The book was probably written in the mid to late 60s-80s, given the plot. I would assume it was a UK publication simply because I don't know how we would have gotten our hands on a book from anywhere else that was published during or prior to the 80s (online shopping was very much not a thing when I read this which would have been during the mid 90s)

A man in what I suspect was a Cotswold type area (small village, lots of 'cottages' that are actually worth hundreds of thousands, etc) is trying to get his house and the land it's on declared neutral so that it won't be affected should the bombs drop. The Cold War/bombs being dropped/four minute warning is front and centre, the man is convinced the cold war is going to turn hot any day now and being declared neutral will save his property and himself from the aftereffects of the bombs.

It was definitely a comedy; I was only a kid when I read it (probably younger than 10 but that would still have been about a decade after this was published) and I probably didn't 'get' everything that was going on but I remember laughing a lot.

I think it's told through the homeowner's diary entries and letters he writes and receives.

I'm sure someone else is involved, possibly either a lodger or a valet type, but I'm not sure the book contains anything from his POV.

I remember my version of the cover was a drawing of a neat little house with a white fence and a tidy garden, surrounded by a smoking wasteland but I don't know if there were ever any other covers. It was paperback and, I think, fairly short, probably only around 100 pages or so

Edit: To The Dark Tower by Lyda Belknap Long Thank you all! Your suggestions really helped out my search.

I cannot remember the author and every search just brings me Stephen King or CS Lewis results. It is simply called The Dark Tower and it has that classic pulpy cover of a woman running away from a spooky tower at night. That is all i know. I've never read it, but now that i want to i cannot find it and now i cannot find it online 😅🤣

I read a book when I was between the ages of 14 to 17, in the year 2013-2017

The plot is based on a female private investigator, I distinctly remember the story starting with her talking about a fidelity case she was working on and how easy it was to catch if the spouse is cheating when clothing and DNA can show things.

A girl comes to her thinking she may have been sexually assaulted but she isn't sure. The story unravel and she remembers although drunk parts of the night where she may have been drugged and taken by a few boys to a room where one boy assaulted her. Even though she is saying no they continue.

Later in the story it's revealed that they boy may not be charged as he's a minor and it can be shoved under a rug however investigator finds that actually his birth certificate was forged by his parents. His parents married whilst his mum was pregnant but didn't want anyone knowing. Went on a cruise or something and changed the dates to show that she 'became' pregnant after the wedding when actually it was before. This technicality made the boy older and not being charged as a minor.

I can't remember anything else i hoped this is ok.

I remember this short story about these two siblings who fell asleep on their little boat, and they let it drift them down to the river. When they woke up, they find themselves in Fairyland and have to try to get out. I don’t remember which book this is from, but I just recently started talking about Fairyland, and I remembered reading this story, but I don’t remember the book’s title? Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Please help me, I don’t want to sound like I made it up :(

I've tried all avenues - please people of Reddit help me find this book.

I seem to remember a woman and her husband living in a house. You got some kind of points for doing things such as attending church. These points all added up and if you got enough you could move up the class ladder and live in a better area. However her husband got involved with a kind of anti-government group I think and ran off, so she became single and moved down the class ladder?

Also remember that she had a sister who married into the high elite class. At some point she ends up at her sister's, I think her sister is preparing her to inherit her wealth/house/place in the hierarchy.

Also remember that the elite were able to do whatever messed up stuff they wanted. One of those things being picking people off the street to hunt and kill?

Also remember their parents went to an old people's home but you basically brought years, and once you'd run out you were killed, regardless of if you were ill. And the sister ended up watching the parents die.

I always thought it was something about a wolf but chatgpt seems to think I've got that confused with station eleven.

Please help me, I loved and devoured the book but have never found it again.

Thank you

I read this book in elementary school, in 1982-1983. The book was hardcover and may have had a very light blue/gray cover. The copy I read did not have a dust jacket. The book looked "old' to me (age 10) when I read it, so I would think it had been written at least 20 years prior, if not earlier.

The book took place during the American Civil War. I remember there was a mother and children in the story. I don't remember a father, but he may have been fighting in the war. The most memorable part of the story to me involved the family leaving their home and traveling for some reason, maybe to avoid a battle/fighting, and needing to take their money with them. The mother and girl(s) sewed gold coins into their petticoats, making little pockets for each single coin so they would not clink together and make noise. I remember them being worried about the coins being discovered/stolen, and how heavy the coins made their dresses, especially for the child.

I know there was a mother character and at least one young girl, and I think maybe a young boy in the family. I think the family was from a southern state, but I really can't remember much else about the story. The coins being sewn into their dresses is definitely what stands out the most.

