The Other Woman

June 11, 2018
To smitten Emily Havistock, the narrator of British author Jones’s engrossing-if-flawed first novel, sexy London IT recruiter Adam Banks seems like the perfect catch—until she discovers Adam has a pretty big catch himself: Pammie, his meddlesome widowed mum with whom he seems hopelessly enmeshed. As Emily becomes painfully aware, her sexagenarian adversary will stop at nothing to split up the couple (including faking a breast cancer diagnosis), and, Emily starts to suspect, might even have had a hand in the death of Adam’s previous girlfriend. Far from having the desired effect, however, Pammie’s machinations make feisty Emily all the more determined to land her guy, a single-minded focus that leads her to ignore glaring warning signs that the volatile Adam might not really be the one for her—or indeed the man she thinks he is. The startling if unbelievable 180 at the end of the road will spin readers’ heads, but not enough to compensate for all the contrivance to engineer it. Still, fans of plot-driven psychological thrillers will enjoy the ride. 200,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Tanera Simons, Darley Anderson (U.K.).