The Golden Rule: Longlisted For The Women's Prize For Fiction 2021

Description

'A highly enjoyable story about female resilience... with a twist that is all the more compelling for its unexpectedness' Sunday Times'She's such a skilful storyteller, who vividly dramatizes our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion' Bernardine Evaristo'Amanda Craig anatomises the state of the nation with wit and empathy' Jonathan Coe'An irresistible summer read' Guardian' A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner' Daily MailWhen Hannah is invited into the first-class carriage of the London to Penzance train, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, she once escaped Cornwall to go to university, but after marriage to Jake her dreams turned to bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for a rich woman, and Hannah has survived by working as a cleaner. Jinni is equally angry, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them?But when Hannah goes to Jinni's house she meets its shambolic caretaker, who claims Jinni is very different to the person Hannah had been led to believe. Who is telling the truth - and what will become of the women's pact to commit a terrible crime?

About the Author

Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge.

After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children s critic for the Independent on Sunday and The Times. She still reviews children s books for the New Statesman, and literary fiction for the Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist. Her novel Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey s Prize for Women s Fiction, and The Lie of the Land was chosen as a book of the year by the Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Sunday Times and Irish Times. Her latest novel, The Golden Rule was longlisted for the Women s Prize 2021.