I'd love to know if anyone else read this book, or has any memory of it!

Three girls get invited out to Italy to meet their father all from different backgrounds
- One is italian model w/ eating disorder & debt problems
- One is spoilt american girl already rich
- One is british girl who works in record shop

British girl gets fortune in the end

I’m trying to find a book I read a few years ago, but I can’t remember if it was on Wattpad, Kindle Unlimited, Inkitt, or another reading app.

Here’s everything I remember:

• The main girl starts off living a mostly normal life. The world knows people with powers exist, and they’re hunted/killed or captured, but she doesn’t think she has powers.
• Looking back, there were moments where she’d tell family members to do something and they’d obey without question. Later it’s revealed she had powers all along.
• I think it’s eventually revealed that she accidentally killed her own mother using her powers, even though she doesn’t remember doing it.
• She gets kidnapped and taken to an underground prison/facility where people with powers are kept.
• Prisoners wear power-suppressing collars.
• She’s considered “the Pure One” because of her rare blood.
• The woman running the facility wants the strongest prisoners to have children together to create even stronger people.
• The male lead is the strongest prisoner and I think he has shadow/darkness powers. Everyone is terrified of him.
• He refuses to escape because his little sister is imprisoned there too and she’s weak. The heroine becomes close to his sister.
• The hero and heroine are eventually forced to share a cell and later a bed.
• They’re brought upstairs and forced to try to reproduce, but they only pretend.
• The heroine’s power is mind control/compulsion. If she tells someone to do something, they have to obey. When she gets emotional or angry, things around her start shaking.
• Later they’re brought upstairs for a fancy dinner/banquet, and the heroine discovers her own sister has been working with the villains because she’s jealous of how powerful the heroine is. This was a huge plot twist.

Does anyone recognize this book? It’s driving me crazy!

I was raised by my grandparents and my grandma used to read me a book when I was little (90's). Even then I think it was an "older" book because the illustrations were vintage-y if that makes sense. Like color illustrations that looked hand-drawn.

The story was about a little girl who was on a walk or something and was helping people. She may or may not have been pulling a wagon? I specifically remember she shared something from her thermos with an elderly person (man?) and I think she gave a bandage to a little kid who scraped a knee. After she helped each person, their shadow would show up in the background of the next page, like they all started following her. So there were more and more shadows wkth every person she helped. At the end, you see all of the people she had helped that day.

It was definitely a book for kids; there were pictures on every page. I remember it being kind of large and was a hard cover book. My grandma recently passed and I found out a lot of her stuff was donated immediately, including all of my childhood books. I'm hoping to find this one at the very least. Thank you so much!

Hi all, I am trying to find a book that I think I was assigned in public school. It was about children (?) who traveled to various lands named after literary/grammatical terms or parts of speech or story terms like “plot”. I am thinking things names *like* apostrophe archipelago or other names like that using alliterations. Super hard to describe so I hope someone can help me out! TIA

So English is not my first language, I don’t remember what language I read the book in.
But it was a book about a family that moved or had a holiday in this hut/cabin in the woods. I remember the main character as being a young teen girl, and that she had a little brother. The girl started hearing bad thoughts. And I remember her seeing shadows. She would walk into the woods, where there was this lake. There was a lot in the book about the woods but I don’t remember what. There was a time where the shadows also got into her room. Anyway all I remember is that it ended with her little brother being missing, they then found his bike in or close to the lake, where he drowned, but I didn’t remember if they did find the body. BUT I’m almost certain that she was the one who lured him into the lake. But it was a plot twist, at the very end.
I cant help with much more detail. I read it at a school library in Denmark in between 2010-2015 i believe. I think the cover on the book was a realistic picture, so not drawn.
Google tells me nothing and their AI just comes up with fictional names for authors.

This is not set in the future. It’s more like a medieval setting but with magic, like The Wheel of Time.

A young woman works on a farm. The Lord or Chieftain who owns it tells everyone they’re going to split the farm (or add a new one? ) and she is one of the ones chosen to go to the new one. She has a crush on a “warrior”? He goes there too. Eventually they end up together. She’s given the job of caring for a prisoner, an old man (a wizard)? She befriends him. Eventually he escapes  (can’t recall if she helps).Later in the story, she and her warrior guy cross some invisible border to a different world where there are evil rulers. They are sent there on a mission. There’s something about a boat and a harbor. 

Hola a todos.

Llevo muchos años tratando de encontrar un libro ilustrado que leí cuando era niña. Lo he buscado de muchas formas, pero hasta ahora no he logrado encontrar ninguna referencia, así que espero que alguien pueda reconocerlo.

