Reading List

Authors Like Marian Keyes

Q: What should I read after Rachel's Holiday?

Roddy Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1996), narrated by a Dublin woman who drinks, then Keyes’s own sequel Again, Rachel (2022), which returns to Rachel Walsh more than twenty years later.

Q: Does Marian Keyes have a new book?

Her most recent novel is My Favourite Mistake (2024), about Anna Walsh. Penguin Michael Joseph lists a new standalone novel, still untitled, for 3 June 2027.

Q: Which Marian Keyes book should I read first?

Rachel’s Holiday (1997) is the usual starting point and shows everything she does: comedy, addiction and the Walsh family. For something lighter, start with Watermelon (1995).

In 1995 the Dublin publisher Poolbeg brought out Watermelon, a comic novel about a woman whose husband leaves her on the day she gives birth to their daughter. Its author, Marian Keyes, born in Limerick in 1963, had a law degree, had moved to London in 1986 for office work, and had begun writing short stories while she was still drinking; she stopped after treatment at the Rutland Centre in Dublin. Rachel’s Holiday (1997) followed, about a woman who expects rehab to be a spa with celebrities in it. The Walsh sisters have run through her books for thirty years, reached television as The Walsh Sisters in 2025, and a new standalone novel is due in June 2027. The ten writers below share what she does best: they make you laugh at the worst things that happen to people, and then take those things seriously.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Comic fiction · Irish women’s writing · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Marian Keyes, start with Roddy Doyle, whose The Woman Who Walked Into Doors gives a Dublin woman who drinks the same funny, unflinching first-person voice. For a comic novel about mental illness, read Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss. For a big funny cast with secrets, read Liane Moriarty. The rest of the list runs from Barbara Pym in 1952 to Dolly Alderton now.

10 authors like Marian Keyes

Comedy of the overlooked woman

Barbara Pym

British · Excellent Women (1952), Quartet in Autumn (1977)

Pym (1913–1980) wrote comic novels about unmarried women, curates and church jumble sales. After her publisher turned down a new novel in 1963 she went unpublished for fourteen years, until in 1977 Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil both named her in the Times Literary Supplement as the most underrated writer of the previous seventy-five years; Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year.

An ancestor of Keyes’s method: a woman who is funny about her own loneliness, and a narrator who notices everything other people overlook. Pym’s comedy is quieter and her heroines never go near rehab, but Excellent Women suits readers who loved Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married.

— Lisanne

Every book by Barbara Pym →

The Irish storyteller before her

Maeve Binchy

Irish · Light a Penny Candle (1982), Circle of Friends (1990), Tara Road (1998)

Binchy (1939–2012) was born in Dalkey, County Dublin, taught for some years and became a columnist at The Irish Times before her first novel. Circle of Friends follows Benny and Eve from a small Irish town to University College Dublin in the 1950s and was filmed in 1995. Tara Road was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club.

Binchy made big-hearted Irish women’s fiction an international bestseller before Keyes arrived, and both write friendships and families with a large cast and a generous eye. Binchy is gentler and more nostalgic; Keyes brings addiction and depression into the same warm room.

— Lisanne

Every book by Maeve Binchy →

Heartbreak as a punchline

Nora Ephron

American · Heartburn (1983), I Feel Bad About My Neck (2006)

Ephron (1941–2012) was a journalist, essayist and screenwriter, best known for When Harry Met Sally (1989). Heartburn, her only novel, is narrated by a food writer, seven months pregnant, who discovers her husband is having an affair; it drew openly on the end of her marriage to the journalist Carl Bernstein.

Heartburn and Watermelon start from the same moment, a woman abandoned around the birth of a child, and both choose comedy as the way through it. Ephron is sharper and more New York; Keyes is warmer and lets her heroine fall further before she gets up.

— Lisanne

Every book by Nora Ephron →

A Dublin woman’s voice, unvarnished

Roddy Doyle

Irish · The Commitments (1987), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993), The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1996)

Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958 and taught for years while writing The Commitments, about a working-class Dublin soul band, which was filmed in 1991. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is narrated by Paula Spencer, a mother who drinks and who was beaten by her husband for years, and is told with Doyle’s usual comic ear.

The closest Irish match for the Keyes of Rachel’s Holiday and The Mystery of Mercy Close: a woman telling her own story of addiction and damage in a voice that is funny because it is so honest. Doyle is bleaker, but the respect for an ordinary woman’s account of herself is the same.

— Lisanne

The diary of a single woman

Helen Fielding

British · Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996), Mad About the Boy (2013)

Fielding was born in Morley, Yorkshire, in 1958 and worked as a BBC producer and journalist. Bridget Jones began as a column in The Independent in 1995; the novel followed in 1996 and was filmed in 2001, and the fourth film, Mad About the Boy, came out in 2025.

Fielding and Keyes arrived within a year of each other and were filed on the same shelf: a funny, self-mocking woman counting drinks and bad men. Fielding stays closer to romantic comedy, while Keyes uses the same voice to go somewhere much darker.

— Lisanne

Men behaving badly, told honestly

Nick Hornby

British · High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998), A Long Way Down (2005)

Hornby was born in 1957 and began with Fever Pitch (1992), a memoir of his football obsession. High Fidelity follows a London record-shop owner reviewing his top five break-ups. A Long Way Down opens on New Year’s Eve with four strangers who meet on the roof of a London tower block, each planning to jump.

Hornby is the male counterpart from the same decade: confessional, funny, and quietly serious about depression and loneliness. A Long Way Down handles despair with the kind of black comedy Keyes uses in The Mystery of Mercy Close.

