Can you recommend me a good book?

[itwasallyellow]

I am in desperate need for a new book to read on the kindle, no happy endings, no soppy fluffy love stories or shitty porn. I want a herione but a dark, maybe tragic storyline. I want something hardcore that's going to stay with me and take my mind off things.

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane. There's no happy ending, but it's very well written.

No heroines as such - but quality reads.

East of Eden - John Steinbeck
God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Anything by Kazuo Ishiguro (no book called 'anything', his books are amazing)

Before I go to sleep- I think that's what it's called

Yes, SJ Watson

Oh loads of good ones here, think I chose the handmaids tale that was one I was going to read ages ago.

Only worried it might be a little too sad? I know iabu to post it here but never venture onto the other bits of this site apart from a glance at feminism.

Another vote for Before I Go to Sleep and can also recommend both Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. Anything by Ian McEwan, anything by Philip Roth, anything by Sebastian Faulks.

The night circus - amazing

Ive thought of another one - Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes. Really chilling.

ooooh third recommendation here for the Hunger Games - Brilliant. I really enjoyed all three, one of the best things about having a kindle was being able to promptly download the next book straightaway!

The Little House
Me Before You
Wolf Hall
One Day
Anything by Sarah Waters.

Room

if you want a great, hilariously funny book you wont want to put down, get The Tent, The Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy. Or I Left My Tent in Sanfransisco by Emma Kennedy. Both brilliant.

The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George is brilliant, and would fit exactly what you say you are looking for. Apart from the fact that you probably know roughly what happens, but that doesn't take away from this book at all.

Or Mary called Magdalene by the same author.

The book thief
Lady audley's secret
Their eyes were watching god
Jamaica Inn
The poisonwood bible

The Little Stranger freaked me right out. Loved it though.

What about a bit of Dickens? Or the Woman In White - my favourite book ever!

I second the Handmaid's Tale.

I third the handmaids tale :)

Also... to kill a mockingbird
The night circus
The hypnotist

Hello. We're going to move this thread to Adult Fiction, where it really belongs.

We're sure you'll get - even more - brilliant replies there.

Dissolution by C J Sansom. I lived and dreamt it.

I would have said historical murder mystery was not my cup of tea at all but this was something else.

Avoid Ken Follett, IMHO. It feels like even he gets bored half way through his 1000 page tomes....

Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood www.amazon.co.uk/Wicked-Girls-Alex-Marwood/dp/0751547980/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349641530&sr=1-1 is very good.

Sorry, try again: The Wicked Girls

There is no female heroine more hardcore than lisbeth salander! You MUST read 'the girl with the dragon tattoo' I could not put it down. I sprinted home from dropping the kids to read it! And it is a TRILOGY!!! Three times the fun! Hurrah!

I'm enjoying the Seamstress by Maria Duenas

Dark? I like Gillian Flynn's books, she wrote three and they are not flawless but good enough, dark and twisted. Dark Places and Sharp Objects, Gone Girl is her newest but like the first two better.
Dark Places is sometimes LOL funny as well, being about the sole survivor of a massacre that shamelessly lives of the money her 'fans' send her. No soppy stuff. Her heroines are flawed and seriously dysfunctional.