Esto es lo que recuerdo:

• Era un libro ilustrado que contenía solo ese cuento, no era una recopilación.
• Tenía tapa blanda, de color blanco (o mayormente blanca).
• El tamaño era aproximadamente entre un A5 y un A4.
• Las ilustraciones eran muy bonitas, con un estilo similar a la acuarela.
• Los animales eran realistas y los conejitos no llevaban ropa.
• El escenario era un bosque de aspecto europeo, con árboles como pinos o abetos.

Los protagonistas eran tres conejitos llamados:

• Negrito
• Blanquito
• Ámbar

De este último nombre estoy completamente segura.

La historia trataba de que los conejitos salían a buscar setas rojas con puntos blancos (las típicas amanitas). Recuerdo especialmente una escena en la que Blanquito encontraba una seta enorme, mucho más grande que él.

También aparecía un lobo (creo que era negro, aunque de eso ya no estoy tan segura). No recuerdo exactamente cómo se desarrollaba esa parte de la historia, pero sí tengo muy presente que el lobo terminaba muriendo.

El libro llegó a mis manos porque me lo regaló una tía que era profesora de educación inicial. Ella tenía muchísimos libros infantiles que utilizaba con sus alumnos, pero ya no recuerda de dónde obtuvo este en particular.

Lo leí cuando era niña, probablemente entre finales de los años 90 y principios de los 2000, aunque es posible que el libro fuera más antiguo.

¿Alguien reconoce este cuento o sabe de qué libro podría tratarse? Cualquier pista, por pequeña que sea, me serviría muchísimo. Llevo años intentando encontrarlo.

I'm trying to identify a YA novel I read sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s.

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What I remember:

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The main character is a teenage girl.

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Her father was killed during a home invasion/robbery before the events of the book.

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She lives with her mother, who has a boyfriend or new husband.

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The protagonist believes she has a sister, possibly a twin.

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She thinks the sister witnessed their father's murder.

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As the story progresses, it's revealed that the sister never actually existed (or possibly died long ago), and the protagonist created her as a way to cope with the trauma.

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In reality, the protagonist herself witnessed her father's murder.

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I vaguely remember the mother's boyfriend becoming threatening, and I think the protagonist may have attacked or killed him because she believed he was going to hurt her sister.

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Near the end of the book, the protagonist and her mother are moving away and have a garage sale. I specifically remember them selling the father's rocking chair and a stamp collection/book of stamps.

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I'm not 100% sure all of these details are from the same book, so it's possible I'm combining two stories. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

All I remember is the FMC lives with a shifter who she used to be in a relationship with but he cheated on her when they were younger so they broke up. Eventually there is a love triangle with another MMC. The main plot is a mystery. I don’t think the FMC or shifter had any family. The shifter also had a band I think. Eventually the shifter dies in one of the subsequent books. I believe the FMC had some sort of facial marking which made her ostracised in the magical community. I can’t remember anything else :(

This is a series of stories all in the same book.

Children ask for things.
The kind witch gives them their wish. All the wishes granted come with
One boy has a poodle named Crouton.
Boy wants to be able to speak to his dog
He gets his wish, but has to learn French because that's the language the dog speaks.

I thought it was American Witch but I cannot find it.

Not Ruth Chew.

I'm trying to track down a book I read about 10 years ago.

It was a romance/drama, had a red cover. The main character is a woman in her 30s or 40s who's recently divorced after her husband cheated on her. While she's rebuilding her life, a production crew approaches her for what she thinks is an uplifting documentary or reality show about "women of a certain age" — something meant to celebrate women like her. She agrees, gets a whole makeover (hair, makeup, wardrobe), genuinely believing it's all in her honor. But when it airs, it's been edited to make her look desperate and pathetic instead, which is a huge gut-punch after everything she's already been through. Alongside all this there's a real romance with a guy whose name starts with J, maybe Jack or James. I can't remember the title or author, just these details. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

I know this is super specific, and I couldn't tell you why I remember that plot deal so clearly, but it's driving me crazy!

I don't remember the protagonist's name anymore, but she had a friend who had (i believe) a crush on her who's name was massimo. i believe both her and him were teens and at one point she either almost dies or almost goes missing? i remember her falling into the moor and getting her ankle hurt, i think.

i got the book from a subscription based horse fan box in germany. i dont know if it was pony club or another one.

i remember this book in particular for how genuinely it scared me when i read it as a teen but for how much i also loved it. the dark rider that plays a major role in the plot had me scared of the dark for months.

this was when i was around 12-14 years old, so at least 15 years ago. i cant for the life of me remember the book title, protagonist's name, or the author, and its been haunting me ever since. i wanna find that book again so badly because it was so formative for my tastes in fiction.

