Find me a new book to love

[LadyPeterWimsey]

I am desperate, desperate I tell you, for new books. I have spent the weekend trying to find things I might fancy and I have lots of samples on my Kindle and nothing I feel like continuing to read.

A few years ago, a lovely MNetter introduced me to two writers she thought I might like - Dorothy Dunnett and Lois McMaster Bujold - and I loved and adored them, especially Bujold. But now I need another hit of new fiction, and the problem is that I am quite fussy, if my weekend of reading downloaded samples is anything to go by. There are lots of books I enjoyed - for example, the last couple I read were Case Histories and Station 11 and they were great - but I want something I love so much I have to read it again as soon as I have finished it and then bore my family endlessly with how wonderful it is.

So if I write down the authors that I read and read again, would anyone be kind enough to cast their eye down the list and recommend me something new? I'm looking for humour, intelligence, excellent writing and a happy ending. (I do not like sad endings.) I love crime, don't really read chick lit unless it is very, very funny, and have a penchant for historical fiction. I'm willing to branch out in terms of genre, but don't do horror. As you can tell from the list below, I love a romantic plot line but don't really like romance novels as such (Heyer excepted).

Here goes:

Dorothy L Sayers (of course) - crime, humour, romance and intelligence. Gaudy Night is probably my Desert Island book choice
Jane Austen - but no Brontes because I don't really enjoy Victorian literature
Georgette Heyer
John Le Carré - earlier books are much better than his later ones
Nancy Mitford
Josephine Tey - very fond of Golden Era detective fiction
John Wyndham - closest I get to science fiction, apart from Bujold, who is absolutely wonderful
Dorothy Dunnett
Douglas Adams
Lee Child -

Books I loved as a child and still re-read when I need consoling:

Emily of New Moon, and Anne of Green Gables
Ballet Shoes, and all the other Streatfeilds
The Sue Barton series
My Family and Other Animals
The Swish of the Curtain
My Darling Villain (I do like other Lynne Reid Banks but this one is my favourite)
I Capture the Castle
Daddy Long Legs
What Katy Did Next
All the Little House on the Prairie books
Eagle of the Ninth and other Sutcliffs

Have you read Eleanor oliphant is completely fine?

Kate Atkinson has a 4 book detective series with some humour in there.

Quality chic lit is Marion Keyes, start with the early ones. Rachel Holiday is my favourite.

Sorry I posted too soon.

I loved Anne Cleeves Vera and Shetland series. Crime but not gory. Not always happy endings cos there is always a murder. But I adored them.

And Tana French has a 6 or 7 book series I loved, also crime.

Mary Stewart, nine coaches waiting

Not totally, exactly Victorian literature (more gothic horror / suspense):

The Silent Companions
The Corset

Both by Laura Purcell

Naomi Novik - Uprooted. It's loosely based on Eastern European myth and is all kinds of wonderful.

How about something totally left field? The Fireman by Joe Hill orAldous Hixley's Brave New World? Plane Truth by Jodi Picoult or anything by Ian Irvine

I have just enjoyed The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Alford. Set just after the Spanish Civil War. Not a heavy read but very good.

Am I the only one singing

'WILL ANYBODY FIND MEEEEEEEE....A NEW BOOK TO LOVE?!' a la Freddie Mercury?

From the list that you like (Georgette Heyer + some SFF) I'd suggest trying Emma Newman's Split Worlds novels (not her sci-fi). The first one is Between Two Thorns.

I thin’ you would like Elizabeth J Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, and Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum

I've just read a load of Helen Fitzgerald books. Really good reads.
The Cry
Bloody Women
The Donor
My last confession and
Dead Lovely

Really entertaining and darkly funny

Thank you! Lots of suggestions to check out.

OdeToDiazepam I have read Eleanor, and ploughed through quickly, just to find out what happens. I did find it lots of it a bit implausible but it was very readable and I can see why it has sold so well

Frouby I've read Case Histories - is that one of the four? I'll have a look at your other recommendations too

Ribbonsonabox Mary Stewart sounds like my cup of tea! Thank you

iklboo how horror? I am a wimp when it comes to anything too supernatural or gory (And yes, imagine me as impassioned as Freddie Mercury about finding something new to read!)

GrouchyKiwi I'm pretty new to fantasy but I will have a look at Novik

SleepingStandingUp I've only read Huxley but am happy to try something left field. Didn't have Jodi Picoult in that category, though

RaininSummer will check it out

Sadik sample chapters downloaded - thank you

I know you said no Victorian, but do try Cranford - it's charming.
Eva Ibbotson's The Morning Gift.
Larkrise to Candleford and Alison Uttley's A Country Child. Sort of UK equivalents of Little House.
Gwen Raverat's Period Piece.
Joanna Cannan's Murder Included is right up there with Dorothy L -seriously.

Shardlake series by C J Sansom, Tudor detective, but more about the relationships.

concretesieve I read Period Piece last summer while I was staying in Cambridge and loved it - good call. I'll try Cranford, Larkrise to Candleford and A Country Child on the strength of that. I thought Ibbotson was only a children's author but my children do love her books so I should probably give The Morning Gift a go. And the audacity of your claim about Cannan has persuaded me to download a sample...

Alice The words 'family saga' make me twitch but I have seen Howard's books much recommended on here, so have downloaded a sample of the first one and of the Atkinson.

Drivenmad which one would you start with?

Wondering about the Mick Herron books - in particular the Slow Horses series. I like a few things on your list and I always enjoy them.

Consider the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey/maturin series. Wonderful characters, funny, beautifully written, and you don’t need to know anything about ships to enjoy them. And if you like them there are about 20 to read so will keep you going for a while.

Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with my spade; but first it is better to speak of my friendship with John Divney because it was he who first knocked old Mathers down by giving him a great blow in the neck with a special bicycle-pump which he manufactured himself out of a hollow iron bar.

The above is the opening lines of a book not a confession.

Have you read any Danielle steel books? She's absolutely amazing! I used to cry, laugh and I spend hours reading her books.

I loved a lot of the books You mentioned so offer They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple. You'll have to get it from Persephone Books. Fabulous writer from 1940s but with a really modern feel.

I’ve just read The Heart’s invisible furies by John Boyne after seeing it recommended on a thread, best book I’ve read in ages, loved every minute of it

Marge Piercey. She’s written so many incredible books.

The clarity and impact of her prose, and her abundant, politically-fuelled, emotionally powerful inventiveness is outstanding.

She’s so underrated. And she has been so prolific. Pick any one of her books. You’re welcome