Love triangles are found frequently in fiction, with complex affairs of the heart and simmering will they/won’t they/who-will-they-choose tension bristling across our bookshelves. Although most common in romance, they’re a staple throughout other genres, too. You’ll find them in many beloved classics, from the tortured love affair between Yuri, Tonya and Lara in Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago to Cathy’s agonising choice between Heathcliff and Edgar in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. 

The film Materialists – released in cinemas last month, with an all-star cast including Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal – also contains a complicated love triangle, as a successful matchmaker (Johnson) finds herself caught between her aspiring actor ex-boyfriend (Evans) and a charismatic billionaire (Pascal).

Love triangles feature throughout the Booker Library, too. Here, we’ve compiled a list of Booker-nominated novels featuring love triangles that take shape under all sorts of circumstances. From unrequited love to illicit affairs, these books go beyond two people vying for the same person’s affections, instead taking the well-worn literary trope in new directions.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

One of the Booker Library’s best-known and most-loved novels, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was shortlisted for the Booker in 2005, before being adapted into an award-winning film in 2010, starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield. 

The book follows 31-year-old Kathy as she recounts the story of her unusual childhood at a boarding school, Hailsham, in the English countryside. There, the children are isolated from the outside world, and constantly reminded by Hailsham’s ‘guardians’ that they are special. Through subtle hints and clues, the true, grim purpose of the children’s presence at the school is gradually revealed. And as Kathy and her two best friends, Ruth and Tommy, learn about the terrifying fate that awaits them, the trio find themselves embroiled in a complicated love triangle.

In the Los Angeles Times, Richard Eder wrote that ‘Ishiguro has the audacity and technical mastery to wind us through a mystification as irritating as it is ingenious in a novel that may be his best, and which is certainly his most resonant and moving.’

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Sharing the Booker Prize in 1992 with Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger, The English Patient is set in a bombed-out Italian villa that serves as a makeshift hospital during the Second World War. The book revolves around the titular protagonist, who is horrifically injured, and whose identity is revealed to be László de Almásy, a Hungarian desert explorer. Suffering from severe burns and amnesia, he is cared for by a Canadian army nurse, Hana, and starts to recollect some of his memories. 

Two other characters also reside in the villa, each escaping their damaged pasts: a Sikh British Army sapper, Kip, and a Canadian-Italian thief, Caravaggio. While trying to grapple with his forgotten identity, Almásy tells them about the love affair he had with a married woman, Katharine Clifton, the wife of Geoffrey Clifton, who served as a British spy. After a short and passionate affair, Katharine puts an end to the relationship, afraid of what her jealous and possessive husband might do. 

Eileen Battersby from the Irish Times praised Ondaatje’s novel: ‘War and pain; public and private histories are interlocked in a narrative in which the multiple themes, complexities and horrors are starkly and beautifully developed in exact, mesmeric prose of hypnotic grace.’

As well as winning the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018, a prize launched to mark the 50th anniversary of the Booker Prize, the 1996 film adaptation of the book took home an impressive nine Oscars. 

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019, My Sister, the Serial Killer tells the story of two dysfunctional siblings: meticulous, hyper-responsible nurse Korede and her beautiful yet sociopathic younger sister, Ayoola. Ayoola has already killed three of her boyfriends, with Korede disposing of the evidence and cleaning up the crime scenes. 

When Ayoola starts dating Korede’s crush at work – Tate, a handsome doctor – Korede must contend with her feelings of jealousy and resentment towards her murderous sister. This unconventional love triangle has unique consequences. Knowing the fate of Ayoola’s previous boyfriends, Korede must choose between her own morals and her misguided loyalty towards her sister. Provocative and quirky, My Sister, the Serial Killer provides a whole new meaning to the expression, ‘blood is thicker than water.’

Writing for the Financial Times, Nilanjana Roy said: ‘My Sister, The Serial Killer is like a stiletto slipped between the ribs and through the left ventricle of the heart — precise, sure of its aim, and deadly in its effect.’

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

A group of Londoners find their lives intertwined against the background of London, a city broken by the Second World War. 

The novel, which is told in reverse, starting in 1947, follows Kay, an ambulance driver whose previous lover was the controlling and insecure Helen. There’s also glamorous Viv, who is in a relationship with a married man, and finally Duncan, Viv’s younger brother, who has spent three years in prison and is now trying to move on from his past. The novel revolves around the complex web of relationships, and within it, the prominent love triangle between Kay, Helen, and another of Kay’s former lovers, Julia. While Helen and Julia pursue a relationship, Helen becomes possessive and jealous, suspecting that Julia has been involved with other women. 

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006, The Night Watch was described by Melanie McGrath in the Evening Standard as ‘leaving you with the sense of having read something rich and complex pared down with consummate skill by a first-class storyteller into a series of deceptively simple tales of love.’

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The winner of the Booker Prize in 2000, Margaret Atwood’s richly layered drama set in the 1930s and 40s, explores a dark and devastating family secret. The book opens with protagonist Iris Chase, an 82-year-old woman, who is reflecting on her life and the tragic circumstances surrounding her sister Laura’s death when they were younger. 

After Iris marries the cold and wealthy Richard Griffen, Laura moves in with the couple, though she finds life in their house to be stifling and controlling. Iris recalls that Laura befriends Alex Thomas, a man with strong political views who ends up in trouble with the authorities. Having strong feelings for Alex, Laura hides him in the house with the help of Iris. But an attraction grows between Alex and Iris, and they start an affair – with dire consequences. Interwoven within Iris’s recollections are newspaper clippings and extracts from the eponymous novel, ‘Blind Assassin’, about two unnamed lovers who were having an affair and believed to be inspired by Laura’s own life.

