"Nobody in the world knows our secret . . . that I've ruined Bev's life, and she's ruined mine."
Petra's romantic life has always been a car crash, and even in her sixties she's still getting it disastrously wrong. And then she falls in love with Jeremy, an old friend visiting from abroad. There's just one catch: Jeremy is married to her best friend, Bev.
Meanwhile, on opposite sides of the world, two other women are also struggling with the weight of betrayal: Lorrie, a Texan, is about to embark on the biggest deception of her life, and in China, Li Jing is trying to understand exactly what it is her husband does on his business trips.
It turns out that no matter where you are in the world or how well you think you know the one you love, everyone has secrets.
Deborah Moggach is an English novelist and screenwriter. She graduated from Bristol University, trained as a teacher, and then worked at Oxford University Press. In the mid-seventies, Moggach moved to Pakistan for two years, where she started composing articles for Pakistani newspapers and her first novel, You Must Be Sisters. Her novels The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever were adapted for film in 2011 and 2017 respectively.
Moggach began writing screenplays in the mid-eighties. Her screenplay for an adaption of Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley received a BAFTA nomination, and she won a Writers Guild Award for her adaptation of Anne Fine's Goggle-Eyes. She has served as Chair of the Management Committee for the Society of Authors and worked for PEN's Executive Committee, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Moggach currently lives in the Welsh Marches with her husband.