The best novels inspired by the digital age

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m the author of two novels, both of which explore the impact of the digital age on my characters’ lives. I’m old enough to have experienced being a teenager before the Internet but young enough to have used it all my adult life. I can’t forget the before-times! While I’ve benefitted a lot from what the tech industry calls Web 2.0, I’m also really alive to the losses: social, economic, personal, and existential. From our work lives to our communities to our health and sex lives–nowhere is free from technology’s influence. We are living in fascinating and dangerous times.


I wrote...

Book cover of Bliss & Blunder

What is my book about?

This book is a modern-day retelling of the King Arthur legend in which Arthur is the founder of Britain’s foremost data security company. Wealthy and successful, Arthur has built an empire to make the Wiltshire town of Abury proud, but as the town gathers round to celebrate his fortieth birthday, explosive secrets are about to be dragged out into the light.

Arthur’s wife, Gwen, has it all: beauty, riches, a stable full of horses, a wayward son, an unstable lover, a broken heart, and a cyberstalking blackmailer who calls himself the Invisible Knight. With the return to Abury of her ex-best friend Morgan, revenge is on the menu. Can these two bury the hatchet before the Invisible Knight’s murderous plans come to fruition?

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Startup Wife

Victoria Gosling Why did I love this book?

This is such a gripping novel with brilliant characters, a fascinating premise, and a great setting.

I’m really interested in the digital revolution and how tech has impacted our lives, and this book is both a powerful love story and a compelling exploration of the tech industry. In the novel, three friends found a startup and create an app that creates rituals for people.

It’s clever, witty and provocative. Real food for thought!

By Tahmima Anam,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Startup Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Selected as a Best Book of 2021 by the Observer, Stylist, Cosmopolitan, Red and the Daily Mail

Halfway through her PhD and already dreaming of running her own lab, computer scientist Asha has her future all mapped out. Then a chance meeting and whirlwind romance with her old high-school crush, Cyrus, changes everything.

Dreaming big, together with their friend Jules they come up with a revolutionary idea: to build a social networking app that could bring meaning to millions of lives. While Asha creates an ingenious algorithm, Cyrus' charismatic appeal throws him into the spotlight.

When the app explodes into…


Book cover of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Victoria Gosling Why did I love this book?

This book is both heartbreaking and joyous; it’s a love letter to computer games and the power of friendship.

Grief and trauma inform the story, but it’s so life-affirming and an absolute must-read for anyone who is a gamer or who has fond memories of playing computer games in their youth. 

By Gabrielle Zevin,

Why should I read it?

22 authors picked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* AMAZON'S #1 BOOK OF 2022 *

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect.

This is not a romance, but it is about love.

'I just love this book and I hope you love it too' JOHN GREEN, TikTok

Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987. Sadie is visiting her sister, Sam is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there, but playing together brings joy, escape, fierce competition -- and a special friendship. Then all too soon that time is…


Book cover of Fake Accounts

Victoria Gosling Why did I love this book?

I couldn’t put this book down!

It’s got a brilliant premise which it uses to explore the world of social media and Internet relationships. A large part of it is set in Berlin, where I used to live, and I recognised so many places. It poses interesting questions about authenticity and who we are to one another in the digital age.

The author has a sharp eye for hypocrisy, and no one is left unscathed. Reading the book made me realise how much the Internet has changed human social life forever.

By Lauren Oyler,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Fake Accounts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE * A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"An invigorating work, deadly precise in its skewering of people, places and things . . . Stylish, despairing and very funny, Fake Accounts . . . adroitly maps the dwindling gap between the individual and the world." —Katie Kitamura, The New York Times Book Review

A woman in a tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this “absolutely brilliant take on the bizarre and despicable ways the internet has warped our perception of reality”…


Book cover of The Circle

Victoria Gosling Why did I love this book?

This novel is a wild dystopian ride through a tech company that is so powerful it verges on a corporatocracy. I really relished it!

Everything that has ever made me uncomfortable about the digital age is magnified here and then pursued to its ultimate conclusion. The book is both a thriller and a novel of ideas. The author carries off all of the different elements brilliantly.

By Dave Eggers,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Circle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and John Boyega

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - a dark, thrilling and unputdownable novel about our obsession with the internet

'Prepare to be addicted' Daily Mail

'A gripping and highly unsettling read' Sunday Times

'The Circle is 'Brave New World' for our brave new world... Fast, witty and troubling' Washington Post

When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users' personal emails,…


Book cover of I'm a Fan

Victoria Gosling Why did I love this book?

I love this book, and it caused a big splash on publication.

The novel takes a highly individual look at one woman’s twin obsessions–a man she is having an affair with and his sometime lover, a woman whom the narrator obsessively follows via social media. On the one hand, it’s a story of infatuation and obsession, about how you can lose sight of yourself in the desire for another. On the other, it’s about how social media and capitalism can combine to diminish us all.

I thoroughly enjoyed it–it’s dark, racy and thought-provoking.

By Sheena Patel,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked I'm a Fan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A fast, fizzing cherry bomb of a debut” (The Observer [UK]) about power, intimacy, and the internet

I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man as I am.

Sheena Patel’s incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world. I’m a Fan offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s…


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Wrightsville Beach

By Suzanne Goodwyn,

Book cover of Wrightsville Beach

Suzanne Goodwyn Author Of Wrightsville Beach

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been writing all my life, but was never able to find my voice until I had my daughters. It was for them I wrote “Wrightsville Beach”. I wanted to show them what a good relationship should look like and how their decisions make a difference in where they will go. I want my readers to relive that feeling of falling in love and to be sent in unexpected directions, as life so often does to us. I want you to enjoy it so much, you don’t want to put the book down until it’s finished and once you do, to sit and reflect on it, savoring the feeling it has left behind.

Suzanne's book list on smart women trying to figure it all out

What is my book about?

Two years ago, devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Hank Atwater went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested. Since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck. But everything changes after a chance meeting with Jess Wade, a UNCW student studying to be a marine biologist. Hank and Jess feel connected to each other in a way neither has ever felt before.

But when Hank’s past leads to a frightful incident, it ends their relationship. Jess leaves to work on the beach with sea turtles, thinking about what really happened that summer with Hank, while Hank sets out to find his own path in hopes of one day winning her back.

Wrightsville Beach

By Suzanne Goodwyn,

What is this book about?

Two years ago, Hank Atwater made a terrible mistake. Devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Rob, he went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested for aggravated assault. Sober since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck.

Working a dead-end delivery job, Hank uses surfing and running to deal with being ostracized as he waits for his probation to end. But everything changes after a chance meeting with Jess Wade, a UNCW student studying to be a marine biologist. Hank and Jess…


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