10 best books written by women: From Hilary Mantel to Sally Rooney

Ann Patchett’s novel about two siblings, their unusual childhood home and a past that they can’t let go was longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and we’re surprised it didn’t make the shortlist. Danny Conroy and his older sister Maeve grow up in The Dutch House, a grand mansion on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Their father, a self-made property magnate, is a distant figure and their mother has mysteriously walked out but the siblings are devoted to each other. But one day their father brings the ghastly Andrea home, along with Andrea’s two young daughters, and Danny and Maeve are forced to endure even greater sadness than before. Patchett writes beautifully about family, love and loss and the powerful bonds that bind us all. This is a novel that stayed in our minds long after we finished reading.

Fans have been eagerly anticipating the third installment in Susie Steiner’s Manon Bradshaw series and Remain Silent is definitely worth the wait. Manon, a detective inspector in the Cambridgeshire police, is a larger-than-life character – often rude, frequently chaotic but great at her job. When the body of a young migrant is discovered hanging from a tree there’s no signs of a struggle and no indication that his death was anything other than a tragic suicide – except for a note pinned to his trousers, written in Lithuanian and saying “the dead cannot speak”. Steiner combines compelling plots with astute social commentary and this is every bit as good as her first two Manon Bradshaw novels.

Abi Daré grew up in Nigeria and was inspired to write The Girl with the Louding Voice by her memories of the young, impoverished housemaids who worked for middle-class families in Lagos. Fourteen-year-old Adunni, her spirited heroine, has ambitions to become a teacher but after the death of her adored mother her father forces her into an abusive marriage with a local taxi driver who already has two wives and four children. When tragedy strikes she flees her husband and is sold as a domestic slave to a wealthy household in Lagos, only to suffer unspeakable cruelty all over again. Adunni’s humour and fierce determination to change her destiny shine through this remarkable debut novel.

Although published in 2018 and received great reviews at the time and had already sold more than a million copies, Sally Rooney’s Normal People is one of the most talked-about novels of the year – thanks to the recent BBC adaptation of the same name. If you loved the TV dramatisation you should read the story of Marianne and Connell, the star-crossed lovers who grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland and try to stay apart but can’t. At school Connell is popular with everyone while Marianne is a loner. The situation changes at university in Dublin, where Marianne thrives but Connell finds it hard to fit in. Rooney is still only 29 but she’s a wonderful writer who deserves every single plaudit she’s received.

Bernardine Evaristo won last year’s Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, sharing the award with Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. Barack Obama named Evaristo’s novel as one of his favourite books of 2019 and it has been shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novel follows the interconnected lives of 12 black women as they navigate living in Britain over several decades. Evaristo, who is professor of creative writing at Brunel University, has described the book as “a novel that explores class, gender, sexuality, family, work and race from multiple perspectives” and as well as being an insightful portrait of contemporary British womanhood it is also superbly readable.

Amanda Craig takes inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and the “Beauty and the Beast” fairytale and weaves an enthralling tale of deceit and deception. When impoverished cleaner Hannah stumbles into the first-class carriage of the London to Penzance train she encounters Jinni, a vision of elegance who’s everything that Hannah isn’t. But both have unhappy marriages and during the journey they hatch a plan to murder each other’s husbands, confident that no one will ever connect them. However, when Hannah pitches up at the ancestral home of Jinni’s husband she discovers a very different person to the one her fellow passenger described. Craig’s eighth novel, published on 2 July, is perceptive and wise, particularly on the ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Casey Peabody feels like she has the whole world on her shoulders. At 31, she’s living in a rented potting shed in Massachusetts, her mother has just died and she’s recovering from a devastating love affair. She makes ends meet by waitressing at a high-end restaurant but her life’s ambition is to get the novel she’s been writing for six years published. US writer Lily King has won a host of awards for her books and this wise, witty and generous-spirited novel about a struggling writer striving to get her voice heard, pay her bills and come to terms with her grief is a delight. She’s brilliant on the trials and tribulations of restaurant workers and the struggles of aspiring writers, complete with rejection letters and constant doubt that their novels are any good.

Maggie O’Farrell’s first historical novel focuses on Hamnet, the son of William Shakespeare. Eleven-year-old Hamnet died of the plague in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1596 and a few years later his father wrote Hamlet. Hamnet is a book that O’Farrell, the author of books including The Distance Between Us and The Hand that First Held Mine, has wanted to write for more than 30 years. “I’ve always felt Hamnet’s story has been eclipsed, his short life relegated to a literary footnote,” she says. “He gets very little mention in any of his father’s biographies.” This wonderfully evocative novel is a joy to read, which has been shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction – and justifiably so.

Queenie Jenkins is a young black woman who’s just broken up with her long-term boyfriend Tom. Her boss doesn’t appreciate her and her family never listens (they’re not interested unless the conversation is about Jesus or water rates). A fresh, funny and at times painful read about race, gender, mental health and consent. Candice Carty-Williams wrote her novel after author Jojo Moyes offered her the use of her rural cottage to finish the book, choosing her from more than 600 applicants. Queenie was longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction – a remarkable feat for a debut novel – and was recently shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Prize.

“This book has been the greatest challenge of my writing life, and the most rewarding; I hope and trust my readers will find it has been worth it.” Those were Hilary Mantel’s words before the publication of the third part of her Wolf Hall trilogy and there’s no doubt about it – it was definitely worth it. The Mirror and the Light brings to a close the series Mantel began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, both of which won the Booker Prize. The third book traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son from Putney who rose to become Henry VIII’s feared right-hand man and fixer. Mantel brings the Tudor court magnificently to life in this dazzling masterpiece of a novel, which has been shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.