alleged Portuguese heritage. In truth, however, she was born Bella Marion Greener – the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard University.

Book Summary

Freshly graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, aspiring painter Veridian (Veri) Sterling arrives in New York City ready to show her own work in galleries, but instead lands a job as a personal assistant at an art gallery that rejected her paintings.

Struggling financially and hoping to help her mother realize her own business dreams, Veri overhears her boss discussing a large finder’s fee for a lost Van Gogh. Her own artwork might go unappreciated, but maybe she can put her copying skills to use instead.

Veri becomes increasingly involved with a famous art dealer and his circle, and she soon realizes that she might be in over her head. Can she clean up the mess she’s made before she goes down for someone else’s crimes?

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.

Book Summary

As a matchmaker at an elite agency in London, Poppy spends her days finding perfect matches for everyone but herself.

Her newest client is going to be quite a challenge. Tristan is a bachelor who has no interest in falling in love, but he must find a wife before he turns 35 to receive his massive inheritance. He’s a typical, arrogant bachelor type, so why is he getting under Poppy’s skin?

Book Summary

Anna is a 38-year-old divorcee with two kids, a cat, and a career as a columnist for a local magazine. But her office rival is vying to take over her column because “According to Anna” isn’t attracting the younger demographic anymore. While she firmly believes that she doesn’t need a man, she definitely needs her job.

To attract attention to her column, Anna has a crazy idea. She’ll go on a series of seven dates set up by her children, twelve-year-old daughter Jess and seven-year-old son Ethan. Her competitor, Will, pitches a similar series, but with dates he’s been matched with on dating apps. Her boss loves both ideas and turns them into a His and Hers column to face off each week to recap their dates.

Book Summary

Match Your DNA is a company that promises to do just that – use your DNA to match you with your perfect, genetically matched partner. They claim to have found the gene that pairs each person with their soulmate, and they’ve already successfully matched millions of people worldwide.

The downside, however, is that the test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships. And the introduction of genetic matching has upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

Now, five very different people have received notifications of matches, but that doesn’t guarantee happiness, because even soulmates have secrets.

Book Summary

In the Gilded Age of the 1890s, wealthy American heiresses began crossing the Atlantic to marry cash-poor British aristocrats. Julie Ferry chronicles this fascinating era when ambitious American families leveraged their industrial fortunes to purchase titles and social prestige through strategic marriages, while financially strapped British nobility traded ancestral names for desperately needed capital.

These transatlantic unions were often facilitated by social intermediaries who functioned as informal matchmakers. The phenomenon reshaped both American and British high society.

Ferry explores the lives of the women who became duchesses, countesses, and ladies, examining their motivations, the cultural clashes they faced, and the complex dynamics of marriages built on pragmatic exchange rather than romance. Through meticulous research, we see how these “dollar princesses” navigated two worlds, the price they paid for their titles, and their lasting impact on both sides of the Atlantic.

Book Summary

Emma Woodhouse is an intelligent, pretty, and wealthy young woman living in the English countryside who has taken up matchmaking as her favorite pastime. Convinced of her superior judgment in matters of the heart, Emma arranges romantic connections for those around her, beginning with pairing her governess with a local gentleman. After her first success, she’s determined to improve the romantic prospects of her new friend Harriet.

As Emma schemes and plots various matches, she remains smugly certain of her matchmaking abilities, despite warnings from her friend Mr. Knightley about the dangers of meddling in others’ affairs.

Book Summary

As London is emerging from WWII, Juliet Ashton, a writer, is looking for the subject of her next book. She begins exchanging letters with a man she’s never met – a native of the island of Guernsey. Through their letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of the man and his eccentric friends. Though they range from pig farmers to phrenologists, they are all literature lovers.

As Juliet learns about their tastes in books, she also comes to understand the impact that the German occupation has had on their lives.

This is a great choice for those who love epistolary novels, which are told through written correspondence between the characters.