— Lisanne

The Irish family, without the comfort

Anne Enright

Irish · The Gathering (2007), The Green Road (2015), The Wren, The Wren (2023)

Enright was born in Dublin in 1962 and was the first Laureate for Irish Fiction. The Gathering, which won the Booker Prize, is narrated by Veronica Hegarty as her large family gathers after her brother Liam drowns himself, and traces his death back to something that happened in their grandmother’s house. The Green Road brings four adult siblings home to County Clare for a last Christmas.

Enright argues with Keyes on the same ground. Both write big Irish families, drink, mothers and the sibling who did not survive, but Enright refuses the comic rescue and the happy ending. Read her after Grown Ups to see similar material with the jokes taken out.

— Lisanne

Every book by Anne Enright →

Comedy with a death at the centre

Liane Moriarty

Australian · The Husband’s Secret (2013), Big Little Lies (2014)

Moriarty was born in Sydney in 1966 and worked in advertising before writing fiction. Big Little Lies follows three mothers at a beachside primary school in the months before a death at a school trivia night, and was adapted by HBO in 2017. Her novels mix school-gate comedy with domestic violence, adultery and grief.

The nearest match for Grown Ups and The Break: a large cast of families, a social occasion where everything comes out, and serious damage told with a light hand. Moriarty adds a mystery structure; Keyes stays closer to one woman’s head.

— Lisanne

Every book by Liane Moriarty →

Mental illness, told funny

Meg Mason

New Zealand · Sorrow and Bliss (2020), Sophie, Standing There (2026)

Mason grew up in New Zealand, worked as a journalist and later lived in Sydney. Sorrow and Bliss is narrated by Martha, whose undiagnosed mental illness has shaped her whole adult life and marriage; it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2022 and named Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. Her third novel, Sophie, Standing There, appeared in 2026.

The most direct heir to The Mystery of Mercy Close: a woman’s depression described from the inside, with real jokes and no false cure. Mason’s sentences are more literary, but she shares Keyes’s belief that you can be funny about mental illness without making light of it.

— Lisanne

Every book by Meg Mason →

Friendship, drink and growing up

Dolly Alderton

British · Everything I Know About Love (2018), Ghosts (2020), Good Material (2023)

Alderton was born in 1988 and worked in television and journalism before Everything I Know About Love, a memoir of her twenties in London, which won Autobiography of the Year at the National Book Awards and became a BBC series in 2022. Ghosts is a novel about a food writer who is ghosted in her thirties; Good Material tells a break-up from the man’s side.

Alderton writes for readers who grew up on Keyes: honest about drinking, friendship and the gap between the life you planned and the one you have. Her tone is younger and more London, and she is a good next step after Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married or Sushi for Beginners.

— Lisanne

Every book by Dolly Alderton →

Where to start if you loved Marian Keyes

If you loved Rachel’s Holiday, read Roddy Doyle.

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors: a Dublin woman tells the truth about drink and damage in her own voice.

If you loved The Mystery of Mercy Close, read Meg Mason.

Sorrow and Bliss: a life shaped by mental illness, told with real jokes.

If you loved Grown Ups, read Liane Moriarty.

Big Little Lies: a crowd of families, one social evening, and everything coming out.

If you want where it started, read Barbara Pym.

Excellent Women (1952): comedy about a single woman everyone assumes will cope.

If you want more Marian Keyes, read the Walsh family.

Start with Watermelon (1995) or Rachel’s Holiday (1997), then Again, Rachel (2022) and My Favourite Mistake (2024); her next standalone novel is due in June 2027.

Frequently asked questions about authors like Marian Keyes

Who writes like Marian Keyes?

Roddy Doyle, Meg Mason and Liane Moriarty are the closest: all three write funny books about serious damage. Maeve Binchy and Barbara Pym came before her, and Dolly Alderton writes for the generation that grew up reading her.

What should I read after Rachel's Holiday?

Roddy Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1996), narrated by a Dublin woman who drinks, then Keyes’s own sequel Again, Rachel (2022), which returns to Rachel Walsh more than twenty years later.

Does Marian Keyes have a new book?

Her most recent novel is My Favourite Mistake (2024), about Anna Walsh. Penguin Michael Joseph lists a new standalone novel, still untitled, for 3 June 2027.

Which Marian Keyes book should I read first?

Rachel’s Holiday (1997) is the usual starting point and shows everything she does: comedy, addiction and the Walsh family. For something lighter, start with Watermelon (1995).

Do the Walsh family books need to be read in order?

No. Each is narrated by a different Walsh sister and works on its own, though Again, Rachel reads best after Rachel’s Holiday, and My Favourite Mistake after Anybody Out There?.

Is Marian Keyes like Helen Fielding?

They started in the same years with funny first-person heroines; Watermelon (1995) appeared a year before Bridget Jones’s Diary. Keyes writes much more about addiction, depression and family; Fielding stays closer to romantic comedy.

Sources

List last reviewed 30 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

Authors Like Marian Keyes

10 authors like Marian Keyes

Barbara Pym

Maeve Binchy

Nora Ephron

Roddy Doyle

Helen Fielding

Nick Hornby

Anne Enright

Liane Moriarty

Meg Mason

Dolly Alderton

Where to start if you loved Marian Keyes

Frequently asked questions about authors like Marian Keyes

Who writes like Marian Keyes?

What should I read after Rachel's Holiday?

Does Marian Keyes have a new book?

Which Marian Keyes book should I read first?

Do the Walsh family books need to be read in order?

Is Marian Keyes like Helen Fielding?

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