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
Rezensionen / Stimmen
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 <i>Dark Pines</i> [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 <i>Unsettled Ground</i> 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 <i>We Begin at the End</i> 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 <i>The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually</i> 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 <i>The Clockwork Girl</i> 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 <i>The Lies You Told</i> 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>I'll Never Tell</i> 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 <i>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 <i>The Replacements</i> 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 *
Emma Flint was born and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne. She graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MA in English Language and Literature, and later completed a novel-writing course at the Faber Academy. She lives and works in London.
Since childhood, she has been drawn to true-crime stories, developing an encyclopaedic knowledge of real-life murder cases from the early twentieth century. Her first novel, Little Deaths, was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, for the Desmond Elliott Prize, for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, and for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize.
Other Women is her second novel.