Book Summary

Less than four months after taking office, US President Garfield was shot twice in a train station in Washington, DC, by a disgruntled man with political aspirations. Doctors tried to save his life, but life-saving attempts led to infections as his surgeon, Dr. Bliss, didn’t believe in sanitizing hands or equipment.

A bullet remained lodged in his body, but it needed to be removed for the best chance of survival. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell thought he could develop new technology to locate the bullet, but it was a race against time and against a doctor who didn’t embrace evolving medical practices.

Book Summary

Ten-year-old Auggie has a facial deformity that previously prevented him from attending a traditional school. In his own words, “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”

Wonder begins from Auggie’s point of view as he starts 5th grade, but soon switches to include his classmates. While there are also chapters told from the perspective of his teenage sister, her boyfriend, and others, Auggie remains the focus of the story throughout. The multiple perspectives create a beautiful portrait of Auggie’s community as they struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.

Book Summary

Sixteen-year-old Kate has been fighting leukemia since she was very young. Thirteen-year-old Anna is the healthy one, yet she’s undergone countless surgeries and transfusions. That’s because Anna was conceived, by way of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, to be a bone marrow match for Kate.

Most teenagers begin to question who they really are, but for Anna, this question is much more complex. That leads her to a decision that has the potential to tear her family apart, and may even have fatal consequences for Kate.

Book Summary

Bernadette lives with her husband and her teenage daughter in Seattle, a city where she’s never felt she fits in. She was once a renowned architect, but now spends most of her time in the house, hiding from the other moms of her daughter’s elite prep school.

Unlike her Microsoft employee husband, Elgie, who has fully embraced the granola-eating, public transport-using, bike-riding culture of 2010s Seattle, Bernadette spends her days at home, relying on a virtual assistant in India for many of her daily tasks. This becomes a real problem when her daughter’s stellar report card earns her a family cruise to Antarctica, and Bernadette becomes overwhelmed by the planning and preparations. When Bernadette disappears before the trip, her daughter Bee is determined to track her down, unraveling a web of secrets.

Much of this book is told in epistolary form, including notes from Bee’s school, email exchanges between Bernadette and her virtual assistant, and catty moms communicating about Bernadette’s eccentricities.

Book Summary

The Good Lord Bird is a unique work of historical fiction that offers a fresh and sometimes humorous perspective on the abolitionist movement and the notorious John Brown. The novel tells the story of Brown and Henry Shackleford, a young slave who is nicknamed “Onion” by Brown after he is mistaken for a girl. 

Onion joins Brown’s ragtag army, which is preparing to raid the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Along the way, Onion witnesses the horrors of slavery and the violence of Brown’s abolition campaign firsthand. Despite its serious subject matter, The Good Lord Bird is also a coming-of-age story that follows Onion’s journey of self-discovery.

Book Summary

Jack and his mother live in a single room. To five-year-old Jack, the room is his entire world – where he eats, sleeps, reads, and plays – he knows nothing else. But for his mother, the room is a prison where she’s been held captive for the past seven years. She is devising an escape plan, but are they prepared for what comes next if the plan actually works?

This book is told entirely from Jack’s pragmatic perspective, and it’s also a beautiful celebration of the parent-child bond.

Book Summary

Melody, a nearly 11-year-old girl, is different from other 5th graders. She has a photographic memory, so she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She also has cerebral palsy, which has caused her to be unable to speak, move, or communicate with anyone, and she is constantly frustrated with trying to tell people what she wants.

Despite being smarter than her classmates (and the adults trying to diagnose her), they treat her as mentally challenged. Still, Melody refuses to be defined by CP, and she’s determined to make sure everyone knows it.

Book Summary

This is the first book in the Little House on the Prairie series, based on the real-life adventures of author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Little Laura is just four in this first book, and she grows up throughout the nine books of the series (not reaching age 13 until the 6th book).

Little House in the Big Woods takes place in Wisconsin in 1871, where Laura lives in a log cabin with her Pa, her Ma, and her sisters. This first book introduces readers to the challenges of pioneer life, and in later books, the family travels by covered wagon from Wisconsin to Kansas, where they establish a homestead.