Description

A Guardian Best Thriller Novel of the Year
Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Book Club pick

Mesmerising and haunting, Emma Flint’s Other Women is a devastating story of obsession inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago.

‘This is a book that will stay with you’ – Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera series

London, 1923. Like so many single women after the Great War, Beatrice Cade, a thirty-seven-year-old typist, is holding tight to her small scrap of independence and trying to build a life for herself.

When charismatic visiting salesman Tom Ryan directs his attention at her, Bea falls hard for him. But Ryan is married with a child. And his wife, Kate, has worked to create a seemingly happy domestic life. When Bea is found dead and Tom Ryan is in the frame for her murder, it looks like Kate will do anything to protect her family . . .

‘Compelling, twisty and wonderfully suspenseful’ – Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

Publisher Review

The tension grows throughout the book until it’s almost unbearable. This is a book that will stay with you. — Ann Cleeves It’s been six years since Flint’s debut novel, the compelling Little Deaths, but Other Women is certainly worth the wait. Like its predecessor, this beautifully written, pitch-perfect historical mystery is based on a real case – here, a murder that took place in 1924 . . . a moving study of loneliness, desperation, shame and public prurience. — Laura Wilson * The Guardian * Exquisite and my book of the year. Utterly brilliant. — Will Dean, author of Dark Pines [Flint] builds a world that feels utterly authentic, filled with real people struggling to adapt to a social order in flux . . . she writes of a society all too ready to think the worst of a single woman . . . Flint maintains suspense in what is a thoroughly captivating and unsettling page-turner that deserves to land her on awards lists again. — Robert Epstein * iNews * Emma Flint reworks the details of a notorious historical murder and unspools the fate of her three entirely convincing main characters. * Daily Mail * Based on a shocking real-life murder in the 1920s Other Women focuses on Beatrice, almost invisible until she falls in love with a colleague, and Kate, seen as a devoted wife and mother, until their lives converge. I expect to see it on all the awards shortlists. * Red * Other Women is compelling and twisty, and wonderfully suspenseful, and yet still full of empathy for the female characters. — Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground Set in the early 1920s, this clever mix of romance, thriller and courtroom drama proves love heartbreak never ages, whatever the era. * Woman & Home * Utterly, utterly brilliant. Other Women is compelling, thought-provoking, harrowing and incredibly urgent. — Caroline Lea Staggeringly brilliant, harrowing, haunting and entirely beautiful. Other Women takes a thrilling yet compassionate look at the making of a murder, at loneliness and love, at fixation and the sting of shame. A wonderful novel. — Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End The tension is superb and I honestly couldn’t put it down. * Prima * Poignant and elegant, brutal and beautiful, Other Women, is a masterclass in modern storytelling. — Helen Cullen, author of The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually A glittering black diamond of a book. Beautiful and devastating literary true crime. Emma Flint takes a real murder from the 1920s and gives voice to the women involved. Bubbling anger beneath exquisite prose. — Anna Mazolla, author of The Clockwork Girl It is brilliant. I was swept up in a turmoil of emotion as I read. This is a book that starts as a love story and turns into something much darker indeed. — Harriet Tyce, author of The Lies You Told Emma Flint writes absolutely beautifully, and Other Women drew me in from the very first page. The disturbing narrative unspools with a veneer of unsettling normalcy, which make the reveals which Flint masterfully serves up all the more gripping and profound when we reach them. Other Women cements me as a firm fan of Emma Flint’s brilliant writing. — Philippa East, author of I’ll Never Tell Passion, betrayal, and obsessive love combine to create the stunning tour de force that is Other Women . . . Chilling and heart-stopping, this is an instant classic. — Eleni Kyriacou, author of She Came to Stay<\i> Heartbreaking. I wanted it to go on and on, even as I raced to the end. Excellent, absorbing and totally gripping. — Melanie Golding, author of The Replacements Other Women is a book about fantasy and the lengths that people will go to to protect what they love, whether that’s another adult, a child, or the dream of another kind of life. * Take a Break * . . . this haunting tale of love and obsession will stay with you. * Heat *