If you were planning on spending your 40th birthday in bed with a bucks fizz reading a trashy novel....

[ecuse]

...what novel would it be?

For context: if I hadn't already read everything Penny Vincenzi and Jilly Cooper had ever written, as well as Shirley Conran's Lace, I'd be reading one of those.

Have you read the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella? Fluffy, easy reading trash, I like reading them on holiday.

I was going to recommend Penny Vincenzi/ Shirley Conran. Try Louise Bagshawe but get a couple, they're a quick read.

Marian Keyes

Anything by Lisa Jewell.

Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan

Second Marian Keyes from your preferences.
Also Lisa Jewell.

However, I love murder so Val McDermid or similar

If you like the Penny/Jilly/Shirley books, i would suggest Jackie cooper.

So, oddly, I like modern chick lit (shopaholics etc) less than those big 80s family saga glamorous bonkbuster type things.

Chick lit characters usually too human relatable . I'm after pure escapism!

Have you read Kinflicks by Lisa Alther? I read it when I was about 12 and remember it as being ahem 'educational' and very trashy!

Rosamunde Pilcher! Coming Home or Shellseekers. Or Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles.

For fun easy read I like Joanne Harris (Chocolat) and Alice Hoffman( Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic). Fun escapism!

Wendy Holden is funny and super light, like:
books.google.co.uk/books/about/Pastures_Nouveaux.html?id=nU7PPiGLAowC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Or just re-read your favourite Jilly!

Seduction and Snacks by Tara Sivec

The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley?

If I was spending the day in bed with a novel I'd have more than one glass of bucks fizz

American Star by Jackie Collins (or any Jackie tbf)

But I want to be Lauren Roberts with her tortoiseshell eyes and be swept off my feet by Nick Angelo.

Anything by Jackie Collins!

The Other Side of a Midnight by Sidney Sheldon is A M A Z I N G

Gone with the wind? Not totally trashy but a great ride.

Maybe revisit flowers in the attic?

Seriously. Glam escapism with a twisty turny plot.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Side-Midnight-Sidney-Sheldon/dp/147894840X/ref=mpssa111?keywords=other+side+of+midnight+sidney&qid=1576600422&sr=8-1

@ecuse

Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher

Girl sent to board when parents go abroad
Meets charismatic friend from wealthy family huge house, gets sort if taken in by them.

Posh people, The War, tragedy, romance

Recommended

Valley of the Dolls

Lesley Lokko is fab.

What about the Maestra books? SUPER trashy!

From Amazon:
By day Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a London auction house.

By night she's a hostess in one of the capital's unsavoury bars.

Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She's learned to dress, speak and act in the interests of men. She's learned to be a good girl. But after uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world, Judith is fired and her dreams of a better life are torn apart.

So she turns to a long-neglected friend.

A friend that kept her chin up and back straight through every past slight.

A friend that a good girl like her shouldn't have: Rage.

Fatal attraction meets The Talented Mr Ripley in this darkly decadent thriller, soon to be a major Hollywood film, that asks:

Where do you go when you've gone too far?

Oh and it's not trashy, it's a bit more literary but I think you'd enjoy Life After Life by Kate Atkinson