‘Writing is exactly like love – you need to do it in the dark’: novelist Leila Slimani on starting a new chapter in her life

Now in residence at the Madrid Prado, the author talks about its dark, inspirational Goyas, the clandestine nature of her writing – and why she finally wrote about her jailed then posthumously exonerated father

The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams review – twisted love story from a cult writer

Williams follows her prize-winning debut with a gothically overstuffed tale of a cynical young woman in a crumbling university town

From racy riders to romantic rivals: Jilly Cooper’s best books – ranked!

The second series of Rivals has put the bestselling author’s brand of saucy jollity back on screen, but what is her bonkbuster nonpareil?

Whistler by Ann Patchett review – a saccharine story of reunion

A woman’s encounter with the stepfather she hasn’t seen for decades leads to a revived bond – but is it all too perfect?

I was punched on the school bus. Being violently bullied changed me – and affected one of the biggest decisions of my life

I’ve worked hard to leave the intimidation I experienced in the past. But when I met the man I wanted to marry, those childhood memories took me by surprise

Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller review – a blend of social realism and gothic horror

In this lurid, big-boned, often brilliant book about a sculptor and a true-crime documentary, state-of-the-nation commentary and gruesome chills combine

Phantom Days by Angela O’Keeffe review – a rich, lyrical story told through the ‘eyes’ of a book

Though O’Keeffe’s third novel is partly narrated by a seemingly sentient object, the result is wonderfully human

Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly audiobook review – smart reflections on love, desire and power

This heartfelt story of attraction and friendship, shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction, is sensitively read by Dan Bottomley

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson review – indie debut on the Women’s prize shortlist

This vivid story of a Caribbean childhood in 1960s Bradford does not stint on accounts of poverty and systemic abuse, yet is pungent with wit and colour

I Want You to Be Happy by Jem Calder review – romance for the terminally online

What makes this love story fresh is the precise attention to the contemporary environment: the way characters live both in and out of the physical world

International Booker prize goes to novel originally written in Mandarin Chinese for the first time

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, pulled off an ‘incredible double feat’ in succeeding as ‘both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’

‘Obvious markers of AI’: doubts raised over winner of short story prize

Granta publisher says ‘perhaps we never will know’ true authorship of work that won Commonwealth prize

Offseason by Avigayl Sharp review – wry comedy of a frazzled teacher

Sharp’s deadpan debut reads like a gen Z update on The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, playfully skewering modern literary tropes

Smallie by Eden McKenzie-Goddard review – the stories behind the Windrush scandal

In this warm and tender debut, the family of Barbados-born Lucinda must try to document her decades in Britain after the Home Office threatens her with deportation

Who’s in, who’s out, and how many have you read? The story behind our 100 best novels list

Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Ulysses or Catch-22 … Find out which title came top, as chosen by authors, critics and academics worldwide