Meet the Women's Prize Shortlisters

Yesterday saw the eagerly awaited announcement of the six books that have made the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist – and what a list it is!

The good news is that since the longlist was announced, some of these books are now available in paperback, so let’s have a walk through the ones that made the cut.

BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris

Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents - whether Muslim, Croat or Serb - push the makeshift barriers aside.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.

I have only heard good things about this book, and it is now available in paperback. You can buy BLACK BUTTERFLIES here.

POD by Laline Paull

Ea has always felt like an outsider. She suffers from a type of deafness that means she cannot master the spinning rituals that unite her pod of spinner dolphins. When tragedy strikes her family and Ea feels she is partly to blame, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave.

As Ea ventures into the vast, she discovers dangers everywhere, from lurking predators to strange objects floating in the water. But just as she is coming to terms with her solitude, a chance encounter with a group of arrogant bottlenoses will irrevocably alter the course of her life.

In her terrifying, propulsive novel, Laline Paull explores the true meaning of family, belonging, sacrifice - the harmony and tragedy of the pod - within an ocean that is no longer the sanctuary it once was, and which reflects a world all too recognisable to our own.

Also available in paperback, you can buy POD here.

FIRE RUSH BY Jacqueline Crooks

Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends at The Crypt, an underground club in the industrial town on the outskirts of London where she was born and raised. A young woman unsure of her future, the sound is her guide - a chance to discover who she really is in the rhythms of those smoke-filled nights. In the dance-hall darkness, dub is the music of her soul, her friendships, her ancestry.

But everything changes when she meets Moose, the man she falls deeply in love with, and who offers her the chance of freedom and escape.

When their relationship is brutally cut short, Yamaye goes on a dramatic journey of transformation that takes her first to Bristol - where she is caught up in a criminal gang and the police riots sweeping the country - and then to Jamaica, where past and present collide with explosive consequences.

Only just published, so still available in hardback but you can buy FIRE RUSH here.

TRESPASSES by Louise Kennedy

One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat. If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.

If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt. There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like 'petrol bomb' and 'rubber bullets'. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.

Tender and shocking, this is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times, and the good news is it’s another one now available in paperback. You can buy TRESPASSES here.

THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O’Farrell

Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here. He intends to kill her.

Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence's grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband.

What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival.

This book is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.

You can buy THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT here.

DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, this is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

I have one hardback copy here in stock so Tunbridge Wells customers could get their hands on this epic book today, but otherwise, the paperback of DEMON COPPERHEAD is out next week, and you can pre-order it here.

Remember that special offer I gave you for the Women’s Prize longlisters? Well I am going to extend it for the shortlisters too, so if you spend over £30, you will get 10% off all Women’s Prize reads. Plus, this is a code you can use again and again until the winner is announced on June 14th. So there’s no need to rush – order the first ones you want to read and then come back for the others as you get through them.

This is the coupon code you need to input at checkout: WPTENOFF

Happy Shopping!