Catherine Raynes: The Good Mistress and The Other People

The Good Mistress by Anne Tiernan  

Juliet never planned to be the other woman, but Rory was the only man she'd ever loved. She was sure he'd leave his frustratingly perfect wife - until he went and ghosted her, literally. Maeve is a bestselling novelist, and yet between her exasperating husband, teenage sons and ailing mother, success feels hollow. When she dallies in a surprising infidelity of her own, her carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Erica was the perfect wife, but Rory knew things about her that no-one else can ever know. And now she's left with a question she doesn't want the answer to: had she lost Rory long before he died?  

As three women's lives collide, they must reconcile the realities of love, betrayal and the limits of forgiveness - because what does it truly mean to be 'good', anyway? 

  

The Other People by C.B. Everett  

Ten strangers. 
 
An old dark house. 
 
A killer picking them off one by one. 
 
And a missing girl who’s running out of time… 
 
And then there was one. 
 
Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there. In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman. But a killer also stalks the halls of the house and soon the body count starts to rise. Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them? And who—or what—lurks in the cellar? 
 
Forget what you think you know. 
 
Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust The Other People? 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from NEWSTALKSTB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Twenty to twelve one News talks. He'd be Katherine Rain's,
our book reviewer, has two pecks for us this weekend,
too great Reads Gidde Catherine, Good morning Jack. Okay, let's
begin with The Good Mistress by Anne Tiernan.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
So this story centers around three women, and they're at
a man called Rory's funeral, and Juliette sort of never
planned to be Rory's mistress, but she fell in love
with him, and then he died, and she always thought
that he would leave his wife, and so at the funeral,
she's standing at the back and not really quite sure

(00:45):
where she should be. And then there's May. She's this
incredibly celebrated novelist and life looks to be really perfect
for her, except that she has this very passive, aggressive
husband and two teenage sons and her mother's ailing, and
so her success to her starts to feel really hollow,
and she doesn't quite know where she's at. And then
she has an affair and she discovers the secret her

(01:06):
life starts to unravel. And then there's Erica, who's Rory's wife,
and Rory new things about her that no one else knew,
and so she's got these questions that she doesn't really
want to know the answers to. And the weird thing
is is that she ends up being friends with Juliette,
who is not who she expected. And so you've got
these set of characters who are really messy, who make

(01:28):
these choices and decisions, but they're interesting and are quite
vulnerable as well, and their secrets and misunderstandings and how
their past decisions have influenced their lives now. And yeah,
it's it's an interesting read, not a heart and soul
in it, interestingly.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Enough, Yeah okay, yeah, right, So that's The Good Mistress
by Antien And you've also read The Other People by C. B. Everett.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
So this story has some really unique characters and voices,
and it really moves quickly, so after each sheph you
really want to know what's happened next. And it's quite
dark and quite twisty, and one of these sort of
locked room thrillers, a bit Agatha Christie like. So ten
people wake in this mansion surrounded by things from their
homes and then they're are unlocked and they go down

(02:07):
to the dining room and they meet other people and
they're suspicious and they're confused, and they don't know why
they're there, and they don't know how they got there,
and they don't know what they have in common. And
then they're told by this woman that a girl's been
abducted and they've got to find her in the next
twelve hours. And then they all start dying one by one,
and so everybody's a suspect, no one's safe, no one

(02:27):
can work out why they were chosen. And so you
get these different characters telling their stories and alternating chapters,
and so you get this really atmosphere that's quite dark
and claustrophobic because the characters move around the house and
they encounter sort of dark rooms and trap doors and
hidden corners, and it's quite strange as they encounter things
from their homes and they begin to forget life outside

(02:49):
the house and they lose that sort of sense of
time and reality, and as a reader, you're finding that
really unsettling as well. So there's a twist at the end,
but yeah, it has that quite creepy darkness along with
them as well. Good's psychological thriller.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, right, that does sound like an interesting little journey.
So that's the Other People by C. B. Everett. Catherine's
first book was The Good Good Mistress by Ann Tianan,
and we'll put both of those book titles up on
the News Talk's 'DB website.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to news Talks i'd be from nine am Saturday, or
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