Another Woman's Husband by Gill Paul - Blog Tour


Another Woman's Husband by Gill Paul
Genre: History, Fiction, Drama
Source: Headline
Rating: 4/5
Amazon


When Rachel and Alex witness one of the most famous accidents in Paris, their life will change forever making them obsessed with conspiracy and secrets... will they find the truth and themselves inside all the tales? We'll see...

"Through the window, the lights of Paris blurred agains the night sky. She inhaled the scent of him, and mused that she was exquisitely happy. Her heart was full of the brim of happiness. How many moments in life could you say that about?"

History books are not my style, but this one kept me intrigued since the first page, what could link two little friends from 1920 with the mysterious Lady Di accident?
I have to admit that I've never been fan of the monarchy, but I remember the accident and all the conspiracy stories within, that we can still hear now... it was interesting refreshing the memory about all the success and a curious theory to know why she was in Paris the fateful night!
Mary and Wallis are a big part of this story, with their friendship, love affairs and secrets like a good monarchy has to be. Their story will keep you awake, wanting to know more about them and what could have connected them with the tragic accident, let me say that it will keep you guessing till the last page.
This book was like a history lesson but more interestingly full of drama, I am sure not everything is true, but I enjoyed every page!
Ready for a travel to history?

Interested? Here's a guest post from the author!

When friendships implode

My mum had two friends, Joan and Peggy, who had known each other since school days, had been each other’s bridesmaids, and had lived near each other and stayed close pals right up until they were both in their eighties – and then they fell out spectacularly and never spoke again. 

It happened over lunch in a Chinese restaurant. Peggy’s husband had died a few months before, while Joan’s had been reduced to a childlike state by Alzheimer’s. He watched across the table, uncomprehending, as Joan complained how hard it was to look after him on her own. That morning, she said, he had got into the shower fully dressed and turned the water on.

“At least you’ve still got a husband,” Peggy remarked, and that was it. Joan launched into a tirade about how awful her life was and said frankly she would rather be widowed. Peggy, whose loss was still raw, stood up and threw money on the table then stormed out. My mum tried everything she could think of to heal the breach but they avoided each other from then on till their deaths, despite both being lonely old ladies. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about female friendship after writing in Another Woman’s Husband about the dramatic implosion of Wallis Simpson and Mary Kirk’s relationship. In their case, the balance of power had been uneven from the start, when they met as teenagers at summer camp. Wallis had always been the leader and Mary the eager disciple who gradually became disillusioned with her friend’s moral character. Once they set their caps at the same man, it was always going to be volatile, and finally Mary was the one who lit the blue touchpaper. 

There’s a phrase “friends for a reason, for a season or for life”. Sometimes friendships have a natural lifespan because your kids are in the same class at school, or you live next door, or work in the same office, then you find you don’t have enough in common to keep making the effort once the original reason for the friendship is no longer there. That’s fair enough. But it seems a crying shame to lose a long-term friendship that has withstood many tests over the years. Joan and Peggy’s story made me to decide to do all I can to hang onto old friends, even if we see less of each other due to geography, child-rearing and busy lives. To any friends who are reading this: there’s no escape; you’re stuck with me now!

Mary doesn’t seem to have missed Wallis and did not entertain the idea of them being reconciled: “She has been hateful towards me,” she wrote to her sister Anne. But I’m convinced that Wallis regretted losing the one person who had stuck by her from the age of fifteen, who knew the person she really was and not the controversial creature she became. She may have more or less written Mary out of her autobiography but I don’t think she ever wrote her out of her heart.

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