Help me choose my first book in 12 years

[Tinybirdie]

I used to enjoy reading, but this stopped when I fell pregnant. I couldn't seem to concentrate and I gave up with frustration. Since then, I have had no inclination to pick up a book.
In 2 weeks we are heading off for a 7 day holiday. Usually our holidays are very active, but this will be more relaxing. So, I have decided to go prepared with a book. It needs to be easy reading. I dont enjoy highly detailed books which take 2 pages to describe a sneeze. I used to enjoy thrillers alongside more light hearted fiction.

Bella Mackie, How to Kill your Family might be a good one to start with. It’s got lots going on without being too wordy.

Thriller wise, I've enjoyed books by Liane Moriarty, Lisa Jewell and Martina Cole.
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey is a good, funny and easy read.
How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie is also a good thriller-ish, easy read, with some funny bits too.

Highly recommend Lisa Jewell. Mix of genres, but she does a good (light) thriller. Her audiobooks are great too, voiced by some well known British actors. Don’t Let Him In, none of this is true, and the house we grew up in are all really good.
Also, if you can cope with an American narrator, Karin Slaughters Pretty Girls was fab too as an audiobook.

I only read the beginning of How to kill your family and didn't get into it at all so if that's your sort of thing you might not want to listen to me!

I recently read 'Educated' on holiday by Tara Westover and would really recommend that - it's a memoir and sounds quite full on from the description but the author doesn't go on and on about boring details and i found it really easy to read. It's really engaging as there was always something quite dramatic happening.

The other favourite book I've read on holiday is The Handmaids tale, pretty dystopian and you might well have read it already but it's so engaging that i found it a very easy read and was gutted when i finished it.

I agreed that Lisa Jewell would be a great place to start. If I'm ever in a rut and struggling to read I can always pick one her books up and get into it easily.
If you fancy something with a bit more to it but still easy to read I really enjoyed All the Colours of the Dark recently.

Give an example of something you read before that you enjoyed. Will give a starting point for the kind of thing you like.

I can barely recall who I used to read! Lisa Jewell does seem to be a good shout from what I can see. Think I will give one a go!

Anything by Louise Candlish generally keeps me entertained.

For a bit of added interest for you, choose a book that is set in the area you will be visiting. This is easy if you are off to the South of France or to Italy, but not so easy if you are heading for Azerbaijan of course.

Have a great holiday wherever you're going! 🍹 🍹 🍹

Agree that How to Kill your Family is good.

Also The Appeal by Janice Hallett is a page turner, v funny in places - it's crime fiction but not heavy stuff.

Would recommend 'Ali & Nino' by Kurban Said if you are going to Azerbaijan!

If you used to like thrillers, I think you should try the Ruth Galloway by Ely Griffiths. They are more crime/police procedural than thrillers but still very gripping and character driven so you get pulled in to the overarching story. They really helped me to get back into reading after a major bereavement. There are, I think, 16 books in the series and I could not put them down.