When was the last time you saw a really fabulous movie? Just this past weekend, right?! This year’s crop of films, at least the ones that came out in the last month, are absolutely wonderful, among them “Nocturnal Animals,” “Lion,” and “Hidden Figures,” all three films based on books.  Here are a few novels that I think you’ll agree when you read them will make stunning adaptations to the silver screen.

Christine Baker Kline’s bestseller Orphan Train introduces us to Molly, a troubled teenager working off her community service stint with Vivian, an elderly survivor of the trains that took unwanted children out West in the early twentieth century. Both of these women’s lives have drama, vivid settings, heartbreak and suspense: two compelling stories for the price of one! Get the book.

One of the most original and hilarious novels I’ve ever read, Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers will make you see the Wild West and its stock characters in a completely new light. Hit men Eli and Charlie Sisters are questioning the path they’ve chosen, even while they’re hot on the trail of their latest target. In the most violent of lives, love can find a hiding place. Get the book.

Between Shades of Gray is a brutal story, based on fact, of a Lithuanian family sent to forced labor in Siberia. The book’s first simple sentence, spoken with such innocence by Lina, who is still just a girl, promises an unforgettable movie version of this amazing first novel: “They took me in my nightgown.” Get the book.

Beth Goehring believes, with apologies to Lorelei Lee, that rather than diamonds books are a girl’s best friend…and a boy’s, a man’s and a woman’s. For more than twenty-five years, through Book-of-the-Month Club and its related clubs, she’s sold popular fiction, mysteries, romances, cookbooks, children’s books, play scripts, behind-the-scenes tales of the movies and theatre, and lifestyle books. She lives with her husband and corgi in Manhattan.