Delighted to host today's blog tour stop
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| Boldwood Books 13 October 2020 My thanks to the publishers and Rachel's Random Resources for my ecopy of this book and the invitation to be part of the blog tour |
On a normal day, in a normal house, on a normal street, wife and mother Fran has had enough. She packs a case, leaves a note for her bullying husband Pete, and one for her beloved twenty year old son Harry, and heads to the airport and freedom.
In another house, on another street, Helena is desperately baiting her husband Jack into a fight.
These days it feels like the only way to get Jack to take notice of her. Passionate, volatile, increasingly fragile, Helena is fast running out of hope.
What Helena and Fran don’t know, is that soon their lives are going to come crashing together in ways neither expect nor understand. And if Fran and Helena are going to change their own futures, then first they will have to change each other’s.
What did I think about it..
There are always two sides to every story and in The Other Woman we get to see the reason why Fran feels compelled to leave her husband of twenty years and also why in another marriage, which is also on the brink of destruction, we get to see the lengths that Helena will go to in order to cling onto a husband she seems to despise.
The first section of the book is taken up with Fran's story which leads us through a whole range of emotions binding us quite firmly onto Fran's side. Beautifully written, we experience Fran's emotional turmoil as she considers leaving a marriage which is going nowhere, with a husband whose domineering nature is constantly wearing down her self esteem.
By contrast in Helena's section of the story we meet a very different woman. She is brittle, argumentative, quick to anger, drinks far too much and goads her husband into taking notice of her at at every opportunity. She was the least likeable of the two women but her story was just as compelling.
The final section of the book brings all the threads together and what a complicated tapestry they make of two very different marriages and two very different women. The author writes this type of relationship drama well and cleverly weaves all the strands together in a fascinating story which grabbed my attention from the beginning. I raced through at top speed ready to journey with both Fran and Helena and keeping a close watch on how their complex stories eventually pulled together.
If you enjoy relationship stories, which draw you in emotionally, then The Other Woman is a perfect book to read on a crisp, autumn, afternoon by the fire.
About the Author
Amanda Brookfield is the bestselling author of many novels including Good Girls, Relative Love and Before I Knew You , and a memoir, For the Love of a Dog starring her Golden Doodle Mabel. She lives in London.
Twitter @ABrookfield1
@Raresources
@BoldwoodBooks
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