Books like Our Lady of the Islands — picked by fans

I never thought I’d cheer for a crippled torturer, but somehow Abercrombie makes me do it.

The characters in The Blade Itself feel raw and jagged, like real people rather than fantasy archetypes. What I loved most was how no one is truly heroic—everyone’s broken, desperate, or scheming, yet still magnetic. The dialogue crackles with wit, and the shifting perspectives kept me hooked.

It’s grimdark, yes, but never bleak for the sake of it. Instead, it reveals how ugly and fascinating people can be when survival and ambition collide.

It's difficult to discuss what might make Baru unlikable without delving into spoilers, but that's fine because you must see this book through to appreciate it fully.

Baru, an accountant, finds herself caught in the jaws of empire when her homeland is colonized and one of her fathers is killed. Cold and calculating, Baru desperately claws her way to power in an attempt to fight empire from within, and along the way, must reckon with how much of herself she is willing to sacrifice for her goals. I can’t emphasize how bleak this book is, and part of that comes from watching Baru eat herself alive and be awful to other people.

Is it weird that a space opera is one of my all-time comfort reads? Because it is. The first book of the Ancillary series, it’s got aliens, intergalactic war, an all-powerful ruler whose clones reach into every corner of the system, and one lonely remnant of a ship who reinvents herself to survive and ultimately fulfill her last order.

When everything is turbulent, I like to re-read Ancillary Justice and imagine I have one-tenth of protagonist Breq’s competence in a pinch. 

A Ragged Magic hooked me from the opening when Rhiannon watches while her family is falsely accused and then publicly executed.  Rhiannon herself is captured and undergoes a torturous ritual against her will – one which infuses and amplifies her burgeoning magical aptitude. The magic in The Runebound series is unique and fascinating. This book and its vulnerable main character drew me into her world.

In her character Emma, Lane paints a painfully relatable picture of a career woman trapped by the daily grind of motherhood.

Emma takes entry-level anti-depressants to get through the day (been there, done that) and yearns for a spark of intellectual and emotional stimulation to make herself feel validated. This makes her easy prey for glamorous, predatory artist, Nina. I was silently screaming at Emma to back away before it was too late while revelling in Lane’s exquisite descriptions of middle-class suburbia and the casual sleights inflicted by Emma’s thoughtless, selfish husband.

This is domestic noir at its darkest and most devastating best. 

This book drenched me in the romance of a woman escaping her real life, and for most of the book, it made me want to fly to Positano and never return.

I loved how Serle uses magical realism to help Katy grieve the loss of her mother and explore how she feels about her own marriage. I was heartbroken and in awe throughout the book, and I’ve never seen a mother-daughter relationship explored so tenderly as Katy and Carol. 

I read this book after I had already sent my manuscript to my agent and was surprised that the plot involved the main character unexpectedly caring for a dog after losing a loved one, as my novel does. Told from the point of view of a writing professor whose best friend and mentor has taken his own life, it traces the protagonist’s slow psychological unraveling as she tries to come to terms with both her friend’s death and the place he had held in her life. Adopting his dog takes her out of her ordinary routine in concrete ways and also grounds her and requires her to take part in the details of a new kind of daily life, even if reluctantly. 

Part of what I love about this book is the many ways in which it’s experimental. It combines fiction, autofiction, and essay writing. It contains blank pages. There… show more.

Musician and author Thorn places Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison in the spotlight in this warm, often fiery book which, as a sometime drummer, I loved and related to very keenly. It is a love letter, as so many biographies are, albeit as much to a friendship as it is to an artist. But it is also a reflection on how women interact, how women navigate the music industry, how creative, clever women (like female biographers!) are often dismissed, trivialised, undermined, even silenced. Women will get great strength from My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend, and as for men, well, the world would probably be a better place if more chaps connected with this book.

I loved this book so very much because it’s honest, raw, and so funny. I think that most of us can agree that life is both beautiful and brutal. It’s okay to admit that even the best of times can be rife with bullshit. The events leading up to some of my best memories were disastrous. The author gets that and unabashedly tells her embarrassing, uncomfortable, cringe-worthy, tragic stories.

I felt seen and in good company when reading it. Here’s the thing: I relished cackling over the stories of Ellis and her people because they felt familiar—they felt like my people. Ellis is the funny one in her friend group. I am the funny one in mine. I feel she and I could get into some real trouble together. Even better? We could co-write a killer essay in the aftermath. 

Friendship takes work. These ongoing, necessary maintenance efforts are not the dramatic material of most friendship novels, but this book is all the more admirable for examining its realities.

This book tells the story of May, an independent, not unhappy but somewhat lonely woman on the brink of 40, who hasn’t made much effort with her far-flung friends—or any friends—in years. Presented with a 30-day leave from her job as a gardener at a university, she makes plans to visit four old friends for a few days each.

May is warmly welcomed, though the reunions are often stilted, sometimes awkward, and that’s what makes them honest: you can’t skip the hard parts when you’re learning a new rhythm, even with an old friend. Post-pandemic, this is an especially good book for people trying to find their way back to IRL friendships.