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The Golden Rule

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

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About this listen

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

A Times, Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Mail and Financial Times Best Book of 2020 Pick

When Hannah is invited into the First-Class carriage of the London to Penzance train by Jinni, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, 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 husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems - not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth - and who is the real victim?

2021, Women's Prize for Fiction, Long-listed

©2020 Amanda Craig (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Domestic Thrillers Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Crime Marriage

Critic reviews

"A highly enjoyable story about female resilience and finding fulfilment on your own terms." (Sunday Times)

"An irresistible summer read." (Guardian Book of the Day)

"A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner." (Daily Mail)
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This is my first book by this author. I had read some good reviews but was disappointed.

I felt the story was cliched and the protagonists massive caricatures. The story had some promise but ultimately didn’t deliver for me.

Also I didn’t particularly enjoy the reader.

Disappointed

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I think this novel would have been less cumbersome had I read it rather than listened to it. The author had a good idea but the plot became submerged in the issues .... cleaners’ conditions; Cornwall and it’s problems; divorce and the injustices suffered by women; Gaming versus reading .....all individually interesting topics but too much when tucked around the narrative .

Too polemic ... too many issues

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Amanda Craig has again written an intelligent, witty and relevant novel that straddles genres and delights in the richness of its prose

Excellent from start to finish

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I now want to read everything Amanda Craig has written

A gorgeous novel for our time set in Cornwall containing love loss and everything in between but ultimately it is a story about everything human nature has to offer. It is really one of the best novels I have read in a while. In that it gives both style and substance equal billing and does both wonderfully well.

Lucy Price-Lewis really brings Cornwall to life

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The Cornish voices were perfect easy on the ear for those of us lucky enough to live here. Well done.

Complex contemporary content that rose and fell with some really exciting episodes.

Beauty and the beast, Arthurian fables, a modern fairy tale to completely absorb and entertain.

Loved the narration

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