Out West Books offers stories influenced by famous authors

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends three novels featuring stories in which characters’ lives are changed by literary icons.

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From the publisher: Two pairs of siblings, devotees of Jane Austen, find their lives transformed by a visit to England and Sir Francis Austen, her brother and keeper of her memories and surviving artifacts. 

The Stevenson sisters sneak away without a chaperone to sail to England. On their ship are Nelson brothers, writer Louisa May Alcott, Sara-Beth Gleason—wealthy daughter of state senator with her eye on the Nelson brothers, and a would-be last-minute chaperone to the Stevenson sisters, Justice Thomas Nash.

It’s a voyage and trip that transforms each of their lives in ways that are unforeseen, with the transformative spirit of the love of literature and that of Jane Austen herself.

From Didi Herald, bookseller: The vivid historical setting felt so authentic one could imagine they were there. The adventure involving the sisters stealing away from home to follow their Austen passion and the shipboard life where they meet Louisa May Alcott and become involved with other travelers is transportive. The book discussions by the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices was unexpected and enjoyable. As the story slides from adventure to romance and on to courtroom drama, fascinating aspects of women’s lives and rights in 1865 are revealed. I had read and loved Jane Austen’s books long ago but had not known about her family and the posthumous burning of her correspondence by her sister Charlotte. With the 2025 PBS miniseries about Charlotte, this novel is quite timely.

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From the publisher: London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France.

From Didi Herald, bookseller: This paean to the iconic women writers of the Golden Age of detective fiction made me want to go look for their novels and gorge on their stories. The mystery of what happened to May Daniels was so compelling I had to look up what was truly historical and what was fiction in addition to looking into the lives of the sleuthing author characters in the book. Benedict made this little chunk of history and the women writers of the Golden Age come alive.

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From the publisher: Raised by her literary icon father Carson Wells, Alison Wells always felt loved, even though her mother died when she was a teen. But when she takes a DNA test on a whim and discovers she has a sister she never knew about, it’s clear there are things her father didn’t tell her before he died.

Juniper Connolly has always been incredibly healthy…until she wakes up in the hospital after experiencing cardiac arrest, with her new—and recently fired—intern to thank for saving her life. It’s clear June needs to de-stress her life a little, so when Ali offers her the use of her family’s cabin in a small Wyoming town, June has no reason not to go. But when she arrives, her life will never be the same.

From Didi Herald, bookseller: Thayne has mastered the art of women’s fiction, always writing compelling tales of relationships, of family and friends with conflicts and romance. What really struck me about this story dealing with the adult children of a fictional dead literary icon was how important books are in people’s lives. June, a high powered executive who believed her father had died when she was only months old, has treasured the book Carson had signed for the mother she lost as a teen. As she recuperates in Carson’s cabin, kept busy organizing his journals and papers, she comes to the conclusion he must have written a book that was never published and she doggedly pursues a quest to find it and why it was kept secret. Very entertaining and heartfelt.

Type of Story: Review

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