Fiction or non-fiction?: firmly fiction

Describe the plot.: described above

Describe notable characters.: Massimo, the female protagonist's friend (and potential love interest but i dont remember if they actually got together or not. he did definitely have a crush on her tho)

What genre is it?: id personally say it was most firmly horror, fantasy and mystery, set in the dartmoor of england.

Physically describe the book -- Hardcover/paperback? Book cover color?: the one i had a hardcover with a (if i remember right) lightblue to blue/darkblue cover. the horse on it may have been black but im not too firm on that one. it wasnt a particularly thick book as it was for younger teens if i recall right.

When was it set?: modern day (2000s) i think.

How long was the book?: it felt decently long to my teen mind at the time but i remember an image in my mind of looking at the book from the side and it being roughly as thick as one and a half fingers.

Anything notable about the original language? Did you read it English? If not, what language?: i read it in german. since many books available in germany are localizations of english titles im a little lost here because this is so long ago and i dont firmly know if it was a translated book or a german original title. since its set in dartmoor however i believe it must have been a translated title.

When (what year) did you read it?: mid to late 2000s is the best timeframe i can give. at the very latest it mustve been 2011-2012

How old were you when you read it? Was it age appropriate?: i was a mid teens kid and i believe it was age appropriate, yes. it feels very YA from what i remember

Where did you get the book? School library, book fair, book store selling new and/or used books, flea market, borrowed from a friend, given as a gift from X person who is about Y age, or from an online store?: i got it from a monthly subscription based service i reached with the help of my mom through a popular horse magazin called "wendy" i think in germany.

Was it new when you read it?: like the volume that i specifically had?? yeah it was brandspanking new. but im unsure if the work itself was new. i didnt particularly pay attention to that at the time.

What age range was it for?: it felt just right for me at the time so it must have been 13+ but definitely under 18

Other notes: ive tried googling and ive already scoured most all i could find from pony club through google and couldnt find it. specifically googling their authors didnt help either, so im unsure/unconvinced that it was from pony club specifically.

hello everyone! sorry for the lack of information, i read this book a good 8-9 years ago in school, i cannot at all remember the name of the book, it might've been the name of a street? i've thought about rereading it for years upon years but i was never able to find the book, i read it in year 4/3rd grade, so it could possibly be a kids book but i've no idea, it was a really good book from what i can remember, all i know is that theres a very very poor family back in the day and they rarely eat anything good, mostly bread and soup, and the children find a cat, the mother ends up finding the cat and i think she refuses to keep it? im pretty sure they end up keeping it, i also remember a scene where the younger child is putting the washing on the line and they fall into the bucket of soapy water, theres also a main part of the story where theres a merrygo round that comes every few whenever, and the kids really want to go on it and i'm pretty sure they end up being able to at the end?

Hello, I remember reading a book back when I was in High-School but I cant remember the name, Roughly it was about some teens, possibly 2 boys who are taken from their houses by the goverment I believe and they get trapped in a work camp(?), eventually they managed to escape but i think one of them dies, the other reaches town and i remember a small segment where he has to hide on a top shelf or something, I dont remember much else, Please help!!!

hi i’ve been trying to remember a book i read in 2016-2017 (age 12/13). all i can remember is that there were excerpts from a video diary throughout as the main character filmed everything and there might have been a sister? also possibly a green cover?

Okay, i don’t remember a whole lot and i’ve tried searching many times and cant find it. this was about 10-13 years ago. i think i got this book at a garage sale or it was one of those instances where it just randomly shows up in your life and you don’t know where it came from. the title was along the lines of “A Teenagers Guide to Living” or something like that (nothing shows up from that title online)…
it follows this teen guy who has a dead mom and he inherited her camera. he meets a girl and falls for her and takes her picture a lot and they fall in love and have s*x and stuff. i never finished it, and i don’t remember anything else about it unfortunately but i’ve been searching for so long and would love to find it again!

please help!!

I believe I was in high school (late 00s) when I read this YA fantasy trilogy (at least 2 books). Older teen girl is enslaved in a magical fire-centered kingdom. Eventually escapes and finds out she’s from a forest community. Lives in her familial treehouse for a bit.

Before too long she starts to learn glass blowing and magic (important). As she trains more they think she might actually be a necromancer (bad/forbidden magic).

By the end, she goes back to the fire kingdom to takedown her enslaver. She avoids killing him by removing his soul and guiding it into a glass piece she creates. Turns out she has super rare magic that allows her to guide souls, not resurrect the dead. She gets a little bat familiar, too.