Are you a chronic DIYer? One of the fiction trends I’ve noticed recently is an increase in books starting with two little words- “How to.” They might not be the classic guides you’re used to, but maybe some of the principles explored throughout the pages still apply. Read on for book recommendations that offer less helpful advice and more fictious fun.
For the amateur detective:
How to Solve Your Own Murder
It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered.
Request it here.
For the engineer:
How to Build a Boat
Jamie O’Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of certain objects, books with dust jackets, rivers, cats, and Edgar Allan Poe. At age thirteen, there are two things he wants most in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother, Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind, these things are intimately linked.
Request it here.
For the realtor:
How to Sell a Haunted House
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale.
Request it here.
For the aspiring royal:
How to Best a Marquess
Beth Howell needs to find her dowry, post haste. After her good-for-nothing first husband married her–and two other women, unbeknownst to them all–she’s left financially ruined and relegated to living with her brother, who cares more for his horses than he does his blood relatives. If Beth fails to acquire her funds, her brother will force her to marry someone fifty years her senior and missing half his teeth. She’d prefer to avoid that dreadful fate.
Request it here.
For the fed-up:
How to Kill Men and Get Away With It
He was following me. That guy from the nightclub who wouldn’t leave me alone.
I hadn’t intended to kill him of course. But I wasn’t displeased when I did and, despite the mess I made, I appeared to get away with it.
That’s where my addiction started…
I’ve got a taste for revenge and quite frankly, I’m killing it.
Request it here.
For the author:
How to Write a Novel
Aris is 12.5 years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father’s death, however, she has to manage her mother’s floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor. Not to mention co-parenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money.
Luckily, Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! she sets out to pen a bestseller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material.
Request it here.
Happy reading!
-Melinda
Read it or Weep 