This is his home, and she always asks, despite the bowl decorated with her name in the breakfast cupboard, her shoes in the hallway. She doesn't dare say 'our home, my home.' Sandrine knows she is unlovable. So when Monsieur Langlois makes space for her in his heart and in his home, she feels certain she has found someone to hold on to. When his first wife shows up one day with accusations of abuse, she ignores them. Just as she ignores the way he's starting to look at her, and the way she always feels like she is walking on eggshells. But the atmosphere is starting to suffocate her - and soon Sandrine realises that she desperately needs to find a way out. ---- READERS LOVE THE SECOND WOMAN 'Creepy, paranoid, dark, compelling and very moving' ***** 'The Second Woman is absolutely phenomenal. A chilling, intense thriller, which circles around domestic abuse and controlling relationships' ***** 'This novel had me gripped from the very first page and I couldn't put it down, losing sleep to try and finish it... It was unpredictable and the suspense had me on the edge of my seat' ***** 'It was definitely a five-star knock-out...' *****

"...the author skilfully examines the drama, heartache - and suspense - of how to deal with someone who changes from attracting sympathy after losing his wife, to being abusive, violent and dangerous" - Independent

"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

"A psychological thriller, The Second Woman is a pageturner which makes important points about domestic abuse: how potential abusers carefully seek out their victim, how subtle they can initially be in their treatment of their prey, how they gradually isolate their victims from society and how the abused person learns to control their every thought for fear of its impact on the relationship" - Irish Independent

"Deals effectively with the minefield of how to present a troubling issue as entertainment" - Libération

"The novel handles the suspense brilliantly, in an atmosphere of suffocating, escalating anxiety, as the vehicle for the exploration of a sordid, too widespread reality. A terrific discovery" - Babelio

"A crime novel by a woman under the grip, trapped by a man who mistreats and beats her, and whom she does not manage to leave. Read in the midst of the confinement, when domestic and interfamilial violence exploded, it impressed us by its accuracy and its intensity" - Libération

"A tough novel written by a vigilant and talented storyteller that sends shivers down your spine" - Le Parisien

"What Louise Mey realised with The Second Woman is a stroke of genius, one of the most powerful novels of the new releases this January... Louise Mey cables our readers' minds to the ribcage of her heroine, unwinds every detail of this love and crime mechanics in such a tender and irremediable way that we ourselves come to deny the danger" - Causette

"The recurring reminder of the number of women murdered by their husband (more than hundred in 2019) inspired the thriller author, playwright and feminist advocate Louise Mey for this novel whose terrifying realism makes one feel suffocated. She dissects mercilessly the strategy of hold of the domestic tormentor, his destabilising duplicity and his perverse possessiveness" - L'Obs

"Manipulations, fears and domestic violence get mixed successfully in this psychological thriller which is as terrific as it is surprising" - Femme actuelle

"More than a 'simple' psychological thriller, this novel is a demanding immersion in the mechanisms of hold and domestic violence, driven by the urgency of a writing that takes one's breath away" - La vie

"A shocking reading that will remain in our memory for a long time" - Page

"At once a chilling psychological thriller and a visceral exploration of internalized misogyny and the mechanics of abuse" - CrimeReads