The August Bank Holiday in the UK is a highly anticipated time of year – three days to enjoy the blissfully long summer days, and get lost in a good book. So today, we’re taking a moment to celebrate the slim punchy title and the joy that reading the short novel brings. Here are five books from the Women’s Prize library – all under 200 pages – that you can finish in a weekend or even in a single sitting!
Longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction
After her mother’s death, eleven year old Gopi is enrolled on a relentless training schedule on the squash court – a sport she has played from infancy. Soon everything outside the court – including her relationship with sisters – grows distant. This is an exquisitely moving coming-of-age story exploring sisterly love, the immigrant experience and grief’s devastating alterations.
Longlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction
In this remarkable debut, an unnamed narrator obsessively follows the life of her lover’s other romantic partner – a wealthy social influencer. I’m a Fan is a brilliant satire of our social media age as well as a deeply powerful and clear-eyed critique of class, race and patriarchy.
Longlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction
In this gripping and suspenseful tale on ancestry and deep-buried violence, 17-year-old Silvie and her father join an archaeological camp with a university professor and students interested in living as if they are ancient Britons. New female friendships form and a sexual awakening blossoms exacerbating Silvie’s already strained relationship with her domineering father and soon the haunting rites of the past begin to bleed into the present.
Longlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction
In this dark and simmering erotic tale based on the true story of an unsolved mystery, Elodie, the baker’s wife, feels the walls of her provincial life closing in around her. The arrival of a charismatic new couple disrupts the humdrum and she is quickly drawn under their spell, as madness starts to take grip on the town
Shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction
When the adored son of Dominion’s most famous minister commits a horrific act of violence, shockwaves spread through the community. Told through the perspectives of two women, this luminous debut is a powerful meditation on patriarchy, power and the strength of Black womanhood.
