Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Coco Mellors

A whirlwind New York marriage between near-strangers, and the friends caught in its fallout

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Top picks

Picks suggested by readers, each with one line on why.

Bea Setton

Alone in Berlin, a young Brit reinvents herself through lies and a new relationship as her lonely new life quietly falls apart

Both: Big city

Content warning

Naoise Dolan

An Irish expat in Hong Kong moves in with a rich banker and gets coolly, uncomfortably tangled in love, money and status

Both: Romantic · Big city

Raven Leilani

Broke and restless, a young New York painter drifts into a raw, explicit affair with an older married man and his family

Both: Big city

Jenny Mustard

A young couple in London gently falls in and out of step, their lonely city love story told from both sides

Both: Romantic · Melancholic · Big city

Meg Mason

Martha's darkly funny account of a London marriage cracking under a depression no one can name, as she and her husband try to hold on

Both: Marriage · Mental health