My mother has been on a reading tear for the past couple of years. For Christmas this year I'll be buying her a curated collection of books that (I hope) she'll enjoy. She recently told me she has been into historical fiction, so I suggested The Heart's Invisible Furies, having loved it myself… she wasn't into it at all and couldn't finish it. (Could have been the copious gay sex, I'm not quite certain.)
Anyhow, the following is a list of her "five star" books on Goodreads. I would welcome any suggestions based on the list!
Kate Jacobs – The Friday Night Knitting Club
Maria Semple – Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Louise Penny – How the Light Gets In, Glass Houses, All the Devils are Here, A World of Curiosities
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Carrie Soto is Back
JoJo Moyes – Still Me, The Giver of Stars, Someone Else’s Shoes
Delia Owens – Where the Crawdads Sing
Ann Pratchett – The Dutch House
Lori Nelson Spielman – The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
Frances Itani – The Company We Keep
Alka Joshi – The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, The Perfumist of Paris
Gabrielle Zevin -Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Abby Jimenez – Part of Your World
Bonnie Garmus – Lessons in Chemistry
Lily Chu – The Stand-In
Jennifer Close – Marrying the Ketchups
Emily Henry – Funny Story
Kristin Hannah – The Women
Janet Skeslien Charles – Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade
by the_originateur
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The Alice Network – Kate Quinn
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion- Fannie Flagg
The Women in the Castle – Jessica Shattuck
The Things We Cannot Say – Kelly Rimmer
These are a few that come to mind. Most of the historical fiction I read tends to be WWII based. I’m currently reading The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman, but I’m only a couple chapters in.
Not sure if they’re anything she may like, but definitely look them up on Goodreads to see.
I love this genre too. A couple newer favorites: Pachinko (Korea pre Japanese annexation and Koreans in Japan through 1980s) Its wonderful and comes up on a lot of lists, so she may have already read it. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende (Spanish civil war through post-Pinochet Chile).
A little older is The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic under Trujillo).