Please come and recommend a book

[user1477249785]

Hi all. I have just resigned from my job after a really really hard going time. I haven't had time to read a book in a couple of years. I have a few weeks now to focus on myself and try and decompress so I want to line up a stack of books. I have a few criteria and would be really really grateful for any recommendations.

I'm looking for something that is totally gripping and compelling with a real good story but that isn't hard to get into (my brain is a little fried). I also don't want anything too depressing. My favourite ever book was secret history but I didn't get on at all with either of her other books which I found hard going. I want to be totally absorbed.

I'd really welcome any suggestions. The sort of book you feel sad when you've finished because it was so wonderful...

Thank you!

I love Kate Morton. The Forgotten Garden is my favourite.
I’ve also just finished the Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and loved it.

valentina by s e lynes.

it was gripping!

I also loved secret history and am currently dragging myself through the goldfinch as I refuse to admit defeat. I recently read the song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and that was very enjoyable. Room by Emma Donahue is a good read as well, and despite the content not depressing as it’s through the eyes of a child.

American Dirt - reading right now

An American Marriage
The Heart's Invisible Furies
The girl who saved the King of Sweden

Room, might be a bit distressing for you but I have to say I was hooked.

I also love The Heart’s Invisible Furies but not sure it passes the ‘not miserable’ test!

I have recently re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and can’t think of a better or more moving novel.

For lighter reads I love Kate Morton - The House at Riverton is her best IMO - and Lucinda Riley. The Light Behind the Window is a really gripping book about a young woman who finds herself working for the French Resistance.

Kate Atkinson is excellent but Life After Life, beloved on these boards is too relentlessly bleak for me.

The Heart's Invisible Furies is amazing, not in the least miserable, on the contrary, it's heartwarming.

Stardust
The Midnight Library
Any Agatha Christie

Eleanor oliohant is completely fine, away with the penguins or Shuggie Bain. Last three I read and loved them all

I loved Circe as it's total escapism and so beautifully written.

I loved Secret History too!

After You'd Gone, Maggie O'Farrell's first one, is brilliant. V moving.

Bel Canto by Anne Patchett is a gorgeous book - it's about a hostage situation somewhere in South America with opera singers among the hostages. It's both exciting and romantic and also quite literary, but it's definitely not difficult to get into.

Helen Dunmore's The Siege is totally absorbing, about the siege of Leningrad - just as grueling as it sounds but very likeable.

All of the Cazalet novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard are amazing. The Light Years is the first one.

Deborah Harkness's Discovery of Witches series is totally gripping with romance and the supernatural and scholarship. It's a bit like a much cleverer Twilight, but much better than that makes it sound.

I have recently discovered the Chief Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny. They are really helping me get through this lockdown.

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce. A real page turner. Any of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler crime novels.

Also The Guest List or The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley.

Not sure if they would be considered depressing but I don't find them depressing but I am a crime drama / novel fan

Yy to Bel Canto and Cazalet Chronicles

Shuggie Bain is brilliant but grim and heartbreaking so if you're feeling fragile I would leave it for now.

The Observations by Jane Harris is good fun with a quirky narrative voice.

And I'm not sure I would call James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small books compelling but I've found them cheerful and easy to read when times are tough.

Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver - funny and moving

I second The Heart's Invisible Furies. Best book I read last year by far.

Also recommend Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

I think Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty fits your brief. It's engaging, a good read but not too heavy or depressing.

YY to Circe - I loved it.

If you want something lighthearted Georgette Heyer - I think The Grand Sophie is the best

My favourite book ever is also Secret History and I also didn’t get on with her other books. In case we have the same taste my other absolute favourites are:
Morvern Callar
All of Dorothy Sayers
Rivers of London
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Station 11

I've just read American Wife and loved it. Really compelling story and well written but easy to get into. Features some very posh Americans so slight Secret History vibe there...

The blue castle by LM Montgomery is my favourite, it's a joy.

I've just read My Sister the Serial Killer.. it's funny and gripping and not too long. Recommend it.

Birdcage walk
The miniaturist

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm currently googling lots of these and the planning to load up the kindle. I'm particularly interested in the recommendations from those who loved secret history but not Tart's others (and I also ploughed on with the goldfinch refusing to admit defeat but, even once at the end, I still felt unsatisfied). I'm really grateful for every recommendation.