What a devastating and brilliant book. Based on a true story, it explores the lives of two women- one the wife of Tom Ryan, the other his lover - and the tragic consequences of their connection to him. The writing is beautiful, both raw and poetic, and puts you firmly in the positions of Bea and Katy, and what they experience. The tension ratchets up over the last half of the book, and there were points where I was holding my hand over the lower half of my kindle screen so I didn’t read ahead and get spoiled to soon. It is a novel that deals with love and lust, hope and loyalty, accountability and the way women were expected to fit into certain roles in 1920. But Bea and Katy, in their own ways, stand up for themselves, they have agency, even though it costs them both so dearly. A powerful, incredible book that is made infinitely more heartbreaking by the knowledge that it is based on real people.

i loved Emma Flint's previous novel, so i was super excited to read this - and I wasn't disappointed.

Based on a true story, Flint is a master story teller, bringing to life the experience of women between the wars, the expectations of them, the rise of the suffragettes - and what that means for the life of ordinary women.

Telling the story of Beatrice Cade who was murdered by her married lover, the novel focusses on the experiences of Beatrice - what led her to become entangled with a married man - but also his wife.

I found Beatrice's experiences particularly heartrending, especially as you know the outcome at the start. It was also interesting seeing how Katie, the wife, comes to terms with accepting that the man she married and had a child with, was at heart, a monster.

A rather unsatisfying follow-up to Flint's brilliant [book:Little Deaths|32595029] (2017), this once again reconstructs in fiction a real-life crime, this time from the 1920s. Sadly, I felt that everything felt predictable and rather clichéd from the straightforward prose style to the way the story hits every expected milestone. There's a slow start, two alternating narratives from the POV of the two women in the story, a pretty lacklustre trial scene and an attempt to offer up some agency and a 'twist' towards the end.

Most of all, the vivid characterisation that made Little Deaths such a memorable book for me just isn't on show here. None of the characters are complicated and generally fit well-worn stereotypes: Bea is a thirty-seven year old lonely woman who feels invisible... until a charming lothario seduces her. Kate is the long-suffering wife who has turned a blind eye to her husband's wanderings... until she doesn't. And Tom just doesn't have the inner life to make us understand his actions: why, for example, does this slick and handsome charmer who attracts women's glances everywhere he goes, decide to set his sights on the quiet, anxious and older Bea who's a secretary in his office? Just because he can? The set-up feels like it needs more thought to make it credible. It almost feels like he's a chancer from another book who strings along an older woman in order to get his hands on her money... only Bea doesn't have any. So why does he choose her? For the unquestioned adoration?

There's only one section where the book feels coherent and gripping, and that's when Tom is first pursuing Bea and we feel her reluctant excitement - after that, it fades back into the expected trajectory. There's isn't even much feel for the time period, 1923/4.

Overall, I felt that this is too agenda-driven with a clear ideological urge to show Kate's agency in punishing the husband who seduced and abandoned Bea - a muted form of female solidarity against masculine violence and disdain. That's fine but it's like all the seams are showing and the characters just aren't given enough life to carry the story. This is fine as a commute book but unsatisfying as a follow-up to the marvellous Little Deaths.

This is the best book I have read in a long time, one that sucked me in and left me with that dilemma of wanting to read on, but not wanting the end to come too quickly.

Inspired by a real-life crime committed in 1924 Emma Flint creates dark, yet oh so, believable characters for two of the women in the perpetrators life. Beatrice Cade is one of the 'new type' of women. A typist who lives at a club in Bloomsbury. At 37 she has never been married and instead lives on her own means seeing little in common with her married sister. From the off, her relationship with Thomas Ryan is sensual, the emotions ringing true and her behaviour matches the awakening perfectly. A few months later in time we hear from Kate Ryan who is first welcoming the police into her house and then attending the trial of her husband which again is so realistically painted.

It might have been far too long since Emma Flint's debut novel Little Deaths, but the author has if anything surpassed that triumph in her portrayal of two women nearly 100 years ago. Devastating and entrancing it will take a long while before I will forget either Bea or Kate.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this excellent novel. Based on a true crime story in 1920s London. Bea is 37, like thousands of women of her generation mourning the losses of a brother during the Great War - which she feels has also robbed her of her chances to find a suitable husband. And yet, she is also part of a new breed of women who work in the city, live in all women’s clubs in Bloomsbury and enjoy a relative financial freedom. Until, fatefully, she catches the eye of the very charming and very married Tom Ryan. The story is told through alternate chapters by Bea and Ryan’s wife, Kate. The true crime story is so riveting that I read the whole book in one go, but there is so much more there as well. It is also historical fiction at its best, the description of London in the 1920s vivid, the mix of gloom and doom of post-war London but also the stirrings of a new world order, a world in which women can hope to have their own place in the world. Above all, this read to me as a feminist novel - a true crime fiction that does not focus on the man but on the women involved, a love triangle in which each woman in turn becomes obsessed by the other. If Bea realises too late how much freedom her life as a “spinster” afforded her; Kate turns out to be the real heroin. A solid five stars, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it made me think.

A glittering black diamond of a book. Beautiful and devastating literary true crime. Emma Flint takes a real murder case from the 1920s and gives voice to the women involved. Bubbling anger beneath exquisite prose. Loved it.

This is a very clever and totally absorbing story that imagines the women's side of a true life crime in an era that was dominated by men.

In alternate chapters the reader follows both the wife and the 'other woman' as the events unfold. Emma Flint perfectly describes the emotions and actions of women who believe themselves in love and the lengths they will go to to hold onto that feeling. I also really liked the way each chapter went forward and backward in time, creating an increasing urgency to find out what was really going on.

Excellent.

Excellent way of weaving fact and fiction with compelling writing into a bow of success

A real life murder case and commentary on women in society after the war

This has had the FLINT treatment and it's brilliant to read.

Recommended

Based on an actual murder case this tale is narrated by two women. The first is a single woman who falls for a man at work, his is very persuasive but married. The second is his wife who doesn't have much power in the relationship and idolises him, to the point that she is wilfully blind as to what is going on.

Things go wrong - well it is a murder case. This great tale revolves around women's place in society after World War 1, how they were on the cusp of gaining power but on the whole very much controlled by men. The moral dilemma faced by the wife is beautifully described as she wrestles with her conscience working out what is right and best for her daughter, hew own future and for the memory of the murdered woman.

It did bring home the brutal and unforgiving nature of the death penalty. At one point it was said that the jury would not contain women as some of the details were too awful for women to hear, yet many of the court's audience were women. I wonder whether it was actually that women were less likely to give a definitive verdict if the death penalty was at play?

Absolutely blown away by this tight historical fiction set in a time where women began emerging from domesticity to fill the work force vacuums left by the horrific legacy of the Great War.. The attention to detail is first rate & I was particularly impressed how the author navigated societies disdain & ignorance about women who were unmarried.

Flint writes with the detailed flair of Jean Rhys & the masterful characterisation of Lesley Glaister and has a delivered a really tremendous piece of fiction. Heartily recommend. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.