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.

Sorry if I’m not replying to each recommendation I’m currently at the foot of Franz Joseph Glacier in NZ and the wifi is a bit spotty, the weather is due to roll in and I need material! Will be going through suggestions as internet allws. Hopefully enough juice to download at least one of them!! Wish me luck 😁

@Frikonastick

Anything in sci-fi/ fantasy? I like to be well rounded 😁

Nora Roberts does a series under a pen name (which has momentarily escaped me) about a detective set in the future. Think the detective is lieutenant Eve Dallas??

Also, the Kathy Reich's books, I'm sure temperance is over 40.
Faith Martin, her series all feature women, not all over 40 but still worth a read.

VI Warshawski novels by Sara Paretsky. VI definitely passes 40 during the series and the impact of being older is shown realistically.

The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre certainly doesn't fall into any of the clichéd categories.

Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God have some strong major female characters who fit the bill, although it's a stretch to say the first centres around any of them tbh.

Jennifer Crusie's Fast Women, if you fancy some "chick lit" (hate that phrase, don't know a better one).

Christopher Brookmyre generally writes women as strong and capable and not entirely defined by their relationships to men, All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye centres around a woman in her late 40s who I want to be when I grow up.

Fantasy you say? Barbara Hambly's Winterlands books - Jenny Waynest is awesome. Dragonsbane is the first. Also her Starhawk and Sunsolf books starting with Ladies of Mandrigyn. All her books have great female protagonists but admittedly most are younger.

N.K.Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, starting with The Fifth Season.

Lauren Beukes, start with Broken Monsters

Patricia A.McKillip The Tower at Stony Wood

Not fantasy but Margaret Atwood The Robber Bride

I loved Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood. A darkly humorous dissection of why romance writers write what they do, for the desperate women who read it. (Not us, of course.)

Some of Fay Weldon's books have 40-something protagonists; Praxis comes to mind.

And going way back -- the Wife of Bath's Tale, in the Canterbury Tales. Alison was a middle-aged woman of lusty appetite and adventurous spirit.

But yes, OP, point well made. We shouldn't have to scratch around to find such characters.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is fun, and quite a good film too!

The Rizzoli and Isles series by Tess Gerritsen, I think the two women in that are early 40s

Appletree yard by Louise Doughty - found this really refreshing because of the way it portrayed a woman in her 50s

The Erika Foster books by Robert Bryndza

In terms of fantasy, the Red Sister books by Mark Lawrence are female focussed, the main protagonist is younger but there are plenty of older female characters who feature heavily

The novels of Carol Shields, especially Unless, The Stone Diaries, and Happenstance.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Have you read of the Sara Paretsky VI Warshawski books? I really enjoy them, but as she has aged within the novels it has made it a bit more problematic for some of the much older characters, her neighbour was in his late sixties/seventies (I think) when they started in 1982; and there is no sign of Lottie retiring! BUT they are so well written I can suspend my disbelief.

Susie Steiner's Manon Bradshaw books if you like detectives. Katie Fforde and Erica James if you like romance.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld. The witches books have Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax and are brilliant.

All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye - Christopher Brookmyre. Thriller, it’s fab.

Oops someone’s suggested it already! In my enthusiasm I didn’t RTFT...

Old baggage - Liisa Evans

Scabby queen - Kirstin Innes

Another vote for Winter Solstice.

I loved Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon - it's SF, but that's really just the setup, it's more about the older woman and her situation.

@echt

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

The Lucia books by EF Benson.

I was going to suggest the Mapp & Lucia books! They are a real favourite of mine, very funny, and always cheer me up.

When I go to Sleep. It was one of the things that really struck me about the book.It is also essential to the plot as she has to be old enough to have an adult child and to be horrified at her middle aged face in the mirror(memory loss).

@Zitouna great to see other people recommending Brookmyre, one of my favourite things about his books has always been the way he wrtites his female characters as interesting people in their own right, rather than barely sketched out notmen who are there to support the important male characters storyline :)

Nora Roberts does a series under a pen name (which has momentarily escaped me) about a detective set in the future. Think the detective is lieutenant Eve Dallas??

It's J.D Robb

@Frikonastick

Anything in sci-fi/ fantasy? I like to be well rounded 😁

Pratchet's Weird Sisters and other novels with the Witches as the main characters.

I don't think he's particularly good at writing women, but his female characters are as well-rounded and strong as his male characters. And of course his no-nonsense, perceptive comedy is fabulous.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

It follows various female characters over the years, some of whom are 40+. And it's a brilliant book all round