Queen K

LoveReading Says

Moving from the indulgence of Courchevel 1850 ski resort, to ostentatious Monaco, to a showdown on a super-yacht in the Maldives, Sarah Thomas’ Queen K debut tingles with the audacious corruption of billionaires, exposing the cruel lengths people will go to in pursuit of money, power and adoration. 

A mystery of sorts, with a clever plot hinting that something is brewing, the novel also reveals how some people can never flee their past, and how some circles can never be infiltrated, no matter how much new money you have. It’s a rollercoaster ride through a decadent, dirty world — a garishly dazzling landscape in which grimy business, manipulation and humiliation brim beneath pristine veneers.

The story is told from the perspective of Mel, private tutor to Alex, the daughter of a Russian oligarch whose wife is desperate for their daughter to get into an English school favoured by the wealthy elite. It doesn’t take Mel long to see how dysfunctional this family is. Alex is frail, desperate to be shown love and affection. She’s a little girl in a teenager’s body whose parents make her feel like she doesn’t exist: “Bony and weak and unfit for the world, a prehistoric hatchling, a sad and stunted bird”. At the same time, Alex’s mother is desperate to please her unpredictable husband, desperate to have friends and enter society’s elite circles. Both women are eager, nervous puppies. 

At gatherings, while Mel might be lowest in the pecking order, “when it comes to information, I have the bird’s eye view”. Though she has this unique perspective, and suspects dirty schemes are afoot, Mel is sometimes seduced by the dazzling wealth and luxuries she gets to enjoy — can we trust her account?

What a page-turner this is, with a showy firecracker of a climax revealing that some people will do anything to maintain their upper hand.

Joanne Owen

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