What's That Book?

[Starleigh]

I'm so glad I was able to help! I wouldn't necessarily have recognized it from your summary until you mentioned that last scene. It is indeed a very memorable one:)

Edited July 25, 2019 by Starleigh

[proserpina65]

I read this book when I was maybe 14 or so, back in the late 70s.  The main character goes on a spur-of-the-moment camping trip with his older step or half brother.  They end up in a Canadian national park (maybe in Ontario?) which featured a wolf-howling program which the main character attends.  Turns out the brother is being hunted by criminals he'd gotten involved with.

[Crs97]

We owned this book, and I read it as a teenager.  I thought it was a Daphne Du Maurer book, but can’t match it to a title now.  A couple lives next to a beautiful house that is the envy of the neighborhood, but everyone who moves into that house has tragic things happen to them.

[krankydoodle]

14 hours ago, Crs97 said:

A couple lives next to a beautiful house that is the envy of the neighborhood, but everyone who moves into that house has tragic things happen to them.

That sounds like The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons.

[Crs97]

Thank you!

[anna0852]

This is one of those epic family sagas. I read it probably 20 years ago. Patriarch finds oil in Texas after the Civil War and the book traces the next 3 generations, ending in the 30's. I think there was a big family manor named 'Bluebonnet' or something like that. And a daughter who's fiancé died in the Spanish American war.

I cannot remember the name of the book and Google has been no help.

Edited August 22, 2020 by anna0852

[Starleigh]

I've been wondering on and off for years about the title/author of this book:

It is set during the Great Depression. Main character is a girl whose dad is unemployed or making a very low wage, so they are poor. Their new neighbors are a well to do family, who act very snobby towards them. They have a girl the same age as the main character who becomes her friend (I think her name may be Gwendolen or Guinivere) but is very patronizing to her. She is obsessed by the British Royal Family and has a scrapbook all about the "little princesses" Elizabeth and Margaret. Towards the end of the book, it is found that the wealthy neighbor was involved in criminal activity and it is very humiliating for the family. Due to this, the family needs to move. Before leaving, Gwendolyn/Guinivere comes to say good bye to her friend, the main character, who isn't feeling well. She is very humble when she says goodbye (all her fancy toys have been auctioned off, but she brings her some things from her fancy doll house). After she leaves, the main character ends up very sick and is out of it for a few days with a raging fever. The whole time, she is holding onto the toy block of ice from the doll house icebox.  When she wakes up, the neighbors have moved but left the scrapbook for her.

I read this in the 80s but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been published anytime between the 1950s-70s. It was from my school library that mostly had old, somewhat dated books, lol. I'd love to reread it if anybody has idea of what the title could possibly be so I could try tracking it down!

[Queena]

I've been searching for this book for years. It's about a group of girls who live in a small California town.  On the night of their graduation, one of them is raped by a fellow student. One of them or maybe all of them, kill the rapist. They all go on to lead different lives. One becomes a model, one a TV news anchor, sort of like Barbara Walter's, one stays in the hometown and gets married. The book details their different lives and how they lose touch. They're all brought back together when the one who stayed in the hometown kills someone who is asking about the classmate that was killed before. I remember reading this in paperback in the mid 80s. 

 

The other book I'm looking for is about a girl who grew up with a strict father who is in a high rank in the military. She runs away from home and becomes a model. She gets hooked on drugs in NYC and ends up going to rehab and meeting a plastic surgeon who scars her face so that she can never leave him. They also open a celebrity rehab and have a couple of women there, one was a Black musician, one a senators wife. Someone is threatening to tell the tabloids about the celebrity patients at the rehab. I know that the rehab was called Oasis, and the main character was name Stevie. 

 

[WinnieWinkle]

On 8/24/2020 at 1:44 AM, Starleigh said:

It is set during the Great Depression. Main character is a girl whose dad is unemployed or making a very low wage, so they are poor. Their new neighbors are a well to do family, who act very snobby towards them. They have a girl the same age as the main character who becomes her friend (I think her name may be Gwendolen or Guinivere) but is very patronizing to her. She is obsessed by the British Royal Family and has a scrapbook all about the "little princesses" Elizabeth and Margaret.

This is an old post but if you haven't discovered the title/author yet, the book you're looking for is called Her Majesty, Grace Jones by Jane Langton.  She also wrote a sequel called "The Boyhood of Grace Jones".  I've got both of these and they're excellent.

[Starleigh]

Wow, thank you for solving this book mystery! It's been bugging me for years!!!

