71 books like Father Melancholy's Daughter

Jane Austen is unparalleled in her depiction of good and evil on a domestic level. While the situations are slightly less dramatic than in the other books I have selected, Mansfield Park compellingly presents the consequences of habituated action. Fanny Price is not perfect and certainly not most people’s cup of tea, but, like all Austen heroines, represents virtue and a growing self-knowledge over the course of the novel. The Crawford siblings are vivid examples of dulled moral vision. Without committing the literary sin of giving away the end, I will say that the “anti-romance” trajectory of the plot is wonderfully satisfying. Further, Sir Thomas Bertram may be my favorite male Austen character of all.

This is the story of a divorced mom who rents her downstairs apartment to a Catholic monk whose spiritual well has run dry twenty-three years into his vocation, leading him to walk away. I love disgruntled, disillusioned Mike, who can’t help being a stand-up guy, and whose ongoing, sometimes combative correspondence with a former colleague tracks the vagaries of his spiritual life. I love Rebecca and the way she handles insane emotional and practical responsibilities and somehow keeps on going. Most of all, I enjoy the understated, wry way these two fall in love. Farrington’s prose style is beautifully transparent, and he’s intelligent and funny about Christian belief and practice and about romance. There is also a good sequel, The Monk Upstairs.

Tyler is reliably warm and witty, and here we get to see her apply her trademark abilities to the story of a family of kids who are largely raised by their young Uncle Ian, who cuts short his own college education when he feels responsible for them losing their parents. Ian seeks redemption in raising them within the embrace of the entertainingly funky Church of the Second Chance. Ian is such a good member, the minister eventually tries to recruit him as his successor, which of course, would mean yet more responsibility. I couldn’t help but root for these incredibly vivid characters. And in its treatment of churches and church folks, Saint Maybe manages to be extremely funny and yet not at all disparaging. 

I read this book on my honeymoon twenty years ago, and I couldn’t put it down. It made me laugh out loud to the point that I couldn’t help but read parts of it out loud to my husband.

I couldn’t help but root for Owen on the first page. His voice plunged me deep into the world and made me feel like I didn’t want the book to end. There’s such a bittersweet component to the story that felt comforting to me as well as spiritual.

Grace Greene writes the ultimate “beach read”—endearing characters, descriptions that put you right there at oceanside, and a poignant blend of emotion and humor. I love how Lilliane, the heroine, discovers courage she never thought she had. A temporary job as a live-in caregiver begins merely as a way to earn money for much-needed home repairs. But her stay in Emerald Isle, NC, becomes a life-changer, not only for her but for the elderly gentleman who soon becomes both friend and mentor. It’s a book about stepping out of your comfort zone and opening your heart to new possibilities no matter your age. And if this novel stirs your heart as it did mine, you won’t want to miss the sequel, A Dancing Tide.

Though I felt too raw after George Floyd’s death in the summer of 2020 to read about the shattered dreams of an enslaved woman, there was something about Pheby Brown’s story that I found intriguing.

I had spent the last few weeks reading various novels about wives. Enslaved at birth, Pheby is promised her freedom on her 18th birthday but instead is forced to become the mistress to the jailer at a place where slaves are broken, tortured, and sold every day.

I loved how Phebe’s ability to create these beautiful designs with her sewing enabled her to protect her heart and those she loved. I was inspired by her strength and perseverance in the face of the brutality of slavery.

I’ve always been an avid reader despite not having peer-aged characters who resembled or represented me when I was a child. Fast forward to when my children were little: suddenly, there existed a plethora of African-American children’s literature. With pure delight, I indulged my little ones in magnificent books featuring characters that reflected them. Want to know a secret? I read those books for myself as well as for them. Recently, when finding a young African American girl at the center of Looking for Hope, I felt a delightful connection with my inner child. Make no mistakes. The young protagonist, Hannah “Mouse” Maynard, endures a horrific life event that alters her existence, interrupts her innocence, and thrusts her into a perilous, mature journey that fails to diminish her abiding sweetness. 

Not only is the Mrs. Murphy cozy mystery series written from the point of view of a sleuthing cat, it’s actually (allegedly!) written by a cat—the feline in question being Sneaky Pie Brown, author Rita Mae Brown’s real-life tabby companion, who supposedly makes use of Ms. Brown’s typewriter on the sly. Wish You Were Here is the first in a delightfully long series of cozy mysteries set in the fictional small town of Crozet, Virginia—where murders seem to happen with startling regularity, and where postmistress Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen’s beloved cat, Mrs. Murphy, always seems to be one step ahead of the official investigators. I fell hard for the acerbic, no-nonsense Mrs. Murphy and for this series, which was a direct inspiration for my own “Homer Whodunit” mystery series. 

Who doesn’t love a cookbook that includes A Thermos of Hot Virginia Country-Style Beef Consommé as the first item on a picnic list?

The Taste of Country Cooking is a cookbook and narrative of life in Freetown, Virginia where Lewis grew up. I feel comforted and assured reading Lewis’ stories and recipes. Here is an expert relating a way of life where eating is seasonal, healthful, and communal.

Recipes are directions on how to prepare and serve food, sure, they’re also medicinal formulas (lemonade is technically medicinal!), ethnobotanical records, and historical documents intimately tied to how humans all over the world live lives. I am a sucker for cookbooks tied to seasons, foodways, and history.

Lewis’ recipes are presented seasonally and organized into menus linked to events: Emancipation Day Dinner, A Cool Evening Supper, Morning-After-Hog-Butchering Breakfast. Food is what we eat but also who we are.

The death toll of the Civil War was horrendous, the list of the wounded? Endless. Medical schools did not exist; doctor trained their assistants. There were no emergency rooms, no hospitals, no triage, and certainly no female nurses to care for those bleeding male bodies. In many respects, the medical profession was born on Civil War battlefields with the brave women who ventured among the dead and dying to staunch the flow of blood. So, who were the women who emerged from their sheltered lives to care for wounded soldiers in the Northern army? I wrote about one of them—Nellie Chase—but I thought she was an exception. These stories of the women who joined the Northern war effort expanded my knowledge beyond my wildest expectations.