Tara Singh Carlson’s Recommended Fiction

In a time when so many of us are housebound and struggling emotionally, financially, and more, the brutally honest and inspiring voice of Cheryl Strayed might be a salve. I read this book ten years ago, but I think about it often and a copy of it lives on my bookshelf no matter where I am. This memoir reminds us to be kind to ourselves, but also honest, and to grow. If you’ve already Wild and loved it, then you should read Tiny Beautiful Things, which is just as wise.

I really can’t say more about this novel than Ann Patchett and Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing, have already done. If you are looking to be transported, to fall in love, to be morally challenged, then this is the book. I’m as in love with broken, beautiful Special Agent Charlie Szydlo as I am with Tim Riggins from tv’s Friday Night Lights. Get ready to be completely absorbed!

I reread the entire Anne of Green Gables series at least every five to ten years and learn something new every time. When asked that ice breaker question: who was your role model growing up? I always answer “Anne Shirley.” The whimsy of Anne will never grow old and the red roads of Avonlea will always provide an escape.

I went on maternity leave in 2019 and brought home a giant stack of romantic comedies to help pass the many sleepless hours. This book was the best of the bunch and exactly the escape I needed! Sexy, romantic, heartfelt, and utterly absorbing, it’s also a fascinating and sensitive look at an autistic woman finding love. Bonus: the author’s second book, The Bride Test, is just as good!

In 1945 Claire Randall falls through time when she encounters a circle of Scottish standing stones. She lands in 1743 where she falls in love with highlander Jaime Fraser. Claire will be torn between two times, two men. What sounds like an outlandish premise is the setup for a truly epic and sweeping love story, and the start of an incredible series of books. Confession: I moved to Scotland after college because of this book with the crazy idea that I might meet the love of my life. I didn’t meet him there, but this love story is that good.

This book came out in summer 2019, while I was on maternity leave, and immediately caught my attention. I loved getting to know Evvie and following her hesitant reentry into the world of love was just as charming, conflicted, and ultimately redemptive as I had hoped. For anyone who is housebound, this sleepy seaside Maine town is also the perfect armchair vacation spot.

This book is the perfect escapist pandemic read! It’s billed as being about two writers and their summer long challenge, and that’s true, but what I loved about it was that these two writers, January Andrews and Gus Everett, were college rivals years ago who were never sure if they loved or hated each other. In Beach Read, they finally find out, with plenty of laugh-out-loud and heart fluttering moments. I stayed up way too late with a package of oreos to finish this one.

You may have heard of Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, which is wonderful and became a TV series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. But her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, is actually my favorite. It’s the story of a Chinese-American mixed-race family whose favorite child is found dead, and the consequent unravelling of the family and surfacing of secrets. As the child of a mixed-race Indian-American family myself, this novel is the first I had read that felt true to my own experience, and the tensions and pressures such a family can often face.