To quote Game of Thrones, “winter is coming,” and for every bookworm amongst us it’s the perfect time to get into a good novel. So here at Her Campus we’ve found your perfect winter reading list to spirit you away from the hard slog of assignments and lectures. Not only that, but if you’re the lucky kind of person who can listen to music whilst reading, each book has a perfect song to go along with it!
For those moments when you fancy a spine-tingling thriller on a cold winter night…
Love You Dead, Peter James
For lovers of the likes of Gone Girl and The Girl on The Train, Love You Dead follows Jodie Bentley, hell-bent on achieving two things in life: beauty and riches. She’s achieved the first and is working on the second. Getting money seems simple to her: marry rich. But how to get rid of the husband afterwards? Superintendent Roy Grace follows a trail of suspicious deaths, believing them to be the work of a ‘Black Widow’, venomous and dangerous. An exciting and suspenseful read, you won’t want to turn your lights out after this one!!
Song to Go Along: Help I’m Alive by Metric
Missing, Presumed, Susie Steiner
The spine-chillingly suspicious disappearance of a young woman; a crumpled coat with a streak of blood; several doubtful alibis that don’t add up; a detective on a race against time. This novel has all the aspects of an awesome crime novel, laced with a dark humour that only incites the plot. Following the story of DS Manon Bradshaw, this is a perfectly creepy read that will have you raving about it to everyone you meet on campus for days! (Trust me!)
Song to Go Along: Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A perfect ending to your Halloween celebrations, Rebecca explores the common theme of a jealous jilted lover, but turns it supernatural! An unnamed woman is pursued by the ghost of her husband’s deceased wife, who died under suspicious circumstances. With electrifyingly beautiful description, a plotline with more disastrous twists than Donald Trump’s campaign effort and more mystery than that flatmate you hardly see, it is a read that can’t be missed.
Song to Go Along: Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey
For the times when a terrifyingly troublesome workload has you questioning life and you need to ‘just chill’…
My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
My Brilliant Friend tells the story of Elena and Lila, best friends from the word go, as they mature from young children to grown women. Not only is it the story of two girls and their changing friendship, but of a neighbourhood, city and country that grows up with them. The ideal read for a chilly winter day when that 3000 word essay is getting you down…
Song to Go Along: Listen to The Man by George Ezra
A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler
This book was recommended to me by my lovely flatmate and she assures me it is one of the best she has ever read! I would have to agree with her! It opens when the time has come for decisions to be made about Abby and Red Whitshank, a timeless couple, who now, getting older, need to be taken care of. We see three generations of the Whitshank family grow up and expand, witnessing their love, secrets, trials and tribulations throughout decades. A heart-warming book that I would recommend to anyone!
Song to Go Along: Vincent by Don Mclean
For when you need a good old fashioned messy-cry…
All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
Having won numerous awards, it is clear that this book is loved by thousands, hopefully including you! Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, lives in Paris during the pinnacle of the Nazi invasion. Her unlikely bond with orphaned German boy, Werner, doomed to work in the mines until he comes to the notice of Hitler Youth, shows how against all odds, people can strive to be good to one another.
Song to Go Along: She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel
Before I Die, Jenny Downham
Now a major motion picture, Before I Die is one of the saddest and simultaneously heart-warming novels to ever be published. Tessa has only a few months to live. Amongst the gruelling hospital visits; chemotherapy and watching all her friends do all the things she will never get to; she compiles a list. A list of things to do before she dies. This book is perfect for those days when all you want is to curl up in bed and only make regular trips to the kitchen for snacks!
Song to Go Along: Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones
For the die-hard literature fans among us, (we all know one, and if you don’t, it’s you!) …
Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee
This is the long anticipated sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird: a classic novel that most of us will have fond (or not so fond) memories of studying sometime in our lives! Go Set a Watchman sees the return of twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch from New York to her hometown in Maycomb County. Set against a backdrop of civil rights tensions and political turmoil, she learns about the well-guarded secrets that have haunted her family for decades. A moving and enlightening answer to all those unanswered questions To Kill a Mockingbird left in your 15 year old brain!
Song to Go Along: Ophelia by The Lumineers
Small Island, Andrea Levy
Winner of The Whitbread Book of the Year, Small Island shows the lives of 4 extraordinarily different men and women in post-second world war England and Jamaica. Not only does it touch upon some very real issues: racial segregation and post-traumatic stress disorder; it takes you into the thicket of what it meant to be an outsider in England at this time. If you fell in love with The Help, (as most of us did!), this is the book for you!
Song to Go Along: America by Razorlight
For when you need to be transported to another world (when your relatives have had too much to drink at Christmas and Wham becomes their national anthem) …
The Power, Naomi Alderman
Can you imagine waking up with all the power in the world? No? Me neither! But this book makes it a reality… Suddenly – tomorrow or the day after – girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. They are far more powerful than their male counterparts could ever imagine. A fast paced, other worldly novel to curl up with a cup of tea and get stuck into!
Song to Go Along: 21 Guns by Green Day
The Killables, Gemma Malley
Although a slightly older dystopian novel, The Killables ticks all the boxes of a book able to transport you to another world. Unsurprisingly it fits into that clichéd ‘un-put-down-able’ category; you won’t be able to tear yourself away for a second! Perfect for when you’re munching on those delicious mince pies you’ve been denying yourself all year. The Killables relates the tale of a world obsessed by eradicating ‘evil’. But, is ‘evil’ really what we thought it was, or is there something more frightening at play?
Song to Go Along: Good Grief by Bastille
We hope you enjoy these gripping books and that they might make the hard slog of winter at university that much more bearable!