Tag: Crime

Other Women by Emma Flint

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Other Women by Emma Flint

Published by Picador Books on 23 February 2023

Available from West End Lane Books and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Mesmerising, haunting and utterly remarkable, this is a devastating story of fantasy, obsession inspired by a murder that took place almost a hundred years ago.

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.

Six years after the end of the Great War, a nation is still in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost in Europe; millions more came back wounded and permanently damaged.

Beatrice Cade is an orphan, unmarried and childless – and given the dearth of men, likely to remain that way. London is full of women like her: not wives, not widows, not mothers. There is no name for these invisible women, and no place for their grief.

Determined to carve out a richer and more fulfilling way to live as a single woman, Bea takes a room in a Bloomsbury ladies’ club and a job in the City. Then a fleeting encounter changes everything. Bea’s emerging independence is destroyed when she falls in love for the first time.

Kate Ryan is an ordinary wife and mother who has managed to build an enviable life with her handsome husband and her daughter. To anyone looking in from the outside, they seem like a normal, happy family – until two policemen knock on her door one morning and threaten to destroy the facade Kate has created.

What I Say

A very long time ago, when Years of Reading wasn’t even an idea rattling around my head, I picked up a novel called Little Deaths by Emma Flint. I was completely captivated by this novel of a woman called Ruth Malone, and whether or not she was implicated in the disappearance of her children. You know when you love a novel so much you can’t wait to read what the author writes next? Well, I have been waiting since then to read Emma’s next novel, and let me tell you, I think Other Women is even better.

Using a real life case as its inspiration, Other Women tells the story of Beatrice Cade and Kate Ryan. Beatrice is an older single woman, with no immediate family, living in London, with a room in Bloomsbury, and a job as a book keeper in the City. Existing but not really embracing life, she wants to find love and to have a family, but this is the world after the First World War, still reeling from cataclysmic events and processing the incredible loss so many people have had to endure as a result of so many men losing their lives.

Beatrice feels slightly out of place in her office, with the younger women so much more confident in themselves and what they want, and while she dutifully carries out her job, and tries to engage more with the women she lives with, it all just feels slightly forced, and you feel her discomfort as she tries to fit in.

When Tom Ryan comes to work in her office, she is totally and utterly captivated by him, and dares to think that he might feel the same way soon. Their tentative friendship slowly blooms into a relationship, and for the first time, Beatrice allows herself to believe that she might actually be able to get the domestic dream she has wanted for so long.

Their relationship is conducted privately, away from prying eyes and the possibility of being seen by anyone who shouldn’t see them. While to Beatrice this seems romantic and passionate, slowly it becomes clear that there is a very good reason as to why Tom doesn’t want anyone to know about their relationship.

Kate Ryan has always been the dutiful wife that Tom wants. She has created an idyllic home life for him and their daughter Judith, but Kate is not naive, and knows that Tom has had relationships with other women through their marriage. Kate is also very aware of the implications of not staying married, and that divorce is not an option. Their life may seem perfect from the outside, but only Kate and Tom know exactly what happens when they shut the door at night.

As Tom finds himself further involved with Beatrice, who is utterly besotted with him, and Kate realising that Tom is pulling away from her again, a desperate chain of events unfurl that leaves Kate reeling, as her carefully constructed world starts to implode. Tom has done something that she cannot believe or comprehend, but as the puzzle starts to come together, Kate is faced with a choice that brings her closer to Beatrice than she could ever imagined. After years of having to ignore what Tom has chosen to do to their marriage, she now has the power to change everything – if she is brave enough to do it.

One of the many things I loved about this novel is the way in which you are totally immersed in the women’s lives, and the society they inhabit. Emma’s writing transports you completely to post war London and you feel part of this strange new world where people are trying to get on with their daily routines, adjusting to what has happened to the world. There is always this ominous sense of tension right from the start of the novel, that never feels forced or calculated, but instead slowly seeps through the pages and as a reader you know something awful is going to happen – and when it does, it is all the more devastating because of the unwavering belief Beatrice has that Tom is the man of her dreams.

Undoubtedly, this is a novel about women and how they are treated by a society still reeling from the after effects of a World War. Beatrice never quite fits in – she is unmarried, has no children, and quietly goes about her business, but wants to achieve the domestic dream she believes Kate Ryan has – Beatrice even turns up on her doorstep once, desperate to see Tom. Yet as the novel progresses, we see how Tom also tires of Beatrice when she becomes too demanding of him, and he treats her appallingly, as an annoyance rather than a person. Even in court, she becomes an exhibit to procure evidence from, her life is reduced to a series of statements and reports, and Beatrice will be forgotten when the case concludes.

Kate seemingly has it all – a loving husband, beautiful daughter and a desirable home, but at what cost? The image of the dutiful and benevolent wife hides the fact that Kate is attempting to hold her marriage together by constantly excusing Tom’s behaviour and accepting that this is her life – because that is what good wives do. Emma’s understated and measured characterisation of Kate, and the way in which she perfectly captures Beatrice’s change from unassuming and invisible, to a woman who believes she finally has everything she wants with a man who doesn’t really want her is heartbreaking to witness, and testament to Emma’s absolute understanding of the women she is depicting.

