The Testaments

Published more than thirty years after The Handmaid's Tale, this novel returns to the Republic of Gilead, now well established and showing signs of strain. The story is told through several women's voices, including a young woman raised inside Gilead, a young woman growing up outside it, and a powerful figure within the regime's leadership.

Their accounts gradually connect, revealing how the system works, who benefits from it and how it might be challenged. The book is a political thriller as much as a sequel, and it explores complicity, loyalty and courage. It can be read on its own, though it gains depth for readers who know the earlier novel.