What to read next
Books Like The House in the Cerulean Sea
Odd households, gentle magic and guarded people who slowly make room for each other.
You followed Linus to an island to inspect a household of magical children, and somewhere along the way the rulebook stopped looking so useful. If you finished The House in the Cerulean Sea wanting another home full of people who make room for each other, there are several ways to go next.
We’ve kept the gentle magic in some of these picks and followed the unlikely friendships into ordinary neighborhoods in others. The closest household match is The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. For more of Klune’s teasing companions, start at the top.
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01In the Lives of Puppets
by TJ KluneVictor’s forest family includes an android father, a nurse machine with a sadistic streak and a vacuum robot desperate for affection. The nurse and the vacuum give him plenty to deal with before a rescue mission takes them away from their treehouse home.
Klune returns to chosen family here, with a Pinocchio-inspired adventure and companions who keep up the quips through the danger. Book-group readers single out the robots, including people who rarely choose fantasy. How much you enjoy their company will matter, because those jokes recur often enough to wear on some tastes.
02The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
by Sangu MandannaThis is where we’d go for another house of magical children. Mika Moon takes a job teaching three young witches at Nowhere House, despite a lifetime of keeping her magic and her distance. Jamie, the protective librarian, has reservations about the new arrival.
The romance gets more room here, and the wit stays gentle. Mika’s fellow witches hold a solemn meeting on an exposed Hebridean pier in October. She entertains herself by inventing silly names for their group to annoy its self-appointed leader.
03The Guncle
by Steven RowleyPatrick O’Hara would like emergency phone calls to wait until he’s had enough sleep. Then his brother enters addiction treatment and sends nine-year-old Maisie and six-year-old Grant to stay for the summer. Their mother has died, and their uncle, a former sitcom star, is grieving a loss of his own.
Choose this for the teasing and the improvised household rules. Patrick knows how to get a laugh. Caring for bereaved children asks more of him than jokes and treats.
The grief is substantial, and the opening includes profanity and adult sexual references. Save this one for when you have room for those alongside the family comedy.
04The House Witch
by DelemhachFinlay Ashowan wants to cook dinner and keep his domestic magic private. Unfortunately, his employer is the royal household of Daxaria. Knights get sent to work in his kitchen, and his exchanges with Annika turn into a courtship conducted through jabs.
Come for the food and the growing kitchen community, with a kitten familiar named Kraken who gets chapters of his own. Court intrigue and an approaching war will eventually need your attention too.
05How to Age Disgracefully
by Clare PooleyThe liveliest detour here. A police officer stops a minibus, and the passengers start confessing before she can explain what she wants. When a child swears, the adults applaud his first words.
Clare Pooley’s London seniors join forces with a neighboring daycare and a teenage father to save their community center. There’s no magic, but there is a shoplifting actor and a group of older people whose methods deserve supervision. Pick this when you want the unlikely community with more farce and strong profanity.
06Small Miracles
by Olivia AtwaterA fallen angel has to pay off a gambling debt by persuading Holly Harker to enjoy herself. Chocolate and compliments go into celestial accounts, with footnotes keeping track of the sins. A gentle supernatural detour if Linus’s paperwork amused you, though grief matters here too.
07The Authenticity Project
by Clare PooleyJulian leaves a green notebook of confessions in Monica’s cafe, and strangers begin adding their own. This second Pooley pick is for the pleasure of watching lonely people make friends. Monica brings the dry wit. Even in a cemetery, she notices that an admiral gets an elaborate tribute while his wife gets little more than her name and dates.
Bereavement and addiction recovery are part of the lives behind the notebook’s entries.
08A Man Called Ove
by Fredrik BackmanOve goes shopping for a computer and gets into an argument about the missing keyboard. Then a new family damages his mailbox while moving in, and his neighbor Parvaneh keeps finding reasons for him to help. If you liked watching a man with rigid rules get drawn into other people’s lives, he’s your next difficult neighbor.
This is the pick to approach carefully when you’re looking for comfort. Bereavement and suicide attempts are central to the story. Readers describe laughter followed by tears, and the jokes often mean a quiet chuckle at Ove’s latest grievance.
Start with The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches for another magical household. If you’d rather leave the magic behind, let Patrick make the rules for a summer in The Guncle.
Another guide to try
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Legends & Lattes
More time behind the counter, with jam to sell, beer to fix and neighbors to win over.