Perfect Strangers
The blockbuster must-read novel of the year that everyone is talking about
-
-
2.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- €1.99
-
- €1.99
Publisher Description
This novel was previously published as Imperfect Women in hardback.
FRIENDS TELL EACH OTHER EVERYTHING. DON'T THEY?
'Love this book' Elisabeth Moss, star of The Handmaid's Tale
'Rare and complex' Marian Keyes
'A dark, delicious thriller. I loved it.' Louise O'Neill, author of Only Ever Yours
'Immersive and unsettling.' Sarah Vaughan, author of Anatomy of a Scandal
'I read this in no time. An excellent twist.' Dorothy Koomson, author of The Ice Cream Girls
'Beautifully written ... should not be missed' Samantha Downing, author of My Lovely Wife
'Immersive, intelligent and gripping' S.E. Lynes, author of Mother
Everyone wants perfection.
But there is no such thing.
Nancy has the perfect life. She is bright, beautiful and rich with an adoring husband and daughter.
At least that's what it seems on the outside to her two best friends.
But then Nancy is murdered.
And as the lies start to unravel, they realise they never knew their perfect friend at all.
She clearly had as many secrets as they do...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This heart-wrenching psychological thriller from British author Hall (Our Kind of Cruelty) charts the fraught lives of three best friends from university. Nancy Hennessy has stayed ostensibly close to Eleanor Meakins and Mary Smithson in the nearly three decades since they were at Oxford together. When Nancy is murdered after meeting with her secret lover, Eleanor's affair with Nancy's husband becomes so engrossing and guilt-wracked that it keeps Eleanor from helping Mary with her husband's illness. Three successive narratives center on the interior life of each woman: Eleanor immediately after the murder, Nancy in the time leading up to her death, and Mary further along in the murder's aftermath. Hall shows each woman being emotionally drawn to doing something she knows is awful, revolting against feeling trapped, and feeling separated from her support system by guilt, evoking both empathy and outrage in the reader. The suspense alone is crafted skillfully enough to hold interest, but the dark portrait of the stifling nature of contemporary womanhood makes this story really stick.