Hopefully I can track down a copy somewhere😊

[Starleigh]

22 hours ago, WinnieWinkle said:

This is an old post but if you haven't discovered the title/author yet, the book you're looking for is called Her Majesty, Grace Jones by Jane Langton.  She also wrote a sequel called "The Boyhood of Grace Jones".  I've got both of these and they're excellent.

Double posting only to say I was able to score on eBay and find vintage copies of both books for a reasonable price! Looking forward to the trip down memory lane!

[BlackberryJam]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:35 PM, Queena said:

I've been searching for this book for years. It's about a group of girls who live in a small California town.  On the night of their graduation, one of them is raped by a fellow student. One of them or maybe all of them, kill the rapist. They all go on to lead different lives. One becomes a model, one a TV news anchor, sort of like Barbara Walter's, one stays in the hometown and gets married. The book details their different lives and how they lose touch. They're all brought back together when the one who stayed in the hometown kills someone who is asking about the classmate that was killed before. I remember reading this in paperback in the mid 80s. 

 

The other book I'm looking for is about a girl who grew up with a strict father who is in a high rank in the military. She runs away from home and becomes a model. She gets hooked on drugs in NYC and ends up going to rehab and meeting a plastic surgeon who scars her face so that she can never leave him. They also open a celebrity rehab and have a couple of women there, one was a Black musician, one a senators wife. Someone is threatening to tell the tabloids about the celebrity patients at the rehab. I know that the rehab was called Oasis, and the main character was name Stevie. 

 

The second one feels similar to Once is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann, but it’s a little different. Maybe this is just popping memories of 80s TV movies, but I feel like Deborah Raffin starred in something like that and that’s why Once is Not Enough is coming to mind.

[Queena]

10 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

The second one feels similar to Once is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann, but it’s a little different. Maybe this is just popping memories of 80s TV movies, but I feel like Deborah Raffin starred in something like that and that’s why Once is Not Enough is coming to mind.

This sounds interesting, but it's not it. 😔

[TattleTeeny]

You guys, I have been going crazy trying to find a book I read as a child. I got it from my grammar school library in the mid-'70s (not sure if that is helpful info, as I have no idea of its publication date). It was about a little girl who lived in a a high-rise apartment in a city and was staying home alone at night for the first time. If I remember correctly, the illustrations were in a pink and purple palette (as this was a picture book for little kids, not a novel or anything). 

In one part of the book, she was sitting in an armchair and was trying not to fall asleep and she purposely (and angrily, I think) bumped her head on the chair's side panel thing -- I have always remembered this part (unfortunately, the same is not true for the stupid book title). I know this is a long shot but does anyone have any clue what this book is?

[Grrarrggh]

I've been looking for a book that I can't remember the title of. I think it was published sometime 2010- set in England. A guy goes back to the beach town where his sister died. She was drowned or killed after running from the big house nearby after being assaulted by the house owner's nephew. The bro and sis were both teens and he goes back at least a decade later to do more investigation. Ring any bell?

[peacheslatour]

6 minutes ago, Grrarrggh said:

I've been looking for a book that I can't remember the title of. I think it was published sometime 2010- set in England. A guy goes back to the beach town where his sister died. She was drowned or killed after running from the big house nearby after being assaulted by the house owner's nephew. The bro and sis were both teens and he goes back at least a decade later to do more investigation. Ring any bell?

Sounds like something Barbara Michaels might write.

[Mittengirl]

On 10/30/2021 at 5:32 PM, Grrarrggh said:

I've been looking for a book that I can't remember the title of. I think it was published sometime 2010- set in England. A guy goes back to the beach town where his sister died. She was drowned or killed after running from the big house nearby after being assaulted by the house owner's nephew. The bro and sis were both teens and he goes back at least a decade later to do more investigation.

I know I read this book, but I cannot remember the title either.  Maybe if I read it online it will be in my “read” list.  I will check.

[WendyCR72]

Any Harlequin readers here? Maybe you can help me.

There was a book, pretty sure it was part of the defunct Harlequin Temptation line, where the hero and heroine were divorced - or on the verge of divorce - and separated. But then the hero suddenly has a medical crisis - pretty sure it was Guillain-Barré, which sort of impressed me at the time, since the series - while enjoyable - never seemed to get too deep!

Thinking it was mid '90s or so, and I'm reasonably confident the heroine's name was Katherine or Kathryn.

