Women's fiction

Women authors fared very well at the top of the PW overall bestseller list in 2023. Colleen Hoover, who reigned supreme in 2022, also had a stellar 2023, with her It Ends with Us edging out It Starts with Us for the top-selling title in the year by about 48,000 print copies. A third Hoover novel, Verity, sold more than 935,000 copies.  Read more

In 2017, we learned that Eleanor Oliphant was completely fine. As you may recall, there was a bestselling novel all about it, titled, appropriately enough, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Soon, a wave of syntactically similar book titles followed, all involving simple sentences containing the female protagonist's name: Evvie Drake started over. Florence Adler swam forever.  Read more

Winning authors explain how the award changed their lives and share their favourite books by women

Even when they're central to the story, women over 40 are getting pushed to one side when it's time to design the book jacket

Here's a challenge for you: find a book jacket that features an image of a woman over 40.

The narrative that important, authoritative female novelists ultimately owe their brilliance to men refuses to die as we close out 2017-and it's ensnared one of our newest literary stars. The plagiarism allegations against The Girls author Emma Cline, leveled by her ex-boyfriend, have set off a bruising legal battle and exposed Cline's personal life.  Read more