Female, Nude

Perfect for readers of HOT MILK or THE GUEST, FEMALE, NUDE is propulsive, sexy, thought-provoking fiction, a beach read with a brain, tender, provocative and shocking.

‘What a gorgeous, hot-blooded novel about art, the senses, and the multitudes of the female body’ Charlotte Runcie

‘A smart and seductive novel about female sexuality, power and acts of creation’ Chloe Ashby

‘Sensual and erotic… should be on everyone’s anticipated books for 2026 *****’ Reader Review

‘Beautifully human… Romantic and heady and violent and sexy’ Kirsty Capes

Sophie, a painter, is holidaying with friends in a stunning villa in Greece – her best friend Helena is shortly to be married, and this is the last time she and her friends will be together as single women. But life has treated them so differently since their university days, that Sophie is questioning everything about their friendship. Meanwhile her partner, Greg, is desperate for them to try for a baby, but she wants to devote herself to her art – and there are other, deeper forces, pulling the two of them in opposite directions.

In the course of the holiday, Sophie paints a nude portrait of her friend Alessia, and becomes involved in an intense affair with Ky, who lives and works on the island. Both the painting, and the affair, will challenge everything Sophie thinks she knows, about art, about motherhood, about sex – and about how and with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life.

Author Biography

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is the author of the memoir The Year of the Cat, a previous novel The Tyranny of Lost Things, and a collection of her Guardian columns, The Republic of Parenthood. She also reviews fiction for the Guardian and her journalism has appeared in Vogue, the Observer Magazine, i newspaper, TIME, the New Statesman, Stylist, Elle, and many more. Raised in Wales, she lives in north London with her husband, son, and cat, Mackerel.