Book Review: A Private Affair

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Orion (21 July 2011)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 140910172X
• ISBN-13: 978-1409101727

Sam, the ugly duckling who grew into a swan. Now beautiful and wealthy, with a glittering career, no one can understand why she's still on her own. When she meets a handsome stranger on holiday, things finally seem to be falling into place... Meagan, a true survivor. The teenage runaway who worked her way off the streets, she was swept off her feet by Tom, a young army officer, to live on the other side of the world, finally escaping the family she loathed... Dani, the beautiful misfit, desperately looking for daddy in all the wrong places, and finding instead a man who will teach her everything that is wrong and corrupt about love. And Abby, the model wife, everything her husband and family could want and more, but never being herself. Until a dark secret threatens to pull her well-ordered life apart. A Private Affair is the new spellbinding tale of love and friendship, glamour and guilt from bestselling author Lesley Lokko.

A Private Affair follows the lives of Sam, Dani, Abbi and Meaghan. All very different women with very different upbringings and backgrounds. All from different places all over the world. But one thing connects them – a man.

The novel shows a unique insight into what it is to be an Army Wife, to have a husband absent for long stretches of time and the desperate acts of lonely people.

A Private Affair is split between being told by all the women over different time periods of their lives. It shows how they came to be and the road they took to get there.

I thought the novel was harsh and brutal, but in a very good way. There were no rose coloured glasses when showing the true nature of some soldiers or how they treat their wives. It felt very real, and the characters of the woman simply brought the book to life.

A sense of trepidation crept over me while I was reading, that far off sense of fear that cannot be places.

Though a hefty book to get through, it was worth every word. A very thought provoking read.