Author(s): Louise Mey

Novel | Crime and Thriller | France | Translated fiction

Missing persons don't always stay that way... Sandrine lives alone, rarely speaking to anyone other than her colleagues. She is resigned to her solitary life, until she sees on TV a man despairing for his wife who has mysteriously disappeared. Sandrine is drawn to him and eventually the two strike up a relationship. When the man's wife reappears, Sandrine is forced to confront the truth about him. Is he all she thought he was, or is he hiding an abusive and manipulative character? Who can she trust - the man she loves now, or the woman he loved first?

Review: 'An astonishingly immersive and chilling account of how abusive relationships form, and then escalate. Beautifully wrought, this is an important, psychologically astute novel which is deeply disturbing and profoundly real. It has the power of a psychic haunting, lingering long in the mind after you finish reading it' - Lisa Harding

'Louise Mey's The Second Woman smashes the Gothic trope of the first wife who haunts the second, literally returning her from the dead-along with memories of all that she has endured. An in-depth examination of women and their bodies, of violence and manipulation, Mey's work transcends an ordinary psychological thriller, ultimately providing a portrayal of domestic violence that is at once both difficult to look at and away from' - Christine Mangan, author of TANGERINE

'Brutal and brilliant, The Second Woman is a razor-sharp dissection of the dynamics of coercive control. Louise Mey's elegant prose paints a picture that is frightening and uncompromising, yet tinged with hope for a new and better world' - Jessica Moor, author of KEEPER

'An author deeply attached to women's relationship with their bodies, she dissects the mechanisms of psychological violence in a terribly sharp way' - Marie Claire

'Deals effectively with the minefield of how to present a troubling issue as entertainment' - Liberation

Author Biography: Louise Mey (b. 1983) is a Paris-based author of contemporary noir novels dealing with themes of domestic and sexual violence, and harassment, often with a feminist slant. The Second Woman is her fourth novel, but the first to be translated into English.

Louise Rogers Lalaurie's translations from French include Frederic Dard's The King of Fools, and The Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths by Olivier Barde-Cabucon, both from Pushkin Vertigo. Her work has been shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. She is the author of Matisse: The Books (2020).