The letter W doesn’t seem like it should be difficult.
Then you start an A to Z reading challenge, get to W and suddenly every book title you can remember starts with The.
For this list, I’m making the rule simple: the actual title has to start with W. No ignoring The or A to make something fit.
The nice thing about choosing books by letter instead of genre is that this list is all over the place. There’s romance, horror, fantasy, historical suspense, literary fiction, middle grade and a couple books that are difficult to shove into one neat box.
So if W is still sitting empty on your reading challenge, you’ve got options.
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Wait With Me by Amy Daws
Kate Smith is a romance writer with a problem.
She has writer’s block.
Then she discovers that for some reason she can actually write while sitting in the waiting room of a tire shop.
Obviously, the completely reasonable solution is to keep sneaking back.
That’s where mechanic Miles Hudson comes in.
Wait With Me gives you contemporary romance, forced proximity of the weirdest possible kind and a heroine who has basically decided that free coffee and a tire-shop waiting room are now part of her writing process.
Wait With Me
A romance writer struggling with writer’s block starts sneaking into a tire shop waiting room to work, where she meets a mechanic who becomes much more distracting than the free coffee.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
On a quiet street in Tokyo, there’s a pawnshop that doesn’t deal in watches, jewelry or old electronics.
People go there to sell their regrets.
When Hana Ishikawa takes over the shop from her father, she discovers that something has gone very wrong. The shop has been ransacked, her father is missing and a stranger has shown up asking questions.
Then things get considerably stranger.
If you want something weird and magical for your W book, this one definitely qualifies.
Water Moon
A young woman inherits a hidden Tokyo pawnshop where people sell their regrets, then sets out to find her missing father with the help of a mysterious stranger.
Weyward by Emilia Hart
Weyward follows three women living centuries apart.
In 1619, Altha is accused of witchcraft.
In 1942, Violet is trapped by the expectations surrounding her.
And in the present day, Kate flees an abusive relationship and ends up in an old cottage inherited from a relative she barely knew.
Their stories slowly connect through family history, nature and a power that the women in this family have been carrying for generations.
If you’re filling your W slot during fall, this one feels especially appropriate. Witches, old secrets and a creepy inherited house will do that.
Weyward
I am a Weyward, and wild inside.
Across centuries, three women tied to a hidden legacy of witchcraft uncover secrets of power, nature, and survival. Their intertwined stories reveal a haunting tale of resilience and freedom.
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
A woman washes ashore on a remote island near Antarctica.
She isn’t the only one with questions.
Dominic Salt and his three children have been living on Shearwater Island, where they’re helping prepare a massive seed bank for evacuation as rising seas threaten the island. Rowan’s sudden arrival is strange enough.
Then she starts noticing things that don’t make sense.
Sabotaged equipment. Secrets. A grave.
This one gives you family drama, mystery and survival on a very isolated island.
Wild Dark Shore
A woman washes ashore on a remote island near Antarctica and becomes entangled with a family preparing to abandon the island as secrets and strange events begin to surface.
And if being stranded somewhere remote is your kind of reading mood, try these thriller and horror books set in isolated locations.
When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein
Alfie Harding is a retired footballer.
He’s also extremely grumpy.
Mabel Willicker is hired to ghostwrite his memoir, which means she now gets the privilege of dealing with that grumpiness professionally.
She’s cheerful. He’s not.
You can probably see where this is going.
This is the romance to grab if your W square needs something lighter after all the witchcraft, murder and mysterious islands.
When Grumpy Met Sunshine
A cheerful ghostwriter is hired to help a famously grumpy retired footballer write his memoir, and their constant clashing slowly turns into something else.
If the football angle caught your attention, I also have a whole list of sports romance books where the sport actually matters.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
It’s 1970, and Fern has been sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida.
She’s fifteen, pregnant and surrounded by other girls whose families would rather hide them away than deal with what has happened.
The girls have very little control over anything.
Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her a book about witchcraft.
Suddenly, they have access to power.
And, because this is Grady Hendrix, that does not mean everything gets easier.
So if you want horror, historical fiction and witchcraft for your W book, this one covers all three.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
In 1970, a pregnant teenager is sent to a home for unwed mothers, where she and the other girls discover witchcraft and a way to fight back against the people controlling their lives.
