Two books, both alike in appeal, in fair bookshop, where we lay our scene. Today we’re recommending appealing alternatives to excellent books we’ve already read.

If you enjoyed Devotion by Hannah Kent

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse, too wild, too rough-hewn for 12th-century courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court. To her dismay, she is sent to the muddy fields of Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.

If you enjoyed Second Place by Rachel Cusk

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work until soon She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.

If you enjoyed Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Love and Virtue by Diana Reid

Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular - the other uncertain and eager-to-please. But something happens one night in O-week - a drunken encounter, a foggy memory that will force them to confront the realities of consent and wrestle with the dynamics of power.

If you enjoyed In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Sarahland by Sam Cohen

In this collection, Cohen explodes the search for self, insisting that we have more to resist and repair than our own personal narratives. Readers witness as the ever-evolving Sarah gets recast: as a bible-era trans woman, an aging lesbian literally growing roots, a being who transcends the earth as we know it. In each Sarah’s refusal to adhere to a single narrative, she potentially builds a better home for us all.

If you enjoyed Big Littles Lies by Liane Moriarty

Wahala by Nikki May

Everyday racism has never held them back, but now in their thirties, they question their future. Ronke wants a husband (he must be Nigerian); Boo enjoys (correction: endures) stay-at-home motherhood; while Simi, full of fashion career dreams, rolls her eyes as her boss refers to her urban vibe yet again. When Isobel, a lethally glamorous friend from their past arrives in town, she is determined to fix their futures for them.

If you enjoyed Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim

In 1917 occupied Korea, an impoverished local hunter on the brink of starvation saves a young Japanese officer from an attacking tiger. In the north of Korea, a young girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver’s courtesan school in the glamorous city of Pyongyang. A novel where lives intertwine in unusual circumstance, friends become enemies, enemies become saviours, and beasts take many shapes.

If you enjoyed Educated by Tara Westover

Free by Lea Ypi

Free is an engrossing memoir of coming of age amid political upheaval. With acute insight and wit, Lea Ypi traces the limits of progress and the burden of the past, illuminating the spaces between ideals and reality, and the hopes and fears of people pulled up by the sweep of history.