100 books like Crazy for You

I adore this book for its incisive portrayal of familial expectations clashing with personal desires. The way Austen unfolds the Bennet sisters' stories against societal norms speaks to me about the courage it takes to pursue true happiness, regardless of the pressures that surround us.

What really resonated with me was Elizabeth Bennet’s necessity to maintain a facade while internally struggling with her true wants and needs within the constraints of her family.

This is book 4 in the series, so please don’t read it first. Richard’s four main characters, all interesting people in their own rights with complex relationships, formed “The Thursday Murder Club” in Book 1. 

Okay – not a romantic comedy, more a cozy crime mystery set in an old people’s home, but you get the impression reading any of his books, that Richard really loved writing them and spending time with his characters, which makes all of them such a joy to read.

Lots of twists and turns, but the crime is solved in the end – so a Happy Ever After of sorts and the author keeps throwing in lighter moments to keep you reading and smiling through to the end. There is a dog in this one too.

Jilly Cooper is for me, a go-to author when I need to take life a little less seriously. 

I discovered Rupert Campbell Black in Riders. It wasn’t love at first read. I didn’t much care for him until I started to read the second in this series. A fabulous, fun romp with laugh out loud moments (and of course animals) set again in Rutshire - Rivals. 

Divorced, Rupert is now Minister for Sport. A great book; in that this is Rupert’s journey to love and his own Happy Ever After. I defy anyone not to read it and love him by the end. 

Jilly Cooper is a wonderful storyteller, with a glorious sense of humour. 

Alert – plenty of sex scenes, from the queen of the “bonk-buster”!

I was introduced to Sue Moorcroft’s writing when she was published by my publisher, Choc Lit (part of Joffe Books Ltd now). She is another beautiful writer, who has the whole storytelling shebang down to a fine art. Her characters are realistic, believable people. Every word is carefully chosen; the plot moves on at a pace. 

I wasn’t sure I’d like or even empathize with Tess or Ratty when I first started reading this. Tess bumps, quite literally, into Ratty, so not the smoothest start. They both have flaws and are definitely not sure about each other. But it wasn’t long before I found it difficult to put down. 

As I began to understand the characters, I found myself willing them to get together and find their Happy Ever After.

A Kirkus review aptly described this novel as “mysterious, bizarre, frustrating, weirdly smart and pretty cool”. 

It’s mostly a fiercely intelligent exploration of both political and personal crises in 2017, the year of Trump and Brexit. Radical feminist Kathy has also fairly inexplicably agreed to get married. Pre-wedding she travels to a resort in Italy with her fiancé where she tumbles through a range of highly-emotive stances on intimacy and closeness.

After an argument about prosciutto and fig ciabattas with her husband “she hated him, she hated any kind of warmth or dependency, she wanted to take up residence as an ice cube in a long glass of aqua frizzante.”  Her fury quickly dissolves “anyway they sorted it out” and the novel travels brilliantly onwards.

This is a seriously funny book full of great dialogue. It’s also a great premise…the hero who makes a bet with his friend to sleep with said friend’s very cranky ex-girlfriend.

Min has just been recently dumped by a man she didn’t love, but she’s not in the mood to deal with any man’s ****. Cal is stupidly handsome, successful, and charming, but he needs to be brought down a peg or ten. This is opposites attract romance with lots of heart!

We love a deconstructed fairytale, and even better if it’s RE-constructed right afterward! 

Who doesn’t love an anxious Prince Charming who falls directly off his horse? Let alone his slobby yet sexily competent True Love. This book was a heartwarming character study of the two leads, as well as a swoony romance that scratched all the reality TV itches we had. We loved the tropes, the wit, and the earnestness of a happily ever after that truly believes in itself, no matter how fantastical the odds.

My newspaper comic strip had just finished its run, and I was looking for my next big thing. That’s when I came across Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

The drawings were simple and hilarious, and the clever writing didn’t seem to be just for kids. Greg Heffley has this flawed prickly everyman edge which makes him easy to identify with. But as good as this book and series are, I was more impressed with the new way Jeff Kinney had found to sneak comics into chapter books. 

I was deeply affected by Foer’s descriptions of the shtetl in Poland, the cruelty that affected its villagers, and the inescapable effect of this tragedy on future generations. Foer’s ancestry mirrored what I knew of my own family history, and the desire we have to document those stories before they disappear. But Foer alternates the “old world’s” dramatic scenes with hilarity. The Polish blind driver who guides Foer on his search to discover his family’s past employs a “seeing eye bitch” (a dog) to help him navigate the countryside. And his narrator’s constant quirky misuse of English makes for a unique voice that I still—twenty years after reading the book—can’t get out of my head. The novel is at times heartbreaking, at times uproarious, and always oh-so-satisfying.  

Technically, Stephanie Plum isn’t an amateur sleuth because she works as a bounty hunter, but since she was never trained and tends to succeed despite her bungling and ineptitude, I consider her an amateur sleuth. Besides, when you’re sorely in need of a good laugh to release some endorphins, you can’t go wrong spending a few hours with Stephanie and her colorful cohorts. This twenty-seventh outing in the long-running series is one of the best when it comes not only to the humor, but it offers up a well-plotted story, and lots of red herrings. Plus, there’s plenty of Grandma Masur in this one. What more could you ask for?