Dirty Laundry: A GMA Book Club Pick
A Novel
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3.6 • 113 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • “A twisty tale of murder and love gone wrong, rife with bone-chilling revelations . . . This is a riveting debut, and Disha Bose is a writer to watch.”—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Mother May I
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, CrimeReads
She was the perfect wife, with the perfect life. You would kill to have it.
Ciara Dunphy has it all—a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home. Her circle of friends in their small Irish village go to her for tips about mothering, style, and influencer success—a picture-perfect life is easy money on Instagram. But behind the filters, reality is less polished.
Enter Mishti Guha: Ciara’s best friend. Ciara welcomed Mishti into her inner circle for being . . . unlike the other mothers in the group. Discontent in a marriage arranged for her by her parents back in Calcutta, Mishti now raises her young daughter in a country that is too cold, among children who look nothing like her. She wants what Ciara has—the ease with which she moves through the world—and, in that sense, Mishti might be exactly like the other mothers.
And there’s earth mother Lauren Doyle: born, bred, and the butt of jokes in their village. With her disheveled partner and children who run naked in the yard, they’re mostly a happy lot, though ostracized for being the singular dysfunction in Ciara’s immaculate world. When Lauren finds an unlikely ally in Mishti, she decides that her days of ridicule are over.
Then Ciara is found murdered in her own pristine home, and the house of cards she’d worked so hard to build comes crumbling down. Everyone seems to have something to gain from Ciara’s death, so if they don’t want the blame, it may be the perfect time to air their enemies’ dirty laundry.
In this dazzling debut novel, Disha Bose revolutionizes age-old ideas of love and deceit. What ensues is the delicious unspooling of a group of women desperate to preserve themselves.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
There’s enough deceit, danger, and small-town intrigue in this domestic thriller to fill many seasons of a bingeable TV series. It all goes down in a little Irish village, where the queen bee is the glamorous and seemingly perfect Ciara Dunphy…who meets a grim end. First-time author Disha Bose peels back the onion layer by layer, cluing us in to why everyone from Ciara’s closest friend, Mishti, to her archenemy, Lauren, might want her gone. The story’s multiple points of view and frequent jumps back and forth through time heighten the intrigue and suspense. Like an Irish Desperate Housewives reboot, Dirty Laundry brings together the best of a soap opera and a murder mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Influencer Ciara Dunphy, the protagonist of Bose's uneven debut, lives in an unnamed village outside Dublin, Ireland, where she appears to have it all: beauty, money, a handsome husband, and many friends. Ciara is the Pied Piper to the village women, who hang on her every word, follow every suggestion on her blog, and feel blessed even to know her. Ciara's best friend, Mishti Guha, who grew up in Calcutta and through an arranged marriage is now unhappily living in the village with her husband and child, is the only person who knows Ciara's secrets, or so Mishti thinks. The one local who isn't a devoted follower of Ciara's is her outcast neighbor, Lauren Doyle, who spies on Ciara. Lauren likewise thinks she's the only one who knows Ciara's secrets. Early on, Ciara falls down the stairs in her mansion and dies, and the plot proceeds to examine her relationships with various people, some of whom turn out not to have had her best interests at heart. Readers should be prepared for characters whose villainies stretch credibility. Well-crafted prose suggests Bose has enough talent to do better next time.
Customer Reviews
Amazing!
This is such a well-written book with suspense and interesting characters. I read it in an afternoon; I couldn’t put it down!
Disagreeable
No character connected with me throughout the book. Even though I did not enjoy reading early on, I stuck with it hoping to find something redeemable but the ending was just as pointless.