Are there no books with female protagonists 40 and over???

[Frikonastick]

It’s doing my head in! Please recommend me a book that centres around a woman 40 or over. Please. I beg of you.

The Vera books by Anne Cleeve are really good

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller.
I’m only halfway through so can’t say if I’d wholeheartedly recommend yet, it but it’s very readable.

The Aunty Poldi series is ace! She is a Bavarian unofficial detective who moves to Sicily to be close to family/ drink herself to death after becoming widowed.
She then starts getting into all sorts of mayhem.
She is around d 60 and the books are funny and lighthearted

This question came up a couple of days ago and Fiona Collins was recommended. If you like movies, get hold of You, Me and the Movies.

Are you looking for any particular genre? Pretty much any Anne Tyler would fit the bill, as would, say, Joanna Trollope.

If you like historical romance take a look at Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Moorland Dynasty series.

It follows one family from medieval times to quite modern but the stories centre around the Maternal line.

What genre?

Some of Rosamund Pilcher's would work - Winter Solstice, or September

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The Ruth Galloway books? Think she's in her late 30s in the first couple but then in her 40s

The Oxford murder mysteries by Faith Martin, the lead character DI Hillary Green is in her 40s or 50s

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is another good one

I believe Agatha Christie wrote 12 novels about Miss Marple. She's definitely over 40.

Lots by AnneTyler, Elena Ferrante, Elizabeth Strout, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Colm Toibin, May Sarton, Anita Brookner, Alice Munro.

Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin. It's part of of the Earthsea quartet but centred around the experiences and consciousness of an older woman.

Agatha Raisin, a feisty soul in her 50s - humorous detective fiction by C M Beaton - I liked the books but hated the TV series, where Agatha has been glammed up and is not at all like her interesting book counterpart

Miss Marple, another "detective"... (is a theme developing here?)

Antonia Forest's Marlow stories feature a throng of interesting, realistic female characters (teenage, mostly)

Agatha Raisin.

Oops I don't know why I mentioned the Marlows, being that OP asked for 'in their 50s!' other than that I like to mention them at every turn

Currently reading Miss Benson’s Beetle and really enjoying it. The protagonist is 47!

Cross post there. @ApplesinmyPocket do you know any way of getting hold of the Marlow books that doesn't require finding buried treasure or something to fund it? I had one of them as a child (from a charity shop), would love to get the others, but whenever I've looked online, they've been a hideous price.

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Persphone Books republish books written by female authors from the 30s -1960s, roughly, Dorothy Whipple is good. Not action packed, more often unfolding stories over a lifetime. I think they now publish male authors too. Look at their website.

@110APiccadilly
This one is currently £6.49.

www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/antonia-forest/end-of-term/9780140310191

Two more here for around a tenner.

Thanks. Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places. You have inspired me to start searching again (this is possibly not good; I'm on mat leave at the moment so the book budget probably should be cut but won't be).

"Olive Kitteredge" and "Olive Again" by Elizabeth Strout.

The Lucia books by EF Benson.

Stay away from mystery type books if you want decent female protagonists. If you're over 40 in one of those you're either 1) a policewoman married to the job, who has succeeded by acting like a man or 2) a bereaved mother. There doesn't seem to be any other option.

@110APiccadilly , Girls Gone By Publishers have also been reprinting them gradually. Most are currently out of print, but one is being released this spring www.ggbp.co.uk/product/af-the-ready-made-family-by-antonia-forest/

Or 3) an unhappily married empty nester who