Positive escapism series

I’m going through an incredibly dark season, as we all do eventually, and I’m leaning especially hard on my lifelong coping mechanism of reading.

I’ve been getting some wonderful suggestions from this sub, but since my needs are incredibly specific right now, I’m sort of spending a lot of money on great stories that I’m having to set aside for a time because they’re a little too heart rending or dark. Some examples are “The Sun Eater”, “Kaiju”, and “Ash and Sand” (this last one is especially good and I’m looking forward to finishing it later on). Normally I really enjoy books that paint the many true colors found in life, but I’m sort of surrounded by the dark ones at the moment and can’t bear any illustration of grief right now.

Examples of authors/books that have been perfectly suited to this so far include Dungeon Crawler Carl, Will Wight, and Drew Hayes. Harry Potter and LOTR are good for every situation, always, so I feel a bit silly throwing them in there too, but here we are. Long series that remain pretty action packed, with a bonus for humor. The hypothetical book gets thrown at the metaphorical wall if a main character gets killed off (that’s actually a pet peeve of mine even during the good times in life). I use audiobooks so I can listen all day, from workouts to meals to work and even to sleep. Emotional meltdowns may or may not have occurred when a series ended and I happened to be sitting still at the time.

I do realize that this doesn’t describe a healthy coping mechanism, but it doesn’t involve a mind altering substance so I’m still calling it a win.

I’m grateful for suggestions of books/series that might have sent you into a much needed happy(ish) place.

Edit: Thank you all so much for these recommendations and kind words. I hadn’t even heard of most of these suggestions and it will be wonderful to be able to return to this thread for as long as I need to. It’s really a blessing.