'Granny Books'

[stleger]

I am in work in a bookshop. I have a customer in her late seventies, she reads aloud to her mum who is 101 this year . She needs new authors...she likes Josephine Cox, Lesley Pearce,Nora Roberts. They don't like Irish women authors (we are in Cork!) They don't mind a bit of 'physical romance' . What do the older ladies in your life like?

Catherine Cookson
Georgette Heyer
Elizabeth Goudge

maybe some Rosamund Pilcher ones or Mary Wesley (Its a while since I read either of those though and I can't remember how raunchy they are - probably not very, or I would remember )

I did a search on lovereading.co.uk... reading the blurbs was a bit . I enjoyed an odd Catherine Cookson in the past, I had practically forgotten her.

oldies love catherine cookson - plenty of dastardly deeds and sex. What sabout Grace metalious - Peyton Place or Rona Jaffe The best of everything both written in the fifties but very good.

My mum and friends love Lesley Pearse, Dilly Court, Audrey Howard, Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir's novels (I introduced them to the last one!).

Oh I love Audrey Howard...I must take up reading chunky sagas again.

Have you tried the Cazalet chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard? The first one is The Light Years. It's a series of four books about a family with a home in East Sussex in the 30s and 40s. I absolutely loved them even though I wasn't expecting to, then recommended to my mum and nan who both loved them too, so that's an enjoyment age range of 33 - 86.

I enjoyed them too, and am worried I am a little old lady in disguise now

I have nothing to add but loved the title I also have an Irish granny and she too reads pretty saucy stuff. Can't imagine reading aloud to your mum though!

I would say that I am a fairly recent devotee of Georgette Heyer. I ADORE her novels. So defo recommend those as something different.

I've made this suggestion before on a similar thread.....Rebecca Shaw's 'Village' books - 'Scandal in the Village', 'Village Gossip', etc etc (a quick Google will find them). All set in a small if somewhat unlikely English village with a huge cast of characters, whose doings are followed throughout the series. I've never worked out how many books there are in total but it must be at least 10, so plenty of reading material to be going on with! Not remotely literary but they are actually very engagingly written and though some of her favourite characters are far too good to be true (eg Peter the saintly vicar and his GP wife), there's lots of comedy too.

On a similar note, Ann Purser wrote a series also set in a village - she later branched out into some very entertaining whodunnits starring a cleaning lady (the Lois Meade mysteries), which I have to admit I rather enjoy...

Oh they sound good...I used to read Miss Read in my teabreak, they were lacking in sauciness.