It's the Rare Birds team's favourite time of year again—the Women's Prize award season—basically the Oscars of women's writing. 2025 marks the fiction prize's 30th year, so it's set to be a big one!
The annual prize is open to women writers worldwide who have their novels published in the UK and are writing in English. Since the prize's conception, there's always been three core things judges are looking for: excellence, originality, and accessibility.
And who better to judge storytelling than some of the most acclaimed storytellers out there. This year's fiction judging panel is chaired by Kit de Waal and includes Diana Evans, Bryony Gordon, Deborah Joseph, and Amelia Warner.
With the shortlist announcements just around the corner, we thought it would be a fun challenge to try and predict which titles we think might be on it! With a longlist full of incredibly deserving titles, narrowing things down from 16 books to 6 is no easy task and something we take EXTREMELY seriously. Not as serious as the judges have to, but you know, pretty close. If you see this blog post disappear if we get 0/6 correct, no you didn't!
Be sure to take a look at the fiction longlist here before diving into the below.
In the words of our store manager, this read was a real gut-punch, but in the best way.
'It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother's country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep - as a guest, there to stay for the season…In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate need for control reaches boiling point.'
'What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known. It's an exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge.'
Queue one of the best lines of dialogue of all time - By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?
'When academic Nadia is disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, she decides to make a getaway - accepting a UN job in Iraq.'
'Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues. But then Nadia meets Sara, a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen, and she is struck by how similar their stories are.'
'Both from a Muslim background, both feisty and opinionated, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines, Sara and Nadia immediately connect and a powerful friendship forms. When Sara confesses a secret, Nadia is forced to make a difficult choice. A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion, radicalism, and the decisions we make in pursuit of connection and belonging.'
'On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away.'
'Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons.'
As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another. Tense, beautiful, and underpinned by an unassailable love, hope and resilience, this is the story of one woman’s bid to start over.'
Adichie is so back with her first novel in a decade! And it was well worth the wait.
'Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets.'
'Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself.'
'And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved?'
'In a world without privacy, what is the cost of freedom?'
'Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport and inform her that she will commit a crime.'
'Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she presents an imminent risk to the person she loves most, and must now be transferred to a retention centre for twenty-one days to lower her ‘risk score’. But when Sara arrives at Madison to be observed alongside other dangerous dreamers, it soon becomes clear that getting home to her family is going to cost more than just three weeks of good behaviour.'
'The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how much we can ever truly know those around us – even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.'
'A Little Trickerie is blazingly original, disarmingly funny and deeply moving. Portraying a side of Tudor England rarely seen, it's a tale of belief and superstition, kinship and courage, with a ragtag cast of characters and an unforgettable and distinctly unangelic heroine.'
'Born a vagabond, Tibb Ingleby has never had a roof of her own. But her mother has taught her that if you're not too bound by the Big Man's rules, there are many ways a woman can find shelter in this world. Now her ma is dead in a trick gone wrong and young Tibb is orphaned and alone.'
'As she wends her way across the fields and forests of medieval England, Tibb will discover there are people who will care for her, as well as those who mean her harm. And there are a great many others who are prepared to believe just about anything. And so, when the opportunity presents itself to escape the shackles society has placed on them, Tibb and her new friends conjure an audacious plan: her greatest trickerie yet. '
