Each Bright River – Mildred Masterson McNeilly

A historical novel about a wealthy Southern woman who goes to the Oregon territory in search of her fiance, but not everything goes according to plan. 1950. 

The Incomplete Amorist – Edith Nesbit

A novel about a young, naive woman who falls for a rakish artist, but fate and the woman’s family intervene to keep the two apart. 1906. 

The Corner Shop – Elizabeth Cadell

A novel about a woman who helps a grumbling professor catalogue his late mother’s possessions, and in doing so manages to change the trajectory of her own life. 1966. 

Random Harvest – James Hilton

A novel about a man who wakes up one day in 1919 and finds he can’t remember anything about the last three years of his life. 1941. 

Still Glides the Stream – D. E. Stevenson

A novel about a man who retires from the military and returns home to Scotland, where the wartime death of his best friend and neighbor is still strongly felt. 1959. 

Blake’s Reach – Catherine Gaskin

A Regency historical novel about a young woman who sets out to restore her family’s crumbling coastal estate, and in the process must throw her lot in with smugglers. 1958. 

Favours (A Five Year Sentence) – Bernice Rubens

A novel about a woman who intends to literally end her life after retiring, but instead finds herself locked into an obligation of pleasure fulfillment. 1978. 

The Vet’s Daughter – Barbara Comyns

A novel about a young woman who has a desperately ill mother, a violent father, and yet in the midst of never-ending hardship possesses a secret of her own. 1959. 

Come Out of the Kitchen! – Alice Duer Miller

A novel about a man who rents a house for the season and keeps having problems with the servants, especially the particularly pretty cook. 1916.

Shadow of a Lady – Jane Aiken Hodge

A historical novel about a woman who is pressed into marrying a wealthy but potentially dangerous man, then finds herself trapped in Naples during the early Napoleonic wars. 1973.