In her first novel, “Alys, Always,” Harriet Lane wrote a well-received book about a manipulative woman and how she becomes part of a family. In her second effort, Lane once again focuses on women. Emma and Nina are two Londoners who live in two different worlds. Although close in age, Nina’s life and interests seem to make her totally incompatible with Emma. Yet, Nina creates situations where the two come into contact and eventually form a loose friendship.
Nina is mother to Sophie, a seventeen-year-old daughter, and wife to Charles, her second husband. Her father, a famous movie composer, is on his third wife. Nina’s mother never recovered from her treatment by Nina’s philandering father nor has she. Nina is very sophisticated and very controlled. She has achieved successful as a landscape painter.
Emma is married to Ben, and they have a three-year-old boy Christopher. When the story opens she is pregnant with her second child. Before she was married, she had a career in television, but now is a stay-at-home mother. Motherhood, especially with the birth of her second child, a daughter, leave her isolated and exhausted. She welcomes the attention and friendship of Nina.
In alternating chapters, Lane reveals to the reader the events of the relationship between these women from each of their perspectives. Nina, the manipulative one, maliciously creates circumstances that results in the two women meeting and continue to cause Emma anxiety and trouble. What game is Nina playing and why?
Harriet Lane has created a well-written, suspenseful novel that ends with a powerful ending that I was not expecting. I look forward to future Harriet Lane novels.