LDS Ladies Book Club discussion

Please add to this thread any popular books, you think are clean reads. A simple description would also be great. Example: Divergent - clean as in no sex, swearing, or graphic content, but fairly violent. Basically, this list should be any book you deem clean enough to read for a Relief Society book club. If the book isn't squeaky clean, like Divergent (due to violence), a simple description would be appreciated.

I have to mention one of my favorite books here. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It's pretty slow paced, but the writing's beautiful, and the story's really good. It's a truly uplifting book.

Would everyone be willing to post at least one book to this list (not one we've read as a group) to help make this suggestion list really great?!

Hi, everyone! *waves* I'm new to the group, and this looks like as good a place for me to jump in as any. Here are a few of my favorite books:

Nine Coaches Waiting, Madam, Will You Talk?: Old-fashioned romantic suspense.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: WWII and after on the small island of Guernsey.
YA fantasy: The Hollow Kingdom, The Thief, Summers at Castle Auburn, Crown Duel.
Science Fiction: Ender's Game, Doomsday Book.

Content notes: All are clean. Doomsday Book deals with the Plague, which may be disturbing. There is some violence in The Hollow Kingdom, but I don't think it's over the top.

I just read "All the Truth That's in Me" by Julie Berry. Clean, captivating, and all about being true to yourself. A great read.

Also, if they haven't been added already..."The Walk" series by Richard Paul Evans. The last book was just released for those who don't like to read series until all the books are out. Very clean, and full of life lessons.

Wonder by RJ Palacio was our RS book club's top read last year. Everyone loved it.

Any thrillers or mysteries you find "clean" enough to add to this list?

Dan Brown books aren't squeaky clean, but I enjoy them and find them them clean enough to add to this list. They are PG-13 in my mind.

Irene Hannon. I've read some of the Quantico and Guardians of Justice series'. They are more PG.

'Either Side of Midnight' is a suspense novel that is clean enough for this list. There might be some mild swearing in it, can't honestly remember. But for being a thriller, it is high in suspense and mystery, but not violence or sex. It's written by Tori DeClare and can be found on Amazon.

any of Joanne Fluke's mysteries are good she pairs them up with recipes throughout the book

I usually don't do chatty groups with strangers but the name of this site makes me want to believe it just may be a safe place to discuss clean lit. I read a lot of fiction but don't like all the nasty stuff out there. How do I join?? Recommendation: I enjoyed reading Death Comes to the Village. Clean "cozy" mystery set in English countryside.

Kami, you are already an approved member or you wouldn't be able to post on a thread or read our discussions. Welcome!

Kami wrote: "I usually don't do chatty groups with strangers but the name of this site makes me want to believe it just may be a safe place to discuss clean lit. I read a lot of fiction but don't like all the n..."

I've been reading the Charles Lenox mystery series written by Charles Finch and have really enjoyed them. They are set in the late 1800s in London. Super clean.

Thanks! I'll check them out. I've read the Alan Bradley series and really enjoyed them. If anyone's interested in a good historical fiction/romance that's clean check out Chateau of Secrets. WWII. French countryside near Normandy. Reminded me of a clean Susanna Kearsley minus the paranormal.

Kami wrote: "Thanks! I'll check them out. I've read the Alan Bradley series and really enjoyed them. If anyone's interested in a good historical fiction/romance that's clean check out Chateau of Secrets. WWII. ..."

I love WWII era...thanks for the recommendation! I enjoyed Alan Bradley as well. I enjoyed most of Maisie Dobbs too, if you haven't read those.

Kami, the Internet can be a scary thing, but I've met some wonderful friends on Goodreads, mostly through the groups I've joined. It's been great fun to share thoughts and recommendations about books with those of like interests. And you don't have to share any of your personal information with anyone if you don't care to (I'm friends with a lot of people who go by a user name on GR).

One suggestion is that you should be a little careful about accepting "friend" invitations from people who you haven't had any real interaction with on GR. If I get a friend invite from someone whose name I don't recognize from group or review discussions, I go check out their profile to make sure they look like a legitimate person to get to know.

