Other Women: Emma Flint

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Ann Cleeves 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.

The tension grows throughout the book until it's almost unbearable. This is a book that will stay with you. Then there is Kate. A wife and a mother. Living the 1920s dream. Isn’t that what every woman wants? But if you ripple the surface you will find things are far from perfect. And eventually the dream will become a nightmare as these two women become connected in a way they could never begin to imagine. Just a few years after the end of World War I, Britain is still coming to terms with the high price of victory. The country is mourning its dead, and thousands upon thousands of women are living without husbands, sweethearts, fathers, brothers and sons. Single and unattached, at 37 Bea Cade isn’t one of them and she cuts a solitary figure as she attempts to conjure up a new life in London.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 The continued existence of libraries in our modern world seems like a miracle to me. We must protect what they offer: access to centuries of knowledge, to different cultures, different histories, different ways of thinking and expressing ideas. Just as important as what they offer is what they represent: escape, quiet contemplation, and the importance of telling stories.

Other Women was researched and written in libraries around London, and some the most joyful moments of its creation took place in libraries. It’s a privilege to have been chosen by librarians and readers, and to be able to say thank you.” Get involved 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 * 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. 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.’Mesmerising and haunting, Emma Flint's Other Women is a devastating story of fantasy, obsession inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago. As I wrote the novel, I came to relate to Bea even more strongly – like me, she moved to London from the north of England seeking a different kind of life from the one she had grown up expecting to lead. She was ambitious and independent. She was unmarried and childless (and given the shortage of men in the years after the First World War, she seemed likely to remain that way) – but she set out to make a different kind of life for herself. I admired that, and I admired her courage in moving hundreds of miles from her home town at a time when that was fairly unusual. The case was huge in England at the time: it was a journalist’s dream, involving a brutal murder, a clandestine love affair, an illegitimate pregnancy – and, at the heart of it, a handsome and charismatic family man who was leading a secret double life. Beatrice Cade unmarried and childless who in seeking to escape her painful past moves into a ladies club and takes up an administrative position in the City when she falls in love with a married man.