I’m not enjoying the books I am reading

[AnnotherReader]

I am not enjoying the books I am reading at the moment. I have read 38 books so far this year and only 2 have been 5 stars and one of them was a reread.

I have been through all my favourite books and picked out common themes. Can you recommend me any books based on my likes/dislikes below. I have also listed some of my favourite books and how they fit with the list.

likes:
time period 1800-1939 (either written in this period or more recent books set in this period)
rural or wild setting
a book within a book or books to do with books/stories/reading
pirates/books set on ships
romance
adventure
magic
crime especially golden age
epistolary novels
the chosen one trope

don’t like:
thrillers
literary fiction
smut/ too much sex

favourite books:
Emma by Jane Austen (time period, romance, rural setting)
Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer (time period, romance, rural setting in part)
A Month in the Country (time period, rural setting)
The Reader by Traci Chee (rural setting, book about a book, adventure, pirates/ships)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (book within a book, romance)
The Documents in the Case by Dorothy Sayers (epistolary, crime, time period)
Dangerous Liasions (epistolary, romance)
The Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb (ships, pirates, adventure, some romance)
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (time period, romance, rural setting)
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (time period, magic)
Harry Potter (magic, the chosen one)
The Famous Five by Enid Blyton (rural setting, adventure) - I loved these books as a child and have never managed to find the equivalent adult adventure books

I have read all of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell and am currently working my way through the rest of Robin Hobbs Realm of the Elderlings books.

If you have read all this, thank you, as you can see from my favourite books they don’t have to include everything on my likes list but most have at least 2. Please give me some recommendations for other books I might like.

Natasha Pulley's books; The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Bedlam Stacks etc. I have loved her stuff (except for her latest one, it was a bit meh).

The Familiars by Stacey Hall

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeal

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (epistolary, 19th century, crime - according to Dorothy L. Sayers, 'probably the finest detective novel ever written. I think it probably includes another few themes on your list too)

Have you read Sayers's Wimsey books? I think the best is The Nine Tailors, if you haven't read it. Murder Must Advertise is also great (and set in a 20s/30s advertising firm, so quite a lot of fun in terms of period setting).

Totally different period (medieval) but The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco is wonderful (crime, books about reading - includes possibly the best library in fiction).

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (time period, romance, some rural setting).

You need to read The Binding by Bridget Collins - set among marshes, in 19th C (I think - I read it ages ago) it's about a book binder and has a magical element. I loved it. Very atmospheric.

If you like a bit of magic, House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende is gorgeous.

Also have you read the classic gothic novels like Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights, The Moonstone?

The Snow Spider Jenny Nimmo

and the rest of the trilogy

The Poldark series by Winston Graham. Setting is a bit earlier than your timeframe but everything else fits. So much better than the TV series - amazing books and there are 12 of them!

Finger smith by Sarah Waters
The Crimson Petal and the White
Night Circus has quite Norrell and Strange vibes…also have you read Piranesi? Although I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much…
Is Anne of Green Gables too obvious?

Pease try the books Laura Shepherd-Robinson has so artfully written.
I do enjoy Patricia Highsmith's work too.

The Miniaturist Jesse Burton etc

For stories within stories, you could check out Kate Mosse. These also have the period feel.

For books with a period feel, Sarah Waters. I also loved An instance of the finger post by Ian Pears and Quincunx by Charles Palliser.

Definitely Piranesi, it's fab. And yes to the Snow Child mentioned by a pp above.

There is also a similar style of writing to many of your likes (the ones i recognise at least), quite literary rather than holiday read. Little by Edward Carey is written in a similar style and is a fictionalised biography of madame tussaud.

I did also wonder about Crimson Petal and the White. It's great, but the main character is a prostitute so may not be your thing. However, there are no sex scenes in a smutty sense, but sex an is frequently and quite crudely mentioned

The first book that comes to my mind from you post OP is Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Set a little earlier than your dates (18th Century), but written in late 1800s. Set on a ship and rural setting. Adventure.

Also thought of The Familiars by Stacey Hall and The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.

Yes to House of The Spirits by Isabelle Allende. Also One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Everything by Kate Atkinson.

Seven Sisters as PP suggested

I second these books. Fits your brief well.

If you like Elizabeth Gaskell how about George Elliot? "Middlemarch" is superb.

The Master & Commander series by Patrick O'Brien. All set on ships, around the early 1800s. I reckon these are in the category of adult-Famous-Five style adventures. My go-to comfort reads.

Have you come across https://persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/book-list ? Most of the books on the list will meet at least one of your criteria. My favourites include High Wages by Dorothy Whipple and The Making of a Marchioness - Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Have you read Possession by AS Byatt, OP? It hits the book-within-a-book brief, is partly epistolary in structure and one strand of the story is set in the Victorian era.

Woman in white by Wilkie Collins? Time, a bit rural from memory and a mystery

The French Lieutenants's Woman John Fowles

Lady Audley’s fan for a bit of Victorian melodrama.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz for a book within a book kind of thing

t

Sorry - Lady Audley’s secret not fan!

the Don Camillo books

It's just outside your time period, and it's not exactly rural, and it's not romance or magic or ships or really adventure or crime, and it's neither epistolary nor anything to do with books

but you love Emma and Bath Tangle and The Documents in the Case so I'm suggesting it anyway. And it's not thriller or literary fiction and there's no smut

The Brother Cadfael novels too - again, totally outside your time period but there's crime and a bit of romance and possibly some adventure. I would love to have got Dorothy Sayers and Edith Pargeter discussing life and religion.

Atonement by Ian McEwan?

Alan Garner The Weirdstone of Brisingamen