Whistles Book Club: Women’s Prize For Fiction
The UK’s most prestigious book awards returns for 2019 to celebrate and honour fiction by women. Now in its 24th year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women in English from across the world. Whether you’re looking for books to enjoy on holiday or titles to kick off a book club with, there’s no better list to source inspiration from.
Ordinary People by Diana Evans
The drama of the everyday is at the heart of Diana Evans vibrant third novel. Ordinary People captures the lives of two couples in an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and ageing, and the fragile architecture of love.
Melissa has a new baby and doesn’t want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can’t quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian’s father has thrown him into crisis – or is it something, or someone, else?
Set in Troubles-era Northern Ireland, Anna Burns presents a darkly wry, subtly disquieting coming of age in her brilliant third novel.
In this city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes ‘interesting’. The last thing she ever wanted to be.
Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Introducing a short, darkly funny, hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has an inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends.
When Korede’s dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what’s expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This’ll be the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family comes first.
Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor Korede’s long been in love with. She isn’t prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back but to save one would mean sacrificing the other…
From the Orange Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Song of Achilles comes the powerful story of the mythological witch Circe, inspired by Homer’s Odyssey.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.
There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe’s independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. Until one day they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.
A masterpiece of storytelling, An American Marriage offers a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three unforgettable characters who are at once bound together and separated by forces beyond their control. It is a tender and humane dissection of what happens to a relationship when unforeseen events conspire to sabotage it.
The Silence of Girls by Pat Barker
There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan war whose voice has been silent – until now.
Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is slave to Achilles, the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story? Discover the greatest Greek myth of all – retold by the witness that history forgot.
The Silence of Girls is an electrifying revision of The Iliad, reframing the story through the voiceless women of war. This is startling must-read with a powerful message about who tells stories and why it matters.
For the chance to a £1000 Whistles makeover, plus tickets to the Women’s Prize awards, discover the competition here.
