Favorite Novels of 2021

The rest of my booklist follows soon in a longer post!

I love a good novel, dripping with suspense or simply telling a story that needs to be heard. These were my favorite novels of 2021. You’ll see a mixture of classic and modern novels. Many of the novels I read are in the Christian fiction subgenre, but I only included the ones I felt did the best job of making me feel part of the story.

Favorite Novels of 2021: Modern Reads

1. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Hard, beautiful magical realism based on the stories of the Underground Railroad. This is a novel for adults, but it is not in any way crude. The author writes about atrocity in a nearly musical language that draws in and overcomes the reader. “Slavery was the root of all struggle,” the author writes in ch. 20, and he is correct—except that it is the slavery to sin that brings all this evil on and around us. 

A particularly striking quote: “To sell a child right from under his mother, you must know that mother only in the thinnest way possible.” (Ch. 6)

2. The Hawk and the Dove, by Penelope Wilcock

Stories of a Benedictine abbot that are beautiful in their simplicity and their love shown by action. These stories are, of course, written from a Roman Catholic perspective. Yet many of the truths they gently express can be taken to heart by the Protestant as well. 

Not all moral tales are heavy handed, as this author demonstrates. I also very much enjoyed her full-length novel about an ex-monk’s embattled marriage, The Breath of Peace.

3. Silence, by Shusaku Endo

One of the most impactful novels I have ever read. Read my mini review here.

4. Forever and Forever, by Josie S. Kilpack

A fictionalized retelling of the courtship of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the famous poet) and Fanny Appleton. The writer seems to have stayed as true to historical fact as possible while still making this an engaging novel. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading this story. And I now want to better understand the poetry of Longfellow himself—not much is included in the book, but the lines that are nearly moved me to tears. His fight through depression and his steadfast faithfulness in love, even when rejected, make this a very tender story. 

5. Home, by Marilynne Robinson

Anything Robinson has written is worth reading simply for the joy of soaking in her lyrical prose. I didn’t love the story as well as I loved the other two books about these families in small-town Iowa (Lila and Gilead), but it had moments of brilliance.

If you haven’t read anything by Ms. Robinson before, I recommend that you start with Lila. (Published 2015.) Robinson uses simple, clean wording that yet leaves the feel of poetry in your mind. And Lila’s story is incredibly moving.

6. Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours was probably my favorite novel of 2021, for its excellence in both writing and research.

Based on the heartbreaking stories of the children stolen and sold to adoptive parents by the TN Children’s Home, this novel has a slow start but grips the reader within a few chapters. It made me want to know more about the past of adoption in the U.S.

7. We Hope for Better Things, by Erin Bartels

While the story’s crossing back and forth among three generations can be confusing, the result is a tangled, hard, yet sometimes precious picture of our country’s changing views of ethnicity and love. Well worth reading.

8. The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge

Sarah Clarkson’s love for Elizabeth Goudge prompted my reading of this book. (I read her Book Girl this year–a charming ode to the way books have shaped her.)

After a very slow start, The Bird in the Tree glorified the art of making a home and keeping a family whole in the most beautiful way I’ve ever seen in a novel. Is marriage meant only to fulfill feelings of love? What happens when the love seems to be gone? Matriarch Lucille attempts to keep her family together in the face of an impossible threat.

I also read the next books in the saga. Pilgrim’s Inn and The Heart of the Family also had multiple gold nuggets for the determined reader, but they spent many pages in recapitulation of the first book. Any of these books as a stand alone novel would be inspiring. But I would only re-read the first one with true pleasure. 

9. The Seamstress, by Allison Pittman

A minor character from The Tale of Two Cities is brought to life in this novel of the French Revolution. Not a read for children, but a taut, tense and beautifully written novel. 

10. The Nature of Fragile Things, by Susan Meissner

Evocative writing that draws you back to the time of the San Francisco fire and the troubled life of an Irish immigrant woman. (Note: this is an adult read; some facets of married life are mentioned although not graphically described.) Meissner is a master at the slow reveal of rich, layered characters. 

11. A Tapestry of Light, by Kimberly Duffy

A surprising story of seeking faith in grief and living out forbearance in the face of prejudice. The protagonist, Ottilie, is a Eurasian woman—neither truly Indian nor English, and so rejected by both. Her younger brother can “pass” as full-blooded English, and when they go England to claim his inheritance, Ottilie finds out just how far she will stretch to give her brother the sense of belonging that she has always longed for. Tapestry stands out as a strong and unique novel in the Christian historical fiction genre. 

Favorite Novels of 2021: Classics that Have Stood the Test of Time

1. Beowulf

Reading Beowulf, I saw that it must have been Tolkien’s major inspiration for the Lord of the Rings. (Middle Earth, barrows, a dragon guarding treasure, rings and a ring-giver, even the names that gave rise to such names as Eomer and Eowyn.) A mighty myth of old that I should have read long ago. I recommend listening to it in a modern translation unless you understand old English.

2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Post-apocalyptic literature that breathes restrained emotion, cautious hope, and desperation in every page. This book is a fearful piece of beauty, worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won in spite of its purposeful scarcity of punctuation in dialogue. I read it precisely because of the thread of hope it contains, following my reading of Karen Swallow Prior’s On Reading Well. 

3. Everything that Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor

Stories about bitter white Southerners in the post-Reconstruction South. O’Connor exorcises their oblivious racism (and perhaps her own) in these stories, and her mostly faithless characters seek blindly for what they are missing, hate, and can never seem to find: God. Harsh, offensive language is sometimes used by the characters. 

4. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy

“Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary, and therefore most terrible,” Tolstoy writes as he introduces his protagonist. This is a short and brilliant novel. Read my review here.

5. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy 

Read my review here. I avoided reading this novel for years, thinking it might be salacious. (A novel about an affair?!) However, this is a classic Tolstoy reflection on human nature. The story is handled very discreetly.

6. Miss Grief and Other Stories, by Constance Woolson

Early, quiet feminism expressed in short stories that explore human nature and the regions beloved by American writer Constance Woolson. James Fenimore Cooper’s niece, she inherited his storytelling abilities but writes in a much more concise and cutting manner. 

7. The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells

What makes us human? Our physical bodies? Our souls? A sense of oneness with fellow humankind? The Invisible Man begins as a humorous story and ends a tragedy as you learn the story of a man who has nearly lost all three of those characteristics. 

8. Middlemarch, by George Eliot 

Although confined to one small corner of England, this is yet a sprawling epic of a tale, delving into both heroic and petty human motivations. I wrote a review on Middlemarch in my series of mini book reviews here.

Calling for Your Input!

What were your favorite novels of 2021? Let us know in the comments below or contact us via email, Facebook, or Instagram! I would love to read your recommendations for my next reads, either nonfiction or fiction.