A recent roundup of the ‘best books of 2021’ had every possible genre of novel – with the unsurprising exception of romance
![I write ‘women’s commercial fiction’ –why is my work still seen as inferior to men’s? | Emma Hughes](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1b212b4dce92721fc6571eb9ae778cdf072c45dc/0_107_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=cebbf9eb861847950a8fc21d8742997e)
In the four months since my first novel came out, I’ve had the same conversation probably a dozen times.
“What’s it about?” a well-meaning stranger will ask. “Well,” I’ll reply, “it’s the story of a woman choosing between two very different men – as well as technology, divorce and the precariousness of renting in …” “Oh!” they’ll interject. “You mean one of those books with high heels on the cover? That must have been fun to write.”
Emma Hughes’s latest book No Such Thing As Perfect is published by Century