In Entertainment Weekly, Megan Harlan wrote: ‘Atwood performs a spectacular literary sleight of hand, fashioning a bewitching, brilliantly layered story of how people see only what they wish to — and how terrible the consequences of not voicing the truth can be.’

Possession by A.S. Byatt 

A.S. Byatt’s Possession won the Booker Prize in 1990, with fellow Booker Prize-nominated author Michèle Roberts praising it for its ‘exhilarating brew of riveting story, experimental form, richly textured writing and historical exploration’.

Switching between the present day and the Victorian era, the book follows two academics – Roland Michell and Maud Bailey – as they research the lives of a pair of famous Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. While Randolph is married to Ellen, and Christabel has her companion and possible lover Blanche, the academics discover the two poets were also having an affair with each other. As Roland and Maud examine various letters, diary entries and poems – all woven into the novel – more secrets are revealed, with the complex Victorian love quadrangle ultimately leading to tragedy.

In the Guardian, Sara Richards wrote: ‘The novel reflects the various meanings of the word possession, from the obsessive urge to possess, which drives some individuals to extreme behaviour to get what they want, to love itself. The novel examines, in a humane way, the relationship of love with shame, daring and loss.’

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Tony Webster, a middle-aged retiree, has to contend with the mistakes of his past and the reliability of his memory in Julian Barnes’ 2011 Booker Prize-winning novel. 

Tony’s ordinary life is disrupted by two childhood friends, a mysterious lawyer’s letter and long-forgotten memories. He must piece together the disastrous decisions made in his youth, including a love triangle involving his ex-girlfriend Veronica and friend Adrian, which results in heartbreak. 

Heller McAlpin from NPR said that, ‘Tony’s deceptively simple tale — about his first girlfriend, a scaldingly difficult woman named Veronica Ford, who, to his dismay, “traded up” after their breakup to his brilliant boyhood friend, Adrian Finn, with dire results — unfolds in surprising ways.’ 

The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011, The Stranger’s Child is an elaborate tale full of juicy secrets and illicit affairs, spanning a century. It begins in 1913, with Cecil Valance, a young poet, visiting his Cambridge University friend, George Sawle, at his family home. George’s younger sister, Daphne, develops a crush on Cecil, unaware that George and Cecil are lovers. As years pass and a series of tragedies unfurl, the impact of that fateful summer shapes lives for years to come. The novel is split into five sections, each set in a different time period, and Hollinghurst creates a unique love triangle that in turn produces a myth that reverbates across multiple generations.

In the Independent, Richard Canning called the novel a remarkable and unmissable achievement: ‘Written with the calm authority of an author who could turn his literary gifts to just about anything. As for the mercurial title, readers will find much, but characteristically not all, revealed by the closing pages. One leaves the novel with a sense of the truly extraordinary.’

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The novel’s protagonist, Maali Almeida, describes himself in three words: ‘Photographer, gambler, slut’. He is also dead. Waking up in a bureaucratic afterlife, without any knowledge of who has killed him, he is given a week (seven moons) to figure out what has happened. Alternating between reality and the supernatural, the novel finds Maali hunting for his killer while simultaneously attempting to bring down the corrupt Sri Lankan government of the 1980s.

In a complicated and closeted relationship with DD, the son of a government minister, Maali is also close friends with Jaki, who harbours unrequited feelings for Maali. Both DD and Jaki are deeply affected by Maali’s death and are determined to find out the truth.

After winning the Booker Prize in 2022, the novel was praised by the judges, who were particularly drawn to its central character. ‘Maali himself is the heart and (literally) soul of the book,’ they said, ‘and he’s wonderful company, cheerfully unapologetic about what others might see as his failings, and uncowed – even by his own sudden death – in his commitment to his violently chaotic country and to Jaki and DD, the loves of his complicated life.’

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Unable to find work in her small town in 1950s Ireland, Eilis Lacey seeks out better opportunities in New York. While there, she meets and falls in love with Tony, an Italian plumber who has plans to build a life out on Long Island. Their relationship becomes serious and they decide to marry, unbeknownst to Eilis’s family and friends. But after tragedy calls her back home to Ireland, Eilis reconnects with Jim Farrell, a prior acquaintance whom she initially found rude and abrasive. As they begin to spend more time together, Eilis’s impression of Jim changes and they begin a relationship, with Tony none the wiser.

According to Liam McIlvanney from the London Review of Books, ‘It may be that Tóibín’s most significant gift is a very basic and mysterious one: he creates fictional worlds in which readers find it easy to believe … This ability to vivify imagined worlds is central to Brooklyn’s success. So long as we remain with Eilis Lacey in New York, her new world engrosses and enthrals us.’ Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009, Tóibín’s heartbreaking novel was also adapted into a film, starring Saoirse Ronan, and won multiple awards.

A Domestic Animal by Francis King

Longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010, A Domestic Animal is centred on an unrequited love story. Dick Thompson, a successful middle-aged novelist, lusts after his handsome, heterosexual (and married) Italian lodger, Antonio Valli, who arrives in England from Florence for a year of research at a university. His charm soon captivates others and Dick begins to fall in love, but when Antonio’s mistress comes into the picture, Dick finds himself struck with jealousy, while also feeling attracted to her. Said to have been inspired by King’s own affair with an Italian economist, the novel was published three years after the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK.

Paul Binding from the Spectator said that A Domestic Animal’s ‘self-lacerating honesty earned King many readers’ gratitude.’ While the Scotsman called King ‘one of the finest and most remarkable of English novelists of our time’.