Belgrave Road is ostensibly a love story, between two immigrants to the UK who meet in the Midlands city of Leicester. Mira has arrived in Leicester, like many others, from India, following an arranged marriage to the British-raised Rajiv. She is at once far away from home, and amongst many of her compatriots in a long-established Indian community in the city. She meets Tahliil, a recent arrival from Somalia, who endured a traumatic journey with his sister to escape war and find sanctuary in the UK.

The Marriage Portrait is a heavily fictionalised version of the short life of Lucrezia de' Medici, a sixteenth century member of the renowned aristocratic House of Medici in Italy. As the novel's introductory note explains, she was betrothed to Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara at very young age, and died fairly soon after their marriage, with persistant (though unproven) rumours alleging that she was poisoned. O'Farrell's interest in the subject was spurred on by seeing a surviving portrait of Lucrezia, attributed to Bronzino, and Robert Browning's poem My Last Duchess, which covers the same subject matter.