A book where you really get involved with the characters

[tobee]

I feel like reading this kind of book.

However, I'm more interested in hearing about the books you have read where you felt really involved with the characters; where you even missed them when the book (or series maybe) was over.

I'm imagining (and hoping) that there will be a variety.

Paullina Simons The Bronze Horseman trilogy, although I love all of her books.

Colleen hoover
Mark edwards
Ruth ware
Jill Mansell
Alice Feeny

I agree about Capture the Castle! One I return to every now and then.

Mary Lawson,a Canadian writer, writes about rural northern CAnada.
A town called Solace
The other side of the bridge.
CrowLake
Ive enjoyed all three.
She was interviewed on Bookclub on Radio
4 and mentioned she spent 5 years writing Crow Lake!!

I read A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantell. A huge book and it took a while to get into but by the end I was completely in love with all the characters and felt bereft at the end!

BTW Mary Lawson has been long listed for the Booker Prize twice.
It's a shame how authors just seem to drop off people's radar - we seem to hear about the same ones over and over.

Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan

It ended completely different to how I thought I would 😥

Tell the wolves I'm home <happy sad emoji>

to put those 2 in the same sentence 😱

Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s series

@tallsmallmum
Yep. I'm not a literary snob! Jane Austen wrote gripping and engaging characters that stay in your head. So does Keyes. You should see some other writers I put in the same sentence!

Shuggie Bain

Theo and Boris in The Goldfinch. Tess and Jake in Sweetbitter. The unnamed narrator of My Year Of Rest And Relaxation.

I agree with quite a lot of these:

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (I first came across this as a teacher and have read it many times)
Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon and if you love these...
the Bronze Horseman Trilogy by Paullina Simons
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

This was going to be my first suggestion.

David Copperfield. The vivid, three-dimensional presence of the characters is incredible. Tolstoy said that when he finished it he cried like he was saying goodbye to old friends. Even as I'm sitting here, I can 'see' Micawber and his wife, and David's aunt and Mr Dick and Uriah Heep.

Pride and Prejudice. Yeah, hardly original, but god Lizzie Bennett is so real and alive it's almost creepy.

Lord of the Rings has the same quality. But the incredible thing about LOTRs is that Tolkien achieved it with non-human characters. Tom Bombadil is utterly vivid and alive. Get a good audiobook recording and it's like he's in the room.

Evelyn Waugh is very good at character. The characters at the start of Decline and Fall, for example, when he's at the school in Wales, really linger in my mind. It's also the funniest book in the English language (John Betjamen said he knew he'd never read anything funnier).

Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels. Read them out loud and Bertie's voice gets inside your head.

I also add my vote for Birdsong, Wolf Hall, and His Dark Materials

My sister the serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite - not a long book but somehow she pulls you in very quickly.

Yep I love Evelyn Waugh @JaneyGee and Charles Dickens and Austen (naturally )

Maybe I'm a masochist but I love the mixture of comedy and excruciating vicarious experience that Waugh's books engender. Particularly I'm a fan of Sword of Honour Trilogy. .

Jonathan Coe's books are very character-involving (some of them are hideous, but they do stay with you for quite a while after). Highly recommend.

Another vote for Robin Hobb. I'm on the 8th book and the characters are extremely well-written. There are a few scenes that simply stay with me and I find myself searching Pinterest for art on them.

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey - Maturin series,
Antonia Forest’s Marlows series,
Jane Austen,
Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles,
Elizabeth Gaskell Cranford,
John Galsworthy The Forsyte Saga,
Elizabeth Jane Howard The Cazalet Chronicles (except the disappointing late addition),
RF Delderfield’s The Dreaming Suburb and The Avenue at War, and To Serve Them All My Days,
Naguib Mahfouz The Cairo Trilogy,
Irène Némirovsky Suite Française,
Mrs Oliphant Chronicles of Carlingford,
Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles,
Barbara Willard’s Mantlemass series,
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series,
Antonia Barber’s The Ghosts/The Amazing Mr Blunden,
Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci novels and The Dalemark Quartet,
Antonia White’s Frost in May and sequels,
Jacqueline Wilson’s The Illustrated Mum.

It's a strange thing about Waugh. His books are savagely cruel (he was a deeply unpleasant man), yet somehow uplifting. I think it's the complete absence of mawkishness or sentimentality, combined with sublime prose and immense humour. There's something weirdly refreshing about the callousness. He's wonderful on audiobook. Some authors (Dickens, P G Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Roald Dahl, etc) were made for audio. Get a great Shakespearean actor reading Waugh and there's nothing like it. If you are able, track down a copy of Michael Maloney reading Decline and Fall. Listening to that was one of the great experiences of my life.

Someone above mentioned Galsworthy's Forsythe Saga, which I second. Have you tried Powell's Dance to the Music of Time? It has been called England's answer to Proust (Clive James revered Powell). I read the first volume. It's pretty good, and very character driven.

How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones is one I am always recommending. (Danielle Vitalis as the narrator on Audible is perfection).

Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

People Person by Candice Carty-Williams

Ooh, just looking back over my Goodreads lists and I can't believe I missed out this gem...

The Girls From Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe - riveting book.

This thread is a really useful resource for me!

I love Michael Maloney (have him reading Stamboul Train) so that's a great suggestion. My husband is a big Dance to the Music of Time fan so I should probably get out his volumes from the bookshelf. Should keep me busy! @JaneyGee