Just started mat leave...need something to stop me nesting!

[mountaingirl01]

My house is cleaner than it ever has been, my bag is packed, I've mown the lawn and made pots and pots of chutney from the windfall apples....and I'm only 3 days into mat leave much as I love my local library, it is quite limited and so I need to order in books from them....any suggestions?!

I'm open to all suggestions, but some authors I already like are:
William Nicholson
Elizabeth Jane Howard
C.j.Sanson
Phillipa Gregory
Marion Keyes

I'm not great with big 'literary' type reads and will happily take recommendations for good chick lit!

Thanks in advance for helping my sanity...

[PennyHasNoSurname]

I love ready Jodi Picoult's books. I most recently read Leaving Time, and also loved Plain Truth, but I have them all.

Samantha Smyth's Modern Family Journal (three books) by Lucy Cavendish is my favourite chick lit.

And Id always recommend The Hunger Games to anyone who hasnt read them.

I love Life of Pi but its a slog of a read so just watch the movie instead - its beautiful!

[mountaingirl01]

Thanks penny! I'll definitely give Lucy Cavendish a go, and will retry Picoult (I couldn't get into her books before, but my tastes seem to have changed a bit!) I also recommend the Hunger Games! Thanks

[DuchessofMalfi]

mountain - if you like C J Sansom (assuming it's the Shardlake series you like) then you might also like S J Parris's series beginning with Heresy. I'm currently reading the most recent one, Treachery, and loving it. Her novels are set slightly later, in the reign of Elizabeth I and the main character is an ex monk, Giordano Bruno, philosopher, writer, and v v handsome :o

[mountaingirl01]

Duchess I LOVE those books :D

[bookbook]

If you like C J Sansom and S J Parris, you will probably like Rory Clements - first one called Matyr
Elizabeth Chadwick -( I prefer to Philippa Gregory) - my favourite is The Greatest Knight and its sequel The Scarlet Lion about William Marshall
you could look at Rosamunde Pilcher and Marcia Willett
Lucinda Riley
Rosalind Ley
Santa Monterfiore
Hope there is something there you like :)

[DuchessofMalfi]

Great :) I've nearly finished Treachery - can't put it down!

How about Elizabeth Fremantle? I loved her novel Queen's Gambit which is about Katherine Parr. I didn't enjoy Sisters of Treason quite so much (that one was about the Grey sisters Mary and Katherine). She has another novel out, but I haven't got the details.

I've also got my eye on this one which is the first in a series. Promises to be a rival for C J Sansom, set in the same period, but with the twist that they are all based on real unsolved crimes from Tudor times.

[Ellisisland]

I just finished The Arrow of Sherwood by Lauren Johnson. Historical take on the Robin Hood story less bow and arrow and more political intrigue. I like all the authors you mentioned in your op and I absolutely loved this book

[GoooRooo]

I'm reading the latest Philippa Gregory - The Taming of the Queen - and it's GOOD. If you like her also try Anne O'Brien and Alison Weir

[GoooRooo]

Also, try Leah Fleming. Different historical period but still really good.

[Bolshybookworm]

You've got the same taste as me and my MIL. I have just started reading Old FILTH (Jane Gardem) on her recommendation, and I love it. It's a sweeping novel about a retired Hong Kong ("failed in London, try Hong Kong- ie FILTH) lawyer who grew up as a child of the empire, looking back over his life. Much more gripping than it sounds!

[pickwickcrocus]

The books I have most enjoyed reading recently are by Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner and And The Mountains Echoed.

Unput-downable (I know that's not a word ), beautiful, evocative, tragic, spell binding.

If I was on mat leave I would love to read all of these again! At the moment ds is in our room and my night time reading is sadly curtailed.

I also really enjoyed The Help and on a much much lighter and easy reading note, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day.

[mountaingirl01]

Some fab suggestions ladies! I have done an order on my library website... Thank you so much :)