Books like “The Thorn Birds”

What to read after “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “The Thorn Birds”

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1
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons · 2000
Same genre: “Historical romance”
In Leningrad in 1941, as the German army tightens its siege, Tatiana meets Alexander, a young officer with a secret. Their love is forbidden by her family and by the war, but through hunger, loss and the frozen winter they hold on to each other and to the hope of survival.
2
The Idea of You
Robinne Lee · 2017
Similar plot moves: “Age Gap Romance” and “Star-Crossed Lovers”
Los Angeles gallery owner Solène, thirty-nine, takes her daughter to a boy band meet-and-greet and catches the attention of Hayes, the band's twenty-year-old singer. Their secret relationship soon grows serious, but his fame and the age gap turn their private happiness into a public storm.
3
Birthday Girl
Penelope Douglas · 2018
Similar plot moves: “Age Gap Romance” and “Forbidden Love”
When nineteen-year-old Jordan and her boyfriend have nowhere else to go, they move in with his father, Pike. Sharing the house, she finds in the guarded older man the steadiness her life has lacked, and they both fight an attraction that is off-limits by every rule that matters.
4
Katherine
Anya Seton · 1954
Similar plot moves: “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Forbidden Love”
In fourteenth-century England, Katherine Swynford becomes a lady-in-waiting and falls in love with John of Gaunt, a royal duke bound by marriage and politics. Their long, often forbidden attachment survives plague, war and the disapproval of a court that cannot forgive a scandal.
5
The Red and the Black
Stendhal · 1830
Shared in the plot: ambition, family
An ambitious young man from a poor family claws his way into high society, first through the church and then through his charm. Torn between two women and his own hunger for status, he risks everything. A novel about ambition, class and love.
6
The Sweetest Oblivion
Danielle Lori · 2018
Similar plot moves: “Age Gap Romance” and “Forbidden Love”
Elena is the favoured, docile daughter of a mafia boss, expected to keep the family's reputation spotless. When her sister is arranged to marry Nicolas Russo, a feared Made Man from a rival family, Elena is drawn into his orbit against her better judgment. He is rude, dangerous and always near, and the attraction between them turns a family alliance into a scandal waiting to happen.
7
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Slow Burn”
Spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara sees her world torn apart by the American Civil War. Determined to rebuild her family's plantation and her fortune, she schemes and marries her way through the ruins of the Old South, chasing a man she cannot have.
8
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton · 1920
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Star-Crossed Lovers”
Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland in old New York society when May's cousin, the Countess Olenska, returns from Europe after leaving her husband. Newland and the Countess are drawn to each other, but the rules of their world demand that he marry May and hide what he feels.
9
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid · 2017
Similar plot moves: “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Forbidden Love”
A young magazine reporter is chosen to write the life story of a fading film star, Evelyn Hugo. Over days of interviews Evelyn reveals seven marriages, a long-hidden love and the cost of the fame she built.
10
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon · 1991
Same genre: “Historical romance”
In 1945, former combat nurse Claire Randall touches a standing stone in Scotland and wakes in 1743, in a country on the edge of rebellion. Unsure of her own time, she is forced to marry a young Highland warrior to survive, and finds herself torn between two lives and two men.
11
Red Queen
Victoria Aveyard · 2015
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Star-Crossed Lovers”
Mare lives in a world split by blood: silver elites with powers and powerless reds. When a dangerous ability of her own is exposed, the royal family hides her in their palace, where she becomes a pawn in two secret wars.
12
Fallen
Lauren Kate · 2009
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Star-Crossed Lovers”
After a boy dies in a fire she cannot explain, Lucinda is sent to Sword & Cross, a bleak reform school in Savannah. There she is drawn to Daniel, a distant student she somehow knows. The shadows she has seen since childhood, and Daniel's secrets, point to a love older than her life.