5 novels that take you away

Maybe you, like me, like to give and get books that transport you to unfamiliar places. And maybe you, like me, wait until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping. If that’s the case, here are some ideas for the readers on your list, books that carry them off to New Caledonia, Nigeria, Greenland, Costa Rica, and even Neverland!

In 1950s London, Margery Benson is a sad-sack schoolteacher with an unlikely dream: to travel to New Caledonia in search of a rare golden beetle, with which she’s been obsessed since her father showed her a drawing of it in his Wonder of the World book.

When her London life implodes, she sells everything she owns to fund her entomological expedition, and stumbles on an unlikely sidekick. Enid Pretty is as slim as Margery is heavy-set, as loquacious as Margery is taciturn, and as flighty as Margery is grounded. Enid totters around in heels, is a hopeless flirt, and is, it turns out, on the run from the law.

Hijinks ensue for this odd couple: ocean voyages, eluding police, traipsing through the jungle, and the relentless pursuit, no matter what, of the elusive golden beetle. All does not necessarily end well, but the book is so fun and big-hearted, that that’s what the reader is left with.

Order Miss Benson’s Beetle at Bookshop.org

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Aguda’s magical realist tales inhabit the sprawling, chaotic, and cosmopolitan city of Lagos, built in the 15^th century and now Africa’s busiest seaport, with a film industry—Nollywood—second in size only to India’s Bollywood. In Nigeria, people may follow Christianity or Islam, but folk wisdom also abounds, like the idea that if you pick up money on the road, you’ll turn into a yam.

Aguda’s stories seem to bubble up out of this particular cauldron of reality and unreality. We’re in a world where a woman flies away but is brought down by rocks hurled by those who think she’s a witch, where mothers pre-mourn their imperiled sons, and where a poor woman contributes parts of her body because she can’t afford the dues of her women’s collective. All these oddities would be just that—odd—if they weren’t grounded in realistic and surprisingly resilient characters who we come to care about.

Order Ghostroots at Bookshop.org

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After getting out of prison in Ireland, Franny Stone has one wish: to go to Greenland, talk her way onto a fishing boat (one of the few that remain, as most of the fish are gone), and convince the crew to follow the pole-to-pole migration of Arctic Terns. Franny sees herself in the epic migrations of the terns, one of the few bird species remaining in a world where most of the animals are gone and humans are either in denial about this state of affairs or in mourning.

Don’t worry: this isn’t some hand-wringing sadfest. It’s an adventure story, with a brave and driven woman on a harrowing but ultimately hopeful journey. Amid calving icebergs, dangerous sea rescues, and starkly tragic pasts, there is, ironically, a gentle wisdom presented here. One of the things I appreciate most about this novel is the parallels the author draws between personal grief and what has now been dubbed environmental grief, the sorrow of losing so much of our planet’s life.

Order Migrations at Bookshop.org

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This thought-provoking and just plain fun book re-imagines two well-known fictional worlds—those of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes—and causes them to intersect in surprising ways. The Peter Pan story is retold from the perspective of Mary, the Darling children’s mother. Instead of a fanciful tale of human children flying away with magical creatures, it’s a story of a mother whose children have been abducted. Mary Darling is shocked and heartbroken and she resolves to find them, no matter how far she has to go. And because we’re in gritty and dangerous Victorian London. she enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes, who is useful up to a point but also has huge blind spots due to his arrogance and rigidity.

Mary and her motley crew depart London, sail the high seas, meet many a fascinating character, and arrive at a Neverland that’s not exactly the paradise you might imagine. This book is fantasy, yes, but also historical fiction and woman’s travel and adventure. So many “women’s novels” foreground romance or domesticity rather than adventure; not this book! I cheered Mary on through her many seemingly insurmountable challenges and her hard-won triumphs.

Order The Adventures of Mary Darling at Bookshop.org

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Okay, I couldn’t resist including my own novel, which has a troubled California science teacher catapulting herself south in search of her biological father. I recently heard from a reader whose praise blew me away. She wrote: “You Could Be Happy Here is more than a novel about searching for origins. It feels like a lyrical excavation of the emotional landscapes that shape us long before we realize it. Lucy’s journey is not just geographic; it’s a migration through memory, rupture, longing, and the fragile biology of belonging.”

That email will stay with me for a long time.

I’m also thrilled that my novel was included in Kirkus Review’s 2025 Gift Guide, and has won praise from authors I love, like Sharman Apt Russell, author of An Obsession with Butterflies:

“You Could Be Happy Here vividly captures the tension of being a privileged foreigner in another country, as well as the profound understanding that we are all in this messy life together—that it’s all about forgiving each other for being human. Beautifully written and soul-searching.”