Books like Halfway Heaven by Melanie Thernstrom

The Last Lecture is a memoir by computer‑science professor Jeffrey Zaslow, who, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, reflects on life lessons, childhood ambitions, and the impact of illness on himself and his family.

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

Augusten Burroughs recounts his turbulent adolescence spent in a decaying Victorian home run by a psychiatrist, where ordinary rites of childhood give way to a surreal blend of family eccentricity, escape from school, and the early years of a future author.

xxxv, 338 pages ; 21 cm

Lucy Grealy recounts twenty years of living with a disfigured jaw and over thirty reconstructive surgeries, exploring how society’s obsession with beauty shapes self‑image and the ultimate discovery that true worth lies within.

Reinvestigation of Dr. Sam Sheppard’s 1954 murder of his wife, with new evidence pointing to an unknown killer and prompting a renewed county investigation.

Abigail Cabot, a brilliant astronomer with little social polish, attends a White House gala where she meets charismatic Sen. Jamie Calhoun, who initially befriends her for political gain but finds himself drawn into unexpected love. Their journey blends romance, politics, and a shared longing to reach the stars.

A Philadelphia schoolteacher and her two children were brutally murdered, allegedly as part of an insurance fraud plot.

A true‑crime account of a teenage girl who, driven by adolescent turmoil and abuse, plots to murder her mother with the aid of an obsessed boyfriend.

When a father asks the Boston Herald for help finding his missing daughter, a commercial artist, a photo release sparks a murder investigation that dives into Boston’s red‑light district and a prestigious university lab.

viii, 302 p. : 25 cm

A gripping legal thriller about a prosecutor's quest for justice after a brutal murder in Washington, D.C.

He Had A Successful Career, A Selfless Wife, And Three Loving Children. When high school sweethearts Karen and Richard Sharpe married, they shared an interest in medicine, a desire for family, and a dream for the future. For Karen, that dream became a nightmare. After years of abuse at the hands of her physician husband, she put an end to their 26-year marriage. Fearing a crushing divorce settlement, Richard ended the marriage first by unloading a .22-caliber rifle into Karen's chest. The murder revealed more about the millionaire doctor-and his double life-than polite Boston society was prepared for. He Also Had A Secret That Shot His Picture-Perfect World To Hell. Behind the doors of their upscale Massachusetts home, Dr. Sharpe was a compulsive cross-dresser with a penchant for his own daughter's underwear-a respected family man who had not only been taking hormones to grow breasts, but who stole his wife's birth control pills to supplement them. But not even his own family could have imagined that it would take cold-blooded murder to finally reveal the good doctor's disturbing secrets, and shatter forever the prosaic façade of an all-American family.

A candid, humorous memoir of Nora Purmort’s love for her husband Aaron, an art director and comic‑book fan, as they faced a rare brain cancer diagnosis, an on‑bed engagement, and the birth of their son.