Books to Get You Out of a Reading Slump

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Books Guaranteed to Put an End to Your Book Slump.

When I’m in a reading slump, I usually find rereading a familiar, well-loved book or series is the best way to pull myself out of it and get back into reading. With that in mind, here are some books I think would get almost anyone out of a slump, simply because they are so fun, well-written, and/or enthralling. (Books are listed alphabetically by author, because I’m rubbish at ranking them.)

Clean Sweep, by Ilona Andrews. Sci-fi fantasy about the innkeeper of a magical inn in Texas that serves interstellar travelers, whilst making sure the ordinary humans of Earth never find out that alien races exist. Which is hard to do when there’s…something…prowling the neighborhood, preying on dogs and even humans. As an Innkeeper, Dina must protect her inn and its secrets, but she can’t just let the creature ravage her neighbors. Especially since it’s clearly not from Earth. But dealing with this threat also means dealing with alpha-strain werewolf Sean Evans; the attentive Lord Arlend, a vampire knight; and the occasional visits from a very suspicious local detective. Ilona Andrews’s books feature strong, bad-ass female characters, believable romantic relationships, excellent worldbuilding, and gripping, suspenseful adventure laced with humor and heart, and this series starter has all that in spades. (Note that the romantic relationship arc takes three books to reach its resolution.)

Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree. A delightful cozy fantasy about a retired orc mercenary’s efforts to establish the first coffeeshop in a city, the obstacles she overcomes, and the friends she makes in the process. Found family, low-key sapphic romance, emotional growth, and tantalizing descriptions of baked goods. I guarantee you’ll end the book with a smile on your face—and a craving for cinnamon buns.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers. In Chamber’s gentle solarpunk fantasy, an itinerant tea monk and a robot become friends as they explore the question “What do human beings need?” This novella is perfect if you’re suffering from tech fatigue or you’re heartsick over the constant barrage of terrible news. A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a quiet exploration of the human spirit, friendship, and the ways we connect with other beings and with the world; at its heart, it offers hope for a different sort of future than where we are currently headed.

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilmore. An absolutely delightful cozy-mystery-cum-spy-thriller about a late-middle-aged woman, bored with her comfortable life and feeling superfluous, who decides to fulfill a childhood dream and shows up at the CIA to volunteer as a spy. Through a case of mistaken identity, she is given a small courier job that turns out to be much more dangerous than her handlers suspected. It’s impossible not to be charmed by the practical, imaginative, and surprisingly effective Mrs. Pollifax and her unlikely adventures.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, by Laurie R. King. In the early years of the Great War, the (not entirely) retired Sherlock Holmes takes on an unlikely apprentice and eventual partner in the person of 15-year-old Mary Russell, an American-born orphan whose mind is every bit as brilliant and incisive as his own. Told in first person by Mary herself, this novel recounts her apprenticeship, the case that marks the end of that apprenticeship, and the case that nearly costs the partners their lives. King is an excellent writer, paying close attention to character, voice, setting, and her mystery plots are generally well-constructed. Her familiarity with the original Holmes stories is evident, even when her version of the character differs slightly (and for good reasons) from Doyle’s; it’s not an exaggeration to say that I now view her Holmes as headcanon. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is a brilliant start to a mystery series that now numbers 19 novels. Among the best of the sequels are O Jerusalem, Justice Hall, The Game, and the linked novels The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive.

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal. In the alternate-history of this novel, an asteroid strike in 1952 devastates the East Coast of the US, setting off catastrophic climate change that will play out over several decades. The UN responds by setting up the International Aerospace Coalition (IAC). Main character (and first-person narrator) Elma Yorke and her husband survive the initial strike; Nathan becomes the IAC’s chief engineer and Elma a computer (like the women in Hidden Figures.) Elma is also a former WASP pilot, and lobbies fiercely for inclusion of women in the IAC’s astronaut corps. The novel and its three sequels are terrific; The Calculating Stars won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. Expect strong writing, excellent characterizations, good pacing, and a high level of accuracy when it comes to the science and technology. The audiobook is top-notch, since the author is also a professional audiobook narrator.

The Fairy Godmother, by Mercedes Lackey. In this series starter, the Tradition is an impersonal magical power that tries to force people into recreating fairytales and folk ballads. Elena’s story begins like that of Cinderella, but for Elena, there is no ball; the prince in her kingdom is too young. Rescued from a desperate situation by a fairy godmother, Elena becomes her apprentice, then her replacement; her job is to keep the Tradition from enacting any of the darker, more tragic tales. The Fairy Godmother (like all the books in the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series) retells or reimagines a number of different fairy- and folktales, including Cinderella, Rapunzel, the Glass Mountain, and the Katschei (a Russian tale.) The world is delightful, and Lackey is an excellent storyteller.

The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley. In McKinley’s award-winning YA fantasy, Angharad “Harry” Crewe leaves the Homeland (an analog of England) to join her brother in Daria (an analog of British-Raj-era India and Pakistan), where she is caught up in a conflict between the still-independent Damarians and the non-human Northerners, and finds both her destiny and her home. Don’t let the young-YA label fool you; this book works well for adults, too. It’s exciting and well-written, particularly the character of Harry/Harimad-sol.

Never Pick Up Hitch-hikers, by Ellis Peters. A light-hearted murder mystery from one of the queens of British mystery. I can’t really describe the plot without giving things away, but I absolutely love Willie and Callie, the young couple investigating the murder and unsolved bank robbery at the heart of this suspenseful yet often funny novel.

Also good

I also find any of these good for getting over a reading slump, but they won’t necessarily appeal to everyone:

• Celia Lake’s Albion books: gentle, slow-paced historical fantasy, mostly romances. I usually recommend beginning with Pastiche, Carry On, Goblin Fruit, or The Fossil Door. My personal favorite and my own entry to the series is Eclipse, but it may not be the best starting place. Despite the series numbering, most can be read in any order; the book blurbs will tell you if a particular book can stand alone or should be read in series order.
• The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. Beautifully written, atmospheric, lyrical… but most people either love it or don’t care for it. There is a plot, but it moves slowly and seems almost secondary to the atmosphere and descriptions. Personally, I love it; I also recommend the audiobook, narrated by Jim Dale.
• Nora Roberts’s romantic suspense novels, with or without fantasy elements. Roberts got her start writing contemporary romances, but for my money, her romantic suspense and fantasy novels are her best, and rereading them can often break me out of a slump. Fantasy-infused favorites include the Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy, the Guardians trilogy, the Circle Trilogy, the Three Sisters Island trilogy, and (pure fantasy with a side of romance) the Dragon Legacy trilogy. More straightforward favorites include The Liar, Tribute, Whiskey Beach, Identity, and Mind Games, but there are plenty more that I enjoy rereading.

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