Other Women is a truly unforgettable novel, that gets completely under your skin as soon as you meet Beatrice and Kate. As a reader you realise that in this world where a man’s word is deemed to carry more power than a woman’s, lives could be changed forever in a simple sentence. Kate and Beatrice may be poles apart in terms of the trajectories of their lives, but they both simply wanted the same thing. To love and be loved, and to live their lives believing that the man they had chosen to share it with loved them back too.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Picador Books for my proof copy.

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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Age of Vice

Deepti Kapoor

Published by Fleet Reads

Published January 3rd 2023

What They Say

This is the age of vice, where pleasure and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the kerb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.
Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family-loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals, and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence, and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.

What I Say

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor was published on January 3rd, and hand on heart when I read the synopsis, I didn’t think that it was my kind of novel at all. A high octane thriller set in India which is about the Wadia family and the vice and corruption that permeates it? Absolutely not my sort of thing thank you.

Yet one thing I have learned since I started blogging is to never dismiss a book until you have tried it, and as soon as I started reading it, I knew that this was an incredibly special novel. It may be 560 pages long, but I promise you, that is the last thing you are thinking about when you read it.

This is a story of a family – The Wadias, who seemingly are everywhere in India. From the very top of the social and political worlds, right down to the people who may otherwise be disregarded. Their power and influence permeates every single part of society – and they refuse to be stopped by anyone.

The novel starts with a fatal car crash, and a young man called Ajay who survives it. Alongside Sunny Wadia, and a journalist called Neda, Ajay provides the third main narrative of this novel, from which an incredible and far reaching epic novel spins out. Age of Vice may cover politics, corruption, power and addiction, but it is also a story of a family who are so used to being in control, that they cannot imagine a world where their very presence does not imbue those around them with an instant mix of fear and respect.

The novel starts with Ajay’s story. A young man who lives with his mother and sister in Uttar Pradesh after his father is murdered, he is sold by his mother to child traffickers, who in turn sell him to a man and his wife who ‘employ’ him (they tell him his wages are being sent to his mother). When he meets the irrespresible Sunny Wadia, Ajay recognises that his best hope for the future is to become Sunny’s servant, the silent and accommodating person who effortlessly runs Sunny’s life and caters to his every whim whilst never drawing any attention to himself.

Sunny comes to absolutely rely on Ajay for every aspect of his life, and in turn, as well as finding stability and a regular wage, Ajay is now subsumed into and inextricably linked to the Wadia family for as long as he is alive. Sunny Wadia is regarded as a hedonistic playboy, whose life is one long party and in spite of him seemingly projecting a confident and assured persona, what we discover is all that he wants is the approval and love from his father Bunty, and acceptance from his uncle Vicky, who takes the family business to such a level that he seems unreachable. Yet Sunny also realises that being Bunty Wadia’s son means that his own identity and life has to take second place – unless he is brave enough to stand up for what he wants.

As Sunny spins increasingly out of control, and Ajay is left to ensure no traces of his wrongdoings are left in plain sight, Neda, a journalist, finds herself drawn to him, as she wants to understand the man behind the myths, but she too falls prey to the world that the Wadias have created. Her life changes in ways she could never have imagined, but in spite of it all, even when they are separated by thousands of miles, she feels inextricably drawn back to him.

Age of Vice is a bold, no holds barred novel about the realities of what it means when one family has such power over the world it is in. It is a totally immersive and epic novel that pulls no punches in its graphic depiction of the violence and horror that is part of the fabric of their every day lives.

Kapoor is not afraid to show how deeply and absolutely this world is controlled by those that have, and feared by those who have not. It looks at so many issues such as poverty, wealth, corruption, drug addiction, family and duty, but for me something else sits at the heart of this incredible novel. It is the fact that Sunny simply wants to be loved by his father, and by Neda unquestioningly. His erratic and self destructive behaviour hides the fact that he simply wants to be seen by his father and that when it becomes obvious that is not happening, he makes a series of decisions that change his life forever,

Age of Vice is a novel that makes you care about all the characters in it, as we start to understand how much of their selves and their identities are wrapped up in the all consuming reign of the Wadias. It is a world where you never know who you can trust, and that tension and sense of foreboding seeps through every single page, making it impossible to look away.

This is a novel that if I had simply read the synopsis, honestly, I wouldn’t have picked it up. Age Of Vice is that very rare thing, it is a novel that may seem epic and all encompassing in its scope, but you connect to it on an individual level because of the masterful way in which Deepti Kapoor writes with such understanding about the different worlds so many people inhabit, understanding that all human experience is important, and that the most vital connection of all relies not on money or wealth, but simply to find their place in the world and to love and be loved without conditions or fear.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Celeste Ward-Best and Fleet Reads for my gifted proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

Age of Vice is available from West End Lane Books and all good bookshops now.