If you liked
Books like The Marriage Portrait
by Maggie O'Farrell
The Marriage Portrait sends Maggie O'Farrell into a Renaissance Italian court, following the teenage duchess Lucrezia de' Medici and the growing certainty that her husband means to kill her. The same close, sensory prose that made Hamnet a phenomenon, now turned to dread. If that mix of beauty and menace is what you want, here are the picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Hamnetby Maggie O'Farrell
“Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 2020 review. The death of William Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son and the four years before Hamlet is written. The Women's Prize winning novel about marriage, grief, and the play that came out of it.”
Wolf Hallby Hilary Mantel
“Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2009 review. Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who rose to serve Henry VIII, reorganizes the English state at the cost of his own soul. Booker Prize 2009 and the most important historical novel of the twenty-first century.”
Circeby Madeline Miller
“Circe by Madeline Miller 2018 review. The witch-goddess of the Odyssey narrates her own life. Miller's second novel and the canonical contemporary feminist mythic re-telling.”
The Song of Achillesby Madeline Miller
“The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 2011 review. The Trojan War retold from Patroclus's perspective, written by a classicist with the patience the source material deserves. The novel that defined the contemporary feminist mythic re-telling subgenre and rebuilt Miller's audience for Circe.”
The Covenant of Waterby Abraham Verghese
“The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese 2023 review. Three generations of a Christian family on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, connected by a generational drowning condition. Verghese's second major novel.”
All the Light We Cannot Seeby Anthony Doerr
“All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 2014 review. A blind French girl and a German orphan radio specialist meet briefly in occupied Saint-Malo at the end of World War II. Pulitzer Prize 2015 and the canonical contemporary World War II novel.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Marriage Portrait read-alikes
- I want more Maggie O'Farrell.
- Hamnet is the essential one, her reimagining of the death of Shakespeare's son and the grief behind Hamlet. It won the Women's Prize and is, for most readers, the stronger of the two historical novels. Read it next.
- What is the closest match for the doomed-woman-in-a-court premise?
- Circe by Madeline Miller. It gives a mythological woman the interior life and agency that history denied her, exactly the project O'Farrell takes on with Lucrezia. The Song of Achilles does the same for the Iliad and is the more romantic of the pair.
- I want the same prose in a bigger historical frame.
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel operates at the same sentence-level intensity across the Tudor court. The Covenant of Water offers the sweep and the sensory richness across a Kerala century.
- I want beautiful writing and a real plot engine.
- All the Light We Cannot See pairs Doerr's luminous prose with a wartime countdown. It is the closest thing to "gorgeous sentences plus genuine suspense" outside O'Farrell's own work.
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