Have fun! I've really enjoyed getting to know lots of people on Goodreads. Right now I'm doing a buddy read of the Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged version!) with two extremely nice, intelligent ladies that I know only through Goodreads.

On Her Way Home I am an LDS author and my clean historical romance novel On Her Way Home is available for free download to your kindle at Amazon for the next five days.

Thanks Sara!

This looks wonderful and I would love to read this. Thank you. My question is will this download to a Nook reader as well?

Sara wrote: "On Her Way Home I am an LDS author and my clean historical romance novel On Her Way Home is available for free download to your kindle at Amazon for the next five days."

Thanks, Sara! This looks great!

Found it on Amazon..ordered it. Looks great.

Thanks! I look forward to reading it.

Kate wrote: "Sara wrote: "On Her Way Home I am an LDS author and my clean historical romance novel On Her Way Home is available for free download to your kindle at Amazon for the next five days...." Thanks Kate!Let me know what you think.

Dawn wrote: "Thanks! I look forward to reading it." Thanks Dawn! I hope you like it.

Beverly wrote: "Found it on Amazon..ordered it. Looks great." Thanks Beverly! I hope you enjoy it. If you have the time after you are done reading let me know what you think.

Tracy Hunter Abrams writes clean romance/action books. Her books center around a Navy Seal Team. No smut or foul language. She tells a good story but it is LDS themed.

I enjoy the Elizabeth Camden books and the Lisa Wingate books. Both "Christian" clean writers. Enjoy!

Amber G. wrote: "Any thrillers or mysteries you find "clean" enough to add to this list?"

Stephanie Black has really great mysteries and I've enjoyed Josi Kilpack's culinary mystery series starting with Lemon Tart.

I write clean suspense/thrillers and my Hostage Negotiation team series is out now. All Fall Down (by Julie Coulter Bellon) won the RONE award for Best Suspense/Thriller.

If you're looking for a cute LDS romance, my favorite contemporary ones are those by Melanie Jacobsen. They're all humorous and well-written. Another one I really liked was How to Stuff a Wild Zucchini.

Sarah Eden and Carla Kelly both write very good Regencies and historic romances. Sarah's can get a little heavy on the angst and misery (especially in Glimmer of Hope :p) but I liked Seeking Persephone and Courting Miss Lancaster. Carla Kelly occasionally gets a little too spicy if you're a straight-up clean reads only person. Her LDS ones are safe but if you read the ones published by Harlequin you're taking your chances. I can recommend Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, Libby's London Merchant (both Regencies), Borrowed Light and My Loving Vigil Keeping (both LDS).

I've really enjoyed Jordan McCollum's spy thriller series, I, Spy. She has a really great style and is clean. Heather Moore's Finding Sheba was fantastic and she also put out an historical mystery called Heart of the Ocean that was awesome.

I second the Sarah Eden suggestion for regencies. I've also liked Blackmoore and Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson. Jennifer Lunt Moore just put out her debut novel Becoming Lady Lockwood that was quite well done.

Ink heart. I just finished that book after Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it. It drags a little but about the time you want to put it down, you reach the climax and it sweeps you toward the ending. This seems to be Cordelia Funke's style of writing since Inkspell is doing something very similar. It is a good book, geared to middle school and up. Some violence but the author handles that carefully.no nudity or sex. There are a few incidents of characters taking the name of God as a swear word which I found objectionable but rare.

Upstairs at the White House was a wonderful read. It chronicles the First Ladies from FDR to Nixon told from the non political point of view of someone who worked there.

Upstairs at the White House was a wonderful read. It chronicles the First Ladies from FDR to Nixon told from the non political point of view of someone who worked there.

I just realized the book recommendations were for Relief Society. For that, some books I've read recently that I highly recommend include the following:

Strength to Endure, by Tristi Pinkston (my favorite book read from last year)

Surviving Hitler: The Unlikely True Story of an SS Soldier and a Jewish Woman, by O. Hakan Palm (WW II with LDS intersection that works because it's real)

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (WW II)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs ( a good chance to explore differences)

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, by Dave Ramsey (because women can make or break family finances)

Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution, by Natalie S. Bober (Personal opinion: She would have made a great RS leader and demonstrates her steady progress and development of ideas that made her who she was and as a great support to her husband's betterment)

The Covered Deep by Brandy Vallance

Tadiana wrote: "Hi, everyone! *waves* I'm new to the group, and this looks like as good a place for me to jump in as any. Here are a few of my favorite books:

Nine Coaches Waiting, [book:Madam, Will ..."

