Other Women

About the book

A husband. A wife. A lover. Each has a secret theyd kill to protect . . .

From the author of Little Deaths, shortlisted for the Baileys Womens Prize for Fiction, comes the sensational Other Women. Mesmerising, haunting and utterly remarkable, Other Women is inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago.

Six years after the end of the Great War, the country is still in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost forever, and the sea of women they left behind must carry on without them.

But Beatrice Cade is not a wife, not a widow, not a mother. There are thousands of other women like her: nameless and invisible. Determined to carve out a richer and more fulfilling life for herself, Bea takes a job in the City and a room in a Bloomsbury ladies club. Then a fleeting encounter changes everything. Her emerging independence is destroyed when she falls in love for the first time.

Kate Ryan is a wife, a mother, and an accomplished liar. She has managed to build an enviable life with her husband and young daughter. To anyone looking in from the outside, they seem like a normal, happy family.

On the south coast of England, an anguished moment between lovers becomes a horrific murder. And two women who should never have met are connected forever.

A devastating story of fantasy, obsession, and ultimately the lengths we will go to in order to save the ones we love.