{"title":"WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLIST 2026","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"flashlight-paperback","title":"Flashlight (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025\u003cbr\u003eWATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH\u003cbr\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e‘Ferociously smart and full of surprises’ Eleanor Catton\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Engrossing... Full of brains and mystery’\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk's disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Susan Choi","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681070080330,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/9781529932515-jacket-large.webp?v=1776868865"},{"product_id":"dominion-paperback","title":"Dominion (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the town of Dominion, Mississippi, Reverend Sabre Winfrey, Jr. is more than a preacher. From his pulpit at the Seven Seals Baptist Church to the airwaves of his local radio station, he exerts influence over every aspect of society. By his side is his wife Priscilla, who types up his sermons and raises their five sons, favouring the youngest, Wonderboy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHandsome and adored, Wonderboy is destined to carry on his father’s legacy. But, after a violent altercation with a stranger, Wonderboy’s actions send shockwaves through the community. Told through the perspectives of the women who love these two men, this Morrisonian, God-troubled novel illuminates the pervasive sins of the patriarchy, and the bargains women strike to survive them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA vivid and unforgettable story that exalts the beauty and strength of Black womanhood, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eDominion\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is the incandescent debut from one of America’s most exciting writers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Addie E. Citchens","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681093411146,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/81u1tg_J5QL._SL1500.jpg?v=1776863338"},{"product_id":"pre-order-the-correspondent-paperback","title":"The Correspondent (Hardback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eEvery morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters\u003c\/span\u003e – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length... Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years - and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eSybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might not be an extraordinary one, but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Virginia Evans","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681137058122,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/71hK8xK8txL._SL1500.jpg?v=1776863454"},{"product_id":"pre-order-the-mercy-step-paperback","title":"The Mercy Step (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eA sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl’s quiet rebellion and her refusal to be broken.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eLonglisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2026\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eShortlisted for the British Book Award - Discover Prize\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003e'Dark, humorous, and passionately captures the unique realities of the northern Black experience’ — The Observer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSet in 1960s Bradford, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Mercy Step\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e follows Mercy, a precocious young child facing a world far too big for her small body. She lives with her Windrush-generation parents in a crowded household where her mother’s attention is stretched between church and family, and her father’s temper is something to be endured or avoided.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFeeling like an outsider within her own home, Mercy retreats into books and the companionship of her beloved doll, Dolly, while learning early how to navigate the flaws and failings of the adults around her. Yet Mercy is nothing if not resilient. Armed with humour, style and fierce imagination, she quietly begins to plot her escape from a traumatic childhood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eRaw and deeply affecting, Mercy’s story is one of Black British culture, childhood, family and survival in 1960s Britain. Critical to understanding these untold stories, Marcia’s debut is not to be missed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marcia Hutchinson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681183064394,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/71d8h_9cIJL._UF1000_1000_QL80.jpg?v=1776868748"},{"product_id":"kingfisher-paperback","title":"Kingfisher (Paperback)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\" data-expanded=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA creative writing academic falls under the spell of his colleague, a poet whose life seems to shimmer with a freedom he cannot reach. At home, there is Michael: beautiful, steady, safe. But the poet is something else entirely—she is restless, luminous, untouchable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eAs his fixation deepens, the boundaries between admiration, desire and possession begin to blur. The poet, his Kingfisher, draws him further from the life he knows, into a world shaped by art, longing and illusion.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen illness arrives, closing in on them all, and the tightrope he’s been walking starts to sway.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eKingfisher\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a beautifully crafted novel of queer desire and ambition, grief and creativity, and the fine lines between intimacy and obsession.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Rozie Kelly","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681212686666,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/9781916812352.jpg?v=1776868999"},{"product_id":"pre-order-heart-the-lover-paperback","title":"Heart the Lover (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e'You knew I'd write a book about you someday'\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDecades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten with the precision of poetry and the emotional tide of an epic, \u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eHeart the Lover\u003c\/span\u003e is a celebration of literature and the life-long echoes of young love. This is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lily King","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61681247027530,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/713alv-lEuL._SL1500.jpg?v=1776863762"},{"product_id":"the-correspondent-paperback","title":"The Correspondent (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eEvery morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters\u003c\/span\u003e – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length... Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years - and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eSybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might not be an extraordinary one, but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Virginia Evans","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":62337228472650,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1037\/5256\/5066\/files\/712aTnoWXhL._SL1500.jpg?v=1781294015"}],"url":"https:\/\/mavisbookshop.com\/collections\/women-s-prize-for-fiction-shortlist-2026.oembed","provider":"Mavis","version":"1.0","type":"link"}