Fans pick 100 books like All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye

My mother had every one of Georgette Heyer’s regency novels, and I inherited them. They are witty, romantic, and satisfying. When I feel sad I dive beneath their covers and lose myself in them. I also remember my mum. The Grand Sophy was her favourite, it is the story of an extraordinary young woman who has a gift for sorting out other people’s problems – whether they want her to or not!

I found The Moon-Spiners through a Disney movie of the same name (book was better). When I found out it was also a book, I went hunting at my local library and fell in love with the way Stewart immediately pulled me into her stories, evoking awe, fear, laughter ,and romance. She wafted me away to exotic places, and into exciting and romantic adventures with strong female characters. I went on to read all her books, even the Arthurian ones, but her romantic suspense books remain my favorites and the ones I turn to when I need a comfortable visit with old fictional friends. 

Through Covid I revisited childhood favourites, and found I still loved this series. Cathy has grown up in a Birmingham orphanage, and the only clues to her identity are a locket with a portrait of a Highland lady and a torn luggage label. She escapes north, where she meets Ian and Sovra. They spend their time messing about in their boat on the loch or camping in a remote bothy. Their determination to help Cathy gets them all into trouble, but it’s Cathy’s own character that gives her the chance of a happy ending.

Kate Brannigan is my go-to heroine when I want to be cheered up. She’s a wise-cracking, kick-boxing, quick-witted Manchester PI and in this novel she investigates the Case of the Missing Conservatories. Other series characters include her music journo boyfriend, Richard (Kate’s more likely to rescue him), her friends Chris and Alexis who’re having problems with a bent builder, and her firm’s scary secretary who’s suddenly become a lovesick teenager. It’s cleverly plotted, fast-moving, and stars a feisty woman who takes no prisoners. I wish there were more books in this series—five isn’t enough!

A man is sent to visit a mysterious count in his secluded mountaintop fortress, where a diabolical plot unfolds, involving an attack on England using his Angels of Death, women under his hypnotic command. The man finds himself slowly becoming a prisoner, leading to his planning an escape and a race to stop the Count’s plot from unfolding.

Sound familiar? It is, essentially, the plot of Dracula. It is also the plot of Ian Fleming’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the tenth James Bond novel. If Count Dracula is the king of vampires, then James Bond is inarguably the king of spies.

Sometimes, when I talk about this book when I’m teaching writing students, I like to joke: “Luckily, I’m Jewish, so I can say this: Fleming was sexist, racist, and anti-Semitic, but boy, could he write!”

It always gets a laugh. And indeed, I don’t think it’s true. He was a writer in his time. I take pride in my writing being clean, clear, and simple. My inspirations were writers such as Chandler, Hammett, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. Fleming took the lessons he’d learned from them and created a whole new genre. Pick up any of his novels and see how they are far more complex, compelling, and, as you’ll see, beautifully written. 

This is the latest in a series that is a clever parody of the James Bond series of books by Ian Fleming. 

Haris Orkin is an excellent writer who has built this series around his charming protagonist, James Flynn, who you cannot tell if he is crazy or has the deepest and most brilliant cover story imaginable – a patient in a psychiatric hospital.

While it is told with a tongue firmly planted in cheek, there is plenty of real action and adventure. It is a great escape from the mundane everyday life.     

I found this book to be like a mix between Gallagher Girls and Alex Rider, with maybe a bit of Mean Girls in the mix—all in a good way!

One thing that sets this book apart from other teen spy books is that all the characters are damaged and yet they use that to fight back and to show the world what they’re made of. I felt like I was watching a movie while reading the book, and the scenes felt like I was in a James Bond movie! I can’t wait to crack open book 2.

Dr. No was the sixth James Bond novel Fleming wrote but it was the first one I was finally able to read in paperback when I was about twelve years old.

It transfixed me. I had never read anything quite like it, transporting a boy trapped in small-town Ontario into a wider world of sophistication, sex, and violence.

I devoured the other Bond adventures as fast as I could get my hands on them. If any books made me hunger for faraway glamorous places, it was the Bond novels.

If you can’t imagine the influence Fleming’s worldly writing had on me, you have only to read one of the Priscilla Tempest mysteries.

The first section of this book feels so accurate in its depiction of the Smersh (death to spies) training camp that I hardly missed 007 at all, who appears on page 95 in part two of the book. I first came across James Bond when my sister, who was three years my senior, got me to see the 1963 film. I was twelve at the time. I wonder what today’s politically correct regime would have to say about that? My sister was probably underage as well but looked older, so she passed muster.

This book is my favorite of Fleming’s Bond books. I have read it many times, yet when I pick it up to start again, there is that air of excitement; I can almost smell the exotic location of Istanbul, Bond being pitched against a dangerous adversary, and, to top it all, the remarkable character, Colonel Rosa Klebb,… show more.