Books like

Books like A Burning

12 books with a reading profile close to A Burning by Megha Majumdar. Balanced in tone; an easy read.

  1. 1 Maya's Notebook

    Maya's Notebook

    by Isabel Allende

    thriller, narrative

    Maya Vidal is nineteen, a drug addict and a fugitive from Berkeley, California, who has fled to a remote island in Chiloé, in southern Chile, to hide from criminals and the FBI.

  2. 2 The River

    The River

    by Peter Heller

    thriller, narrative

    College friends Wynn and Jack embark on a canoe expedition down the Maskwa River in northern Canada, seeking a wilderness escape before returning to society.

  3. 3 State of Wonder

    State of Wonder

    by Ann Patchett

    thriller, narrative

    Pharmacology researcher Marina Singh travels from Minnesota to the Amazon basin to investigate the death of a colleague and the status of a long-delayed drug project.

  4. 4 White Ivy

    White Ivy

    by Susie Yang

    thriller, narrative

    Ivy Lin grew up in Chinese immigrant poverty in suburban America, raised by a mother who steals and a grandmother who pushes her to succeed.

  5. 5 A Ladder to the Sky

    A Ladder to the Sky

    by John Boyne

    thriller, narrative

    Maurice Swift is a young waiter with immense literary ambition but zero original ideas.

  6. 6 Notes on an Execution

    Notes on an Execution

    by Danya Kukafka

    thriller, narrative

    Ansel Packer sits on Texas death row with twelve hours left before his lethal injection.

  7. 7 Sadie

    Sadie

    by Courtney Summers

    thriller, narrative

    Nineteen-year-old Sadie Hunter disappears from her small town following the brutal murder of her younger sister, Mattie.

  8. 8 The Female of the Species

    The Female of the Species

    by Mindy McGinnis

    thriller, narrative

    Alex Craft is a high school student who functions as a vigilante in her small town, three years after the rape and murder of her older sister.

  9. 9 The Other Black Girl

    The Other Black Girl

    by Zakiya Dalila Harris

    thriller, narrative

    Nella Rogers is an editorial assistant and the only Black employee at Wagner Books, a prestigious but white-dominated publishing house in New York City.

  10. 10 The North Water

    The North Water

    by Ian McGuire

    thriller, narrative

    In 1859, Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former army surgeon from the Indian Mutiny, signs on as medic aboard the whaling ship Volunteer, bound for the Arctic.

  11. 11 The Guest

    The Guest

    by Emma Cline

    thriller, narrative

    Twenty-two-year-old Alex is cast out of her older boyfriend Simon’s wealthy Long Island home after a breach of etiquette.

  12. 12 Portrait of a Thief

    Portrait of a Thief

    by Grace D. Li

    thriller, narrative

    Will Chen, a senior at Harvard, is recruited by a shadow corporation to spearhead a heist reclaiming five looted zodiac fountainheads from European museums.

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