Haven't really read Harlequin regularly in ages, but this one was a bit unusual, and I was hoping to revisit it, but my damn brain is getting old and cannot recall the title!

So if this sounds at all familiar, I'd appreciate any help finding this book again. Thanks!

[blackwing]

I am looking for the name of a children's book, but it probably dates from about 40 years ago.  There was a kid who got transported into this world where he became a player in an enormous board game.  I think he might have been playing against the devil, he had to win the game to go home.  The cover was an image of the kid walking on the spaces of the game which resembled the "GO" space of a Monopoly board.

I cannot remember the title or the author, but I vaguely seem to believe the author was one of those prolific children's book writers.  Like the guy that wrote loads of books about baseball or sports, but I don't think it was him.

[Starleigh]

On 4/15/2022 at 11:38 AM, blackwing said:

I am looking for the name of a children's book, but it probably dates from about 40 years ago.  There was a kid who got transported into this world where he became a player in an enormous board game.  I think he might have been playing against the devil, he had to win the game to go home.  The cover was an image of the kid walking on the spaces of the game which resembled the "GO" space of a Monopoly board.

I cannot remember the title or the author, but I vaguely seem to believe the author was one of those prolific children's book writers.  Like the guy that wrote loads of books about baseball or sports, but I don't think it was him.

That sounds somewhat like the book Interstellar Pig by William Sleator. 

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

I’m trying to remember a very contemporary novel about a young Pakistani woman who’s looking for her mother, who is/was a social and political dissident of some kind? Her mother at the end was all too happy to have her stepmother remain her primary parent, and she had a younger half sister who was hospitalized at one point, I think. There was also a poet character whose work got him in trouble because he wrote about eating a pear in a way that implied the whole poem was sexually explicit. He was a supposed friend of the mother. 

[blackwing]

On 4/27/2022 at 8:34 PM, Starleigh said:

That sounds somewhat like the book Interstellar Pig by William Sleator. 

Hmm, that book looks interesting, but not the one I am thinking of, thanks.

[SusanM]

I wonder if anyone can help me figure out which book I am vaguely remembering here.  It was a YA novel, probably written in the '70s (maybe the '60s) anyway the story is basically about a teenage girl who becomes pregnant - I don't remember if she knows this throughout the book or not but I do remember a lot of the book is her trying to figure out what to do and being afraid to tell her parents.  The ending she has told her parents who, IIRC, are disappointed but supportive, and the part I remember best is her parents letting her meet with the boyfriend to talk and there is a line that goes something like "they remembered back to the time when they were young".

It may have been super cheesy and preachy but if it was I didn't notice it at the time! When I was reading it as a teenager I thought it was very good.  I'd love to read it again but have drawn a total blank on it.

Does anyone have any clue what this book is or maybe an author of the era who was writing teen drah-ma type books?

Edited April 30, 2022 by SusanM

[Anduin]

This was a short story collection. Possibly Asimov or Clarke. Two stories come to mind. The first, two parents get their designer baby, who grows up and becomes a total brat. The second, generically modified children on another planet slip the 'leash' keeping them connected to their regular human handler, then set out to live on this alien world their way. I read it probably in the early 90s.

Now I think about it, there's a certain theme connecting those two. Be interesting to know if it carries through the whole collection.

[Badger]

On 4/29/2022 at 9:11 PM, SusanM said:

I wonder if anyone can help me figure out which book I am vaguely remembering here.  It was a YA novel, probably written in the '70s (maybe the '60s) anyway the story is basically about a teenage girl who becomes pregnant - I don't remember if she knows this throughout the book or not but I do remember a lot of the book is her trying to figure out what to do and being afraid to tell her parents.  The ending she has told her parents who, IIRC, are disappointed but supportive, and the part I remember best is her parents letting her meet with the boyfriend to talk and there is a line that goes something like "they remembered back to the time when they were young".

It may have been super cheesy and preachy but if it was I didn't notice it at the time! When I was reading it as a teenager I thought it was very good.  I'd love to read it again but have drawn a total blank on it.

Does anyone have any clue what this book is or maybe an author of the era who was writing teen drah-ma type books?

Are you thinking of "Phoebe?"  I remember she was trying to figure out a way to tell her parents and her boyfriend and she had all these different scenarios of what would happen when she did.
'

[Anduin]

Edit: I had an inspiration right after I hit send. Click the next page of search results. You may think it's obvious, but I blame the site layout. Who decides two full rows and just one book on the third row? No wonder I didn't initially think to check.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Anduin