looking for inspiration

I love Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series
C J Sansom Shardlake books
Elly Griffiths Ruth Galloway series
Susan Hill Simon Serailler books

How's that for starters Kate, hope you find something you like.

I've just discovered Donna Leon books about Commissario Brunetti set in Venice. He's like an Italian van der Valk, and you really feel as if you are there as he investigates crimes. Full of Venetian detail. And a further cosy series of books is Poldark by Winston Graham. Also anything by Alexander McCall Smith, usually quick reads!

I'm just starting the Cazalet Chronicles again...lovely big family saga set over generations

Books by Anne Tyler fit the bill for me

I second Anne Tyler, I've read all of her work, The Amateur Marriage was my favourite.

You might like -

Circe, Song of Achilles and Galatea by Madeline Miller.

Alexander Mcall Smith, the No 1 Detective Agency series - delightful. If you are interested in Botswana after reading them, you might like to watch the film A United Kingdom.

Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts.

Elizabeth Gilbert - Eat/Pray/Love, The Signature of all Things.

Richard Kingsnorth, The Wake (written in shadow tongue,takes a while to get into but well worth the effort)

Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Richard Powers, The Overstory

Anything by Hilary Mantel

I wrote Count Your Blessings in 2021. Its published by Onwards & Upwards. There are hopeful poems and short stories about surviving life challenges and overcoming them..

I have enjoyed reading all of Alan Johnson’s memoirs even though I don’t agree with his politics.

I have been rereading several of Margaret Forster’s books. also Tony Parsons books.

Then I switch to crime/mysteries and I liked Jane Cory, Rebecca Ware and a few others.

I recently listened on audio to "Shrines of Gaiety" by Kate Atkinson. It is also in print and on Kindle. Loosely based on Kate Meyrick, who owned London nightclubs in the twenties, it is a story about a matriarch "nightclub queen" and her family of 5.

I have enjoyed many of the above but I enjoy Richard Russo novels, for example Nobody’s Fool. If you like historical fiction Sharon Penman is excellent and Alison Weir writes very readable historical non fiction and decent fiction too.

I second all Madeline Miller’s books, also Pat Barker’s “Silence of the Girls” and “Women of Troy”. In fact, anything by Pat Barker. Nathalie Haynes “A Thousand Ships”.
S.W. Perry’s “The Jackdaw Mysteries”; mediaeval whodunnits.
Anything by Anne Cleeves.

I have enjoyed many of the books already mentioned.. if you like historical fiction the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett are addictive. I think there are 6 books in all and I binge read them, something I very rarely do.

Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St Mary's.

Oh, yes, teabag. All the Dorothy Dunnett historical novels. I’m re-reading one of the 8 Niccolo series - set in the late 1400s and predates the Lymond series. Fabulous, and lovely big fat books which last long.
Her novel about MacBeth “King Hereafter” is a very interesting take on MacBeth, not remotely like the Shakespeare play!
“Lessons in Chemistry” is now out in paperback, worth a read. Funny and informative.