Zara Hoffman’s college years were filled with romance (the fictional kind). Although fae read some during middle school and high school, this genre was the easiest to digest during a very busy and stressful time in our founder’s life. The titles are also listed in the order that Zara read these books.
Please note, the covers and publishers listed with each title is for the edition Zara read the book with (and may not be the cover of the book’s original publication). The years are the original publication of each title.
Nancy, unaided, seeks to find a missing will. To the surprise of many, the Topham family will inherit wealthy Josiah Crowley’s fortune, instead of deserving relatives and friends who were promised inheritances. Nancy determines that a clue to a second will might be found in an old clock Mr. Crowley had owned and she seeks to find the timepiece. Her search not only tests her keen mind, but also leads her into a thrilling adventure.
Did you know that Zara’s first novel, while an original plot, was heavily influenced by Nancy Drew? It was written for an English assignment in elementary school, and while everyone else turned in 10 pages max, Zara turned in a 60-page novel draft.
What if the world’s worst serial killer…was your dad?
Jasper “Jazz” Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.
But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal’s point of view.
And now bodies are piling up in Lobo’s Nod.
In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret—could he be more like his father than anyone knows?
The World’s Bestselling Mystery!
“Ten . . .”
Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious “U. N. Owen.”
“Nine . . .”
At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead.
“Eight . . .”
Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one . . . as one by one . . . they begin to die.
“Seven . . .”
Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive?
Was this an appropriate book for a 5th grade English report? Probably not. But that’s exactly what Zara did.
Our first meeting with Sherlock Holmes. And John Watson’s too! The young doctor is astonished by Holmes’ many idiosyncrasies, including his talents on the violin.
But it’s not long before Sherlock Holmes, with Watson in tow, is working with Scotland Yard investigating the murder of two Americans whose deaths have some mysterious connection to sinister groups gathering power in both Britain and America.
Here’s where it all began, ‘A Study in Scarlet.’ Meet Sherlock Holmes, one of the world’s leading consulting detectives – fictional of course!
Like everyone and their grandmother, Zara went through a Sherlock Holmes kick. BBC’s Sherlock was fae’s favorite (until that last season), but fae also really enjoyed Elementary. Going further back, Zara also enjoyed the Robert Downey Jr movies, and was waiting (like a lot of fans) for Iron Man to say “No shit, Sherlock” to Doctor Strange in an Avengers film (low-hanging fruit or not)—but it never happened. And seeing both Sherlock Holmes actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, alternate playing the Monster and Dr. Frankenstein in National Theatre Live’s production of Frankenstein was awesome.
While grieving her husband’s murder, a young Colorado veterinarian meets a troubled FBI agent and begins to uncover the world’s most sinister secrets in this thriller from James Patterson.
Frannie O’Neill is a young and talented veterinarian living in Colorado. Plagued by the mysterious murder of her husband, Frannie throws herself into her work, but it is not long before another bizarre murder occurs and Kit Harrison, a troubled and unconventional FBI agent, arrives on her doorstep.
Late one night, near the woods of her animal hospital, Frannie stumbles upon a strange, astonishing phenomenon that will change the course of her life an eleven-year-old girl named Max.
With breathtaking energy, Max leads Frannie and Kit to uncover one of the most diabolical and inhuman plots of modern science. Bold and compelling, When the Wind Blows is a story of suspense and passion as only James Patterson could tell it.
Zara read this book because reviewers had pointed out that the girl Max in this series (this book and its sequel The Lake House) strongly resembled Maximum Ride from the Maximum Ride series. While the stories are not exactly the same, and the pieces don’t perfectly line up, the connections were too enticing for a fan to ignore. And it showed how much James Patterson had planned before he started the YA series (published in 2005, 7 years after this series).
A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.
But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.
Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.
To be honest, Zara rarely reads the same books as fae’s mother. But fae has always enjoyed psychological mysteries and thrillers because of fae’s mother. And when said mother is a psychologist and the book cover is clearly inspired by Rorschach tests, there was no doubt Zara would be picking up this book. And after reading a similar family drama mystery/thriller that made both Zara and fae’s mom want to tear out the pages of said book, this was the perfect palate-cleanser.
While Inimitable Books has yet to publish a mystery novel, our first young adult title has a murder mystery element in the plot. Because when the main character Lore is accused of murdering the alligator mayor in a magical world, she needs to find the true culprit to clear her name.
Down The Well
Lore Deoradán wants to be happy when she grows up. But navigating her parents' mercurial moods, moving to a new town just two weeks before her high school graduation, and dealing with her beloved grandma's declining health all make that dream seemingly impossible. Will her new job be the first step toward happiness, or will it be yet another disappointment?
When she falls down a well into a magical world with talking animals that haven't seen a human for years, she must clear her name of the mayor's murder. Although, how anyone believes she killed a Herculean-sized alligator is beyond her. Now, her survival is tied to a mouse with a chip on her shoulder. There's also a cat who owns a pub where the animal patrons might be cannibals, a giant snake librarian who probably wants to eat her, and sentient lampposts who are never there when you need them.
Can Lore prove her innocence, help a newfound friend save the town from a dark and dangerous schemer, and find her way home?
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Is your favorite mystery novel on this list? Share what you love about your pick. If not, let us know what it is in the comments.
