This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
For many readers, a really great book lingers a little once you’ve read that last page and closed the book. You think about the characters, you mourn for the loss, or smile at the events you’ve just been witness to.
And then comes a book that not only lingers, it stays. It gets under your skin, upsets you, enrages you, excites you. It forms roots and sets up camp.
Here are the books still haunting team Novelicious from their bookshelves:
Shifting Colours by Fiona Sussman Jennifer says: It’s a beautifully written book centred around such an horrific subject. I knew very little about apartheid in South Africa and was shocked that it was allowed to continue until 1994. Sussman’s story was so tragic and moving that it was difficult to simply leave it on a shelf with the book.
Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill
Amanda says: This book has a haunting after-effect that gets under your skin and stays there indefinitely. The novel is alarmingly realistic and current, given that it’s written in a futuristic world, and the themes really resonate today, making the reader enraged at the injustice of peer pressure and ridiculous ideas of beauty.
The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies
Kerry says: I know we book nerds all joke about cancelling plans with friends and family to read, but I really did just that when reading The Tea Planter’s Wife. I couldn’t put it down and even now that I’ve finished the book, I find myself drifting off to 1920s Ceylon and to the lush tea plantation where Gwendoline lives the most extraordinary life. This one will stay with me for a long time.
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Verity says: My mum gave it to me to read when I was in my late teens and I was totally shocked by the events in Malaya and then captivated by the events in Australia. I’ve read it a couple of times since, and still keep my copy, but the descriptions of what happened to Joe at the hands of the Japanese really stuck with me – it’s 20 years since I first read it and I still get the shudders over it. The second half of that novel is just perfect too.
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
Kerry says: This novel was deeply unsettling and so wonderfully atmospheric, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. The remote coastal house falling into disrepair, the sinister locked room and occasional glimpses of a heavily pregnant girl on the almost inaccessible island across the water … I finished the book weeks ago, but these images are still creeping up on me when I least expect it.
What novels haunt you?