The Girlfriend

The Girlfriend is Michelle Frances's debut psychological thriller, a two-hander about a mother, her son, and the young woman who arrives in his life.

Laura Cavendish has an enviable career, a comfortable London life, and a close bond with her son Daniel. Cherry Laine grew up with none of that and has spent her life watching other people be handed what she has had to fight for. When Cherry and Daniel fall in love, the two women size each other up and each decides, privately, that the other is a problem.

What follows is not a whodunnit but a slow, escalating duel of small manipulations, told from both women's points of view so the reader sees each of them justify herself. A single unforgivable lie, spoken at the worst possible moment, turns a family rivalry into something neither woman can take back. Frances keeps the pressure domestic and the sympathies deliberately unstable.