I've been looking forward to following the Women's Prize for Fiction this year more than usual because it's just a joyous communal reading activity and a relief from the stress of the world. So I'm excited for all the discussion and debate that we'll have over the next few months – especially because this is a really interesting group of novels and there's a lot to say about them. There's a real mixture of styles and subject matter in these novels. Six of the authors are debut novelists. For some such as Brit Bennett, Susanna Clarke and Yaa Gyasi this is their sophomore novel. Other authors such as Amanda Craig and Clare Chambers have written quite a few novels before so it's great to see them receiving award attention. Ali Smith is a previous winner of the Women's Prize. Avni Doshi was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year.

This is the fifth year that Anna James and I have got together to make a predictions video. Both of us found it a challenge to only include sixteen books because there's such a wide selection of quality novels from the past year to choose from. Between us we only managed to guess six correctly. However, I've actually already read nine on the longlist so I can attest that many of these books are truly excellent. Some titles such as “The Vanishing Half”, “Burnt Sugar” and “Summer” are among my favourite books that I read last year. Other novels I've read this year and loved include “Piranesi”, “Luster” and “Transcendent Kingdom”.

I had quite mixed feelings about “No One Is Talking About This” but it'll be really interesting to see how more people respond to this novel. I feel like it's a book that had an instant fan base because of Patricia Lockwood's popularity on social media so I'm keen to hear what a wider readership that's not familiar with her online personality makes of it. I'm currently reading “Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller and I'm so happy to see this on the list because I've been such a fan of her work since her first novel. I also look forward to reading the other novels on the longlist.

It's going to be really difficult to call what might be shortlisted this year – let alone what might actually win. Some of these novels are so strong it'll be a challenge to hold up one as more worthy than another, but that's also the fun of these competitions. Maybe it’s because I’m still so enthralled with its story having read it recently, but if I had to make an early guess I’d predict “Transcendent Kingdom” will win. I may feel differently after I finish reading all of the longlist though! You can watch me summarize and discuss all of the books here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAS01UzkdOk