I'm not sure I would say Ender's Game is clean, I was rather horrified by the language and the crudity in the book. I wouldn't say not to read it but to claim it is a clean read doesn't fit in my book.

I felt that way about Enders Game too! Sounds like I can get great book recommendations from you, thanks!

Thanks for the reminder that even as LDS ladies, what's clean for one person isn't necessarily so for another. I won't recommend books to this group that aren't what I call "squeaky clean."

One I read last summer for the first time, and loved, is Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Written in Victorian times, it's kind of like an Industrial Age Pride and Prejudice. I highly recommend it.

A cute and charming book is Daddy-Long-Legs. Both of these books are old enough to be out of copyright, so you can get them as ebooks free on Gutenberg and other places.

I love North and South. (It is also a good view on Netflix0

I've read quite a few clean reads over the last year as I've dealt with some health issues (sorry for being negligent in my participation during that time). There are quite a few books by LDS women authors, which are well written, entertaining, and clean. Some have LDS characters but most do not. Here's the ones I really liked: Fairchild and Incognita are two regency period books by Jaima Fixsen, the first book in the Citizens of Logan Pond series: Life by Rebecca Belliston (She also wrote Sadie and Augustina), Still Time by Maria Hoagland, This Just In! and You Heard It Here First by Erin Ann McBride, and last but not least, Sister WhoDat, NY Agent by our own Group Moderator Rachel Tolman Terry. I read all on my Kindle app for my phone in a couple of days or less. They all had a hook that kept me reading!

Hello everyone! First time here, and I tend to gravitate to non-fiction so if anyone has a hankerin' for a true story, here are a couple of my favorites. The first one is Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart. It reads like poetry and comes with its own mystery. Is it really written by a 5 yr old orphan girl whose "Angel Mother and Angel Father" taught her to "make her prints" before they died or is it a hoax perpetrated by an adult Opal? It's so charming, I want to believe it's authored by the child whose guileless narrative makes me laugh and cry. The next book I found fascinating and have to have in my book collection is Land of the Burnt Thigh. This offers an unusual perspective of homesteaders in 1907. It is the story of two young, single sisters who head west in the land rush to put down stakes of their own. Great stories I hope you'll enjoy.

Just finished When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin and its a great feel good story that is not only clean but promotes chastity, quoted from the bible and actually had unique insights on heaven/hell. All of that while not really feeling like you were reading a "Christian" novel... Just a good fiction novel.

Molly, I also really enjoyed "unwritten" by Charles Martin.

Our own little "Ward" book club just finished reading an amazing historical novel. Written by Carly Kelly, "My Loving Vigil Keeping" is a story involving the life around the Scofield, Utah mine disaster of 1900. It lets us feel the crisis through the perspective of Mormon villagers, mostly immigrants. It is seen through the eyes of a school teacher in love with one of the miners. Any LDS reader will love this story.

The Secret Keeper Kate Morton, The Apothecary's Daughter Julie Klassen, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

[I'll Watch the Moon], Ann Tatlock ...anything by this author

A Thread of Grace, Amos Fortune, Free Man,

A Thousand Suns, Haberkorn, The Middle Place Corrigan, The Dovekeepers, Hoffman, The Snow Child, Ivey, Caleb's Crossing, Brooks, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Hoffman, Eleanor & Park, Rowell, A Whole Nother Story, Coup, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Bradley, Mrs. Queen Takes the Train, Kuhn

Molly wrote: "Just finished When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin and its a great feel good story that is not only clean but promotes chastity, quoted from the bible and actually had unique insights on heaven/hell..."

If you liked "When Crickets Cry"
you would probably enjoy Martin's other book "Wrapped in Rain."