I loved this book, I couldn’t put it down. I found it extremely engaging and I really liked the fact that it was inspired by a true crime story. I found it very interesting how the author describes what life was like for women in the early 1920s. I enjoyed the narrative and the way the story was told by the two different women; the wife’s narrative especially gripped me and I thought it was very clever the way the author told the story from her point of view in the second half of the book. The writing flowed perfectly between the two characters giving a sense of intrigue with each chapter. The connection between the two women was very heart felt and I loved the unlikely heroine aspect of the plot.” About the author

The story is narrated in the main by the two lead female characters; Bea and Kate. Two very different women who have similar jobs but very different personal lives, yet they become connected in a tragic and horrific way. A way that the reader sees slowly unfold as the novel progresses, yet neither Bea or Kate can imagine the horror that their lives will become. In a lonely cottage on a deserted stretch of shore, a moment of tragedy between lovers becomes a horrific murder. And two women who should never have met are connected for ever. Poignant and elegant, brutal and beautiful, Other Women, is a masterclass in modern storytelling. -- Helen Cullen, author of The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually Other Women is an immersive read and a book I could hardly bear to put down. This is an author with a talent for characterisation and scene setting, and her ear for authentic dialogue is sharp and true. This is historical crime fiction, but its message still rings loud and clear 100 years on, within the tandem narratives of two women wronged by a master manipulator. Dowdy, easily dismissed spinster Bea and dutiful wife and mother Kate are given equal billing here and neither of them should be taken for granted. They are women with surprising depths – in stark contrast to the conniving but shallow Tom Ryan.Writing a review for this book without giving away anything is quite a challenge. The story is based on a true murder case from the 1920s and begins by introducing two women – one married and one unmarried. They share a connection through a man who is a despicable character, all the more so because he is based on a real individual. The first few chapters concentrate on the two women, allowing the reader to get to know them. Both characters are likable, with one being a little naive and the other overly trusting. It’s difficult to discuss more without revealing too much of the plot. I don’t have any easy answers to this, but perhaps one answer lies in the fairy tale belief that beauty equals goodness. This maxim is usually applied to women, but Mahon and Bundy – conventionally attractive men – seemed to have no trouble attracting admirers who believed their stories even when the extent of their crimes were revealed.

Perhaps it also lies in a stubborn determination to hope that men like these are just misunderstood. A belief that if they’d just met the right woman, she might have saved them from a life of murder and mayhem. Or a belief that if they met the right woman after their arrest, she might still save them from damnation, by encouraging to express remorse and ask for forgiveness. Bea is early thirties, unmarried and lives in a room in a Ladies Club in Bloomsbury. She works as a typist and is very aware that after the horrors of the war that have left a shortage of young men that she is facing life as a spinster. Well read and intelligent, she's a solitary figure, looked on with pity by the younger girls in her office, yet she has dreams and it becomes clear that she is passionate. When newly appointed salesman Tom arrives in the office for the first time, Bea feels something that she's never felt before, and Tom's knowing glint only encourages her. She falls in love. Emma Flint’s portrayal of this determined, lonely woman is excellent. The reader appreciates both her vulnerability, given the power of Tom’s attraction over her, and her bravery as she resolutely stands up to this confident man in a way that no other woman has ever done. Ironically, it is this bravery which eventually inspires her rival to do the same. Kate comes to the conclusion that, whilst it suits the press and the public to see Bea as a seductress, ‘…she did not seduce Tom, any more than I seduced him when I was fifteen and green as grass. She is not capable of seducing anyone – but this is all anyone will know about her.’I think at the heart of every novel is a question that the writer wants to explore (What would happen if…? How would it feel to…?) – for me, the initial question was: Why would this intelligent, middle-aged, respectable woman – who had so much in her life that was positive and good – risk everything that mattered to her for a man who was already married?

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. A word from Emma Based upon a true life crime which took place in London during the 1920’s Other Women is told from the perspective of two women, the wife and the lover brought together by devastating circumstances.

Customer reviews

Kate is also in her thirties and also works in an office. However, she's a proud mother and wife. Married for thirteen years, with a young daughter, Kate is proud of her family and her house in a middle class area of London.