Just loading up my kindle for a week off. I don’t want to be emotionally destroyed. But nor do I want it to be too sickly sweet cozy . It doesn’t have to be a five star book. But if you personally enjoyed it please list it, especially if it is a bit more obscure.
One area that I haven’t read that much in is more recent literary works. I love Barbara Kingsolver and Maggie O’Farrell but they both like to just crack open my chest cavity and stab, stab, stab my heart. Which is not what I’m looking for this week. I’m not even sure if lower stake literary books are a thing but any suggestions welcome.
***Examples of the kind of things I’m looking for.***
Mystery books like Anne Cleeves Vera series and Sarah Caudwell’s Thus was Adonis Murdered
Fantasy books like T Kingfisher and P Djèlí Clark’s Cairo books.
Sci-fi books like Murderbot and Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series
Historical Fiction books like Flashman and Georgette Heyer
Classics like Cranford and Excellent Women
Non-Fiction History like The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak and A Fatal Thing Happened on the way to the Forum by Emma Southon.
***Books I disliked.***
The Golden Spoon – It’s like the author thought of the coziest plot imaginable but none of the characters had any warmth to them. Found it insincere.
Lucy Foley – Straight no.
Legends and Lattes – I was surprised, felt like this should be my thing, but I couldn’t get past the sample.
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by Indifferent_Jackdaw
13 Comments
I really enjoyed Shayne Parkinson’s “Promises to Keep” series. It’s a series of 4 historical fiction novels set in frontier New Zealand. They’re self-published, which is usually a huge turnoff for me, but these were very good.
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. I also didn’t like Legends and Lattes and thought I just didn’t like cozy stuff but Emily Wilde has a lot at stakes but still feels like a book you read by the fireplace and made me rethink my definition of cozy fantasy .
Foster by Claire Keegan
Dutch House or Tom Lake, both by Ann Patchett
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Books by Laurie Colwin, in general
Try, Ukeria: The Prophecy of Cypher by Mr. Uker.
Was gifted to me and I found it quite intriguing. Waljan is one of my favorite characters.
death in her hands – ottessa moshfegh
Try Becky Chambers. Cozy low-stakes character driven sci-fi.
Willie Collins, esp The Woman in White.
Loading up for the week? Lol how many books a week do you read?
Ive been reading Power of the Dog by Winslow for like 4 weeks now!
The Perveen Mistry series by Sujata Massey. The first one is The Windows of Malabar Hill. It’s historical fiction following the first female lawyer in Bombay in the 1920s.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley is a fantasy reread for me.
House in the cerulean sea. The very secret society of irregular witches. Belladonna.
Seconding the suggestion of Emily Wilde’s encyclopaedia.
Can go through any of these in a couple of sessions, good plot and characters, but not lots of investment or brain power required.
An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten
It’s a short story collection about an elderly lady who has zero fucks to give. Technically stand alone short stories but they all center on the same character in the same setting. Very funny and easy!