Willa of the Wood by Robert Beatty
Willa is one of the Faeran, an ancient people who live deep in the Great Smoky Mountains.
She’s been raised to fear humans and steal from them.
Then one of those thefts goes wrong.
As Willa starts questioning what she’s been taught, she also discovers that the forest itself is changing and that the world she knows may not survive unless something changes with it.
If you want a middle grade pick for W, this gives you something completely different from the rest of the list.
Willa of the Wood
A young forest-dwelling girl raised to fear humans begins questioning everything she has been taught after a dangerous encounter changes the way she sees her world.
With a Vengeance by Riley Sager
It’s 1954, and Anna Matheson has arranged a very special train trip.
She has invited six people aboard.
She also believes those six people helped destroy her family twelve years earlier.
Anna’s plan is to confront them during the overnight journey and make sure justice is waiting when the train reaches Chicago.
Then somebody dies before she can carry out the plan.
Now Anna has a bigger problem.
She may have gathered everyone onto the train for revenge, but apparently she isn’t the only person who arrived with an agenda.
With a Vengeance is a historical locked-room-style thriller with a luxury train, murder and a whole passenger list full of secrets.
With a Vengeance
A woman gathers six people she blames for destroying her family aboard an overnight train, only for someone to die before she can carry out her revenge plan.
If you want more murder after the train ride, I also have a list of killer thriller books full of very questionable people.
We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad
The Bunnies are back.
If you’ve read Bunny, you already know that this is not a normal group of women hanging around an MFA program.
We Love You, Bunny returns to that strange world and lets us hear more from the Bunnies themselves after Samantha publishes a novel about what happened.
And they’re not exactly thrilled.
The book works as a follow-up, prequel and standalone trip into the same bizarre world, although I’d still be tempted to read Bunny first just because this entire situation is already weird enough.
We Love You, Bunny
The strange women known as the Bunnies return with their own version of events after Samantha publishes a book about what happened inside their bizarre creative-writing circle.
What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown
Jane grows up in an isolated cabin in Montana during the 1990s.
Her father is basically her entire world.
He teaches her at home, keeps them largely separate from society and gives her a very particular view of how the world works.
Then Jane starts discovering that what she’s been told may not be the whole truth.
Eventually, she has to decide whether she’s willing to leave the only life she’s ever known and find out what’s actually waiting outside it.
This one mixes coming-of-age fiction with psychological suspense and the early days of the internet, which is definitely not a combination I expected to find while looking for W books.
What Kind of Paradise
A girl raised in isolation in the Montana wilderness begins questioning the stories her father has told her and what life might look like beyond their remote home.
What Would Mary Berry Do? by Claire Sandy
Sometimes your reading challenge doesn’t need murder.
It needs cake.
Marie Dunwoody is not exactly a baking expert.
Then she decides she’s going to enter a local baking competition, and suddenly she’s trying to transform herself into somebody who can actually produce something worth judging.
Whenever things start going wrong, she asks herself one important question:
What would Mary Berry do?
This is easily the lightest book on the list, which is precisely why I like having it here.
What Would Mary Berry Do?
A woman with very little baking experience enters a local baking competition and starts using Mary Berry as her imaginary guide whenever things go wrong.
Where the Water Meets the Sky by Diane Les Becquets
Abby returns to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula ten years after a fire changed her life.
She loves birds, forests and the natural world, and she’s there to help her uncle with an environmental study.
But returning home also means dealing with everything she still doesn’t understand about the night of that fire.
As the summer unfolds, Abby begins uncovering memories and truths that she has spent years trying to reach.
If you want something quieter for your W book, this one leans more into family, memory and the natural world.
Where the Water Meets the Sky
A woman returns to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula years after a devastating fire and begins uncovering memories and family truths she has never fully understood.
W Might Be Easier Than It Looks
Once you start looking, W actually gives you a pretty decent selection.
You can go witchy with Weyward or Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. You can pick romance with Wait With Me or When Grumpy Met Sunshine. You can get stranded somewhere unpleasant with Wild Dark Shore. You can board a train full of people with grudges in With a Vengeance.
Or you can bake something.
Which feels significantly safer.
That’s part of what I like about doing an A to Z reading challenge this way. The books don’t need to match each other at all.
They just need to get you through the letter.
And W is officially handled.
