If I loved Demon Copperhead...

[HippyKayYay]

... looking for recommendations for something to put on my Kindle before I go away this afternoon! The brief is very well written, but engrossing (think Demon Copperhead!). I was thinking of either Miranda July's All Fours (but it's expensive on Kindle) or Hello, Beautiful (but have read really mixed reviews). Any other ideas? Thanks!

Some books and authors I like:
Demon Copperhead
The Bee Sting
The Cazalet Chronicles
Sorrow and Bliss
Restless Dolly Maunder
All My Mothers
Dictionary of Lost Words
Lessons in Chemistry
The Whalebone Theatre
Hamnet
Shuggie Bain
Deborah Levy
Maggie O'Farrell
Colm Toibin
Rachel Cusk (although have to be in the right mood!)

Ones that I've found a bit meh or actively dislike
Still Life (it just hasn't grabbed me!)
Yellowface
Wolf Hall (have tried several times and I can't stick at it)
Neopolitan Novels (sorry!)
Island of Missing trees
Sally Rooney
Jessie Burton

Oh yes I loved this too!

i didn’t know about A Good Read! Thanks for the tip

Thanks all. Some good ones here. Some I’ve read before and like. Some not so much! And lots of new ones to try.

I was going to recommend this too. Although I read it the other way round to you - Empire of Pain first, then Demon Copperhead. Two brilliant books.

Have you read anything else by Barbara Kingsolver? I love pretty much all of her books.

i think we have similar taste - as well as loving Demon Copperhead and other Barbara Kingsolver I also love Maggie o’Farrell and can’t get along with Wolf Hall and hate Sally Rooney 😂. So will be stealing some suggestions from this thread.

I don't read non-fiction! Honestly, I'm not a philistine, but because I have to read a lot for work, non-fiction is a busman's holiday...

I haven't read any of her others. I got a sample of Poisonwood Bible, but it didn't grab me for some reason. I'll try again

Yes, I'll add this to the list as I've seen it recommended elsewhere for those who've liked DC and The Bee Sting

I never used to either, but I’ve discovered so many great non-fiction books that are page turners and read like fiction!

The Poisonwood Bible is worth another go. I also love Prodigal Summer and Unsheltered.

I would also recommend Michael Dorriss’s A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Dreamland, Rosa Rankin-Gee - epic writing, and the closest I've ever read to a modern-day Dickens, close correlations with the more dystopian elements of his work. One of the top ten best books I've ever read from probably thousands. Might just break your heart though.

I think Poisonwood bible is the worst Kingsolver book . And I loved DC .

A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

(I thought The Poisonwood Bible was really hard to get into, the first time I read it. It was worth persevering.)

Just finished this and immediately started reading as ironically I'm not ready to let go yet!! Can't recommend this highly enough. It's a slow burn but well worth it it's amazing

The Covenant of Water

Also
The Nightingale
All the light we cannot see

@HippyKayYay I loved Demon Copperhead and Lessons in Chemistry, and have just finished Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent, which I also loved. It's written in a similarly matter-of-fact narrative style, in the first person from two perspectives and was very much a page-turner for me.

Great suggestions here. I second suggestions for A Fine Balance and the Goldffinch. I did also enjoy the Poisonwood Bible.

Curtis Sittenfeld? I loved both American Wife and Rodham.

Adding my votes for The Goldfinch and The Secret History, both Donna Tartt.

I've already read these! I loved Secret History but I read it decades ago. Goldfinch I thought started really well, but lost steam/ focus. But it has stuck with me, years later!

I like similar books to you and would recommend:

A terrible kindness ⁃ Joe Browning Roe about the aberfan disaster in wales

American dirt
⁃ Jeanine Cummins story about mother and son fleeing/ the journey of immigrants

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world ⁃ Elif Shafak a story of a sex worker who has been murdered as she recalls her life as she dies, friendships and their stories

The girl with the louding voice
Abi dare - young girls life experience of servitude, wanting an education

Anything by John boyne:
The hearts invisible furies
All the broken places
The echo chamber
A ladder to the sky
The house of Special Purpose
A history of loneliness

I've found my people!!

So many amazing recommendations and so many that I've already read.

About All Fours - did you love it from the start or is it a ‘stick with it’ kind of read? I’m a chapter in and not loving it as much as I thought I would!

Your taste is mine!
Have you tried Sarah Waters? Elizabeth Stout? Claire Chambers? Sebastian Faulks?