Something new for my mum HELP

[Northernlurker]

It's mum's birthday this month
She is a voracious and widely read reader.
Any suggestions?
She likes Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, most Thomas Hardy and in then in more modern tastes she loved Lindsay Davis Falco, Patrick O'Brien, CJ Sansom, the wolf hall trilogy, Ellis Peters.

Anything newish and really good I should try?

Oh and she's also a huge Tolkien fan

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes? It’s written from Medusa’s point of view and is a great read!

Oh that sounds promising

She might like Madeleine Miller? She wrote The Song of Achilles and Circe.

Or maybe Conn Iggulden, he has a couple of different series - one about Julius Caesar and one about Genghis Khan I think.

if she enjoys historical fiction then she might like the Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. It’s completely gripping.

Has she read Samantha Shannon's The Priory of the Orange Tree? It's high fantasy. V enjoyable.

I'd also recommend Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy. It's based on the central premise that Anna Karenina was real and her is about her son. It's a beautiful book. Really really good.

Oooh this is all good stuff. Keep them coming....

What about Donna Tartt? The Goldfinch or The Secret History? Or Maggie O Farrell's Hamnet?

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
James Norton from Happy Valley is going to star in the stage adaptation, so it piqued my interest. I'm enjoying it so far. Might be worth a google?

If she likes the Barchester novels, I wonder if she might like Catherine Fox's Lindchester Chronicles (starts with Acts and Omissions). Cathedral politics inspired by Trollope, but modern day.

Probably read Mrs Gaskell's classics (Victorian). I like Rachel Ferguson (1920s). I found Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books quite silly and entertaining with lots of literary in-jokes. But they were 20 years ago she's probably read those too.

Not new, but if she likes fictionalised historical stuff, then David Wishart did some good ones based on the lives of Nero, Virgil, Ovid etc.

I like a lot of the same writers as your mum. So ...

How about The Friendly Ones or The Northern Clemancy by Philip Hensher.

Or The Observations or Gillespie and I by Jane Harris.

Or the Last Hundred Years trilogy by Jane Smiley.

Or Still Life by Sarah Winman.

All big chunky reads.

I've also recently enjoyed The Soldier's Return and A Son of War by Melvyn Bragg and waiting for the third in the trilogy to arrive.

And if she hasn't read Arnold Bennett have a look at The Old Wives' Tale and his Clayhanger series. Historical family sagas; very readable.

Does she like golden age crime - Agatha Christie era?

If yes, ECR Lorac is soooo good. Some are currently in print from the British Library. But you'd need to hit eBay or second-hand-book-sellers for the rest.

Also, have a look at Persephone Books. They do reprints of forgotten books, their catalogue is really something special.

I’m older and like a lot of the stuff your mother reads.

I know it sounds odd but I really liked reading the Game of Thrones set of books. I started the books before watching the series.

A few more of my favourite books are The Colour Purple, Precious Bane by Mary Webb and Beloved by Toni Morrison.

@Isheabastard I forgot to mention GOT! Yup she loved that. Great suggestions. Thanks so much

Steven Saylor's Roman fiction, covers the period of Sulla and Julius Caesar and more literary than the Falco novels. Or the Troy novels by Pat Barker.

Hilary Mantel?

Has she read any Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Half of a Yellow Sun is incredible.

Does she read much in translation? If not it might be easier to find something she hasn't read. What about Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet? Or The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani? Or Kirstin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (the modern translation by Tiina Nunnally).

I think I'd like your mum! Some great suggestions on here and I'm taking note too. I hope you find her something she loves!
My recommendations are : 'Songbirds' and 'The Beekeeper of Aleppo' both by Christy Lefteri.

I am reading the Andrew Taylor Ashes of London Series. Set in London just after (during to be accurate) the Great Fire it’s a series of six books covering the political upheaval following the restoration, and the re building of a damaged city . Main characters are a civil servant called Marwood whose father was imprisoned as a traitor and who is having to rebuild his reputation and establish himself in a city consumed by rumour, factions and men on the make, and a woman Cat, bright, intelligent who is having to make her own way in the world since having to leave her well to do family for a reason I won’t disclose. She ends up working in an architects office as part of the hundreds of people trying to rebuild London. Lots of historical detail about ordinary people , court life and working lives, clothes,fashions, food, great historical insights into a period that lots of people skip over , some good murders to be solved, some recurring villains, a will they won’t they romance of sorts I think the series has a lot going for it. And it’s well written.!

I'd not heard of Rachel Ferguson but this title of one of her novels is piquing my interest: The Brontës Went to Woolworths.

See also The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, the siege of Troy from a woman’s perspective.

My very favourite! It's a little bit surreal but quite sweet.

I read this and thought it was rubbish! I too was attracted by the title, but it’s nothing to do with the Brontës and was just quite weird.