"Dirty secrets and deceit abound in this domestic noir thriller — think Desperate Housewives set in a curtain-twitching Irish village, replete with silky gowns that gape in the night."
If you’re a fan of gasp-inducing fiction driven by morally dodgy characters and domestic bliss gone wrong, Disha Bose’s Dirty Laundry should move to the top of your reading list. Entertaining, easy to read and suspenseful, it simmers with the dissatisfaction, desires and deceptions of its messed-up suburban characters before exploding — big-style.
After becoming Insta-famous and (secretly) wealthy from her six-step skincare regimen, Ciara “had everything a woman could desire — children and skincare expertise”. Of course, that’s anything but true. Ciara desires a whole lot more than that and, in reality, her house is a tip, her husband never asks how she is, and her four-year-old daughter has a habit of “acting like a bitch”. At least her legion of followers and the women in her village still hang off her every post. Well, everyone except Lauren.
Lauren could do with her partner being less flaky, less adulterous, and getting a job. Largely thanks to Ciara, she’s an outcast, judged by other mothers for her free-spirited approach to raising her children. Then there’s downtrodden Mishti, who wishes she’d followed her heart and eloped with her teenage love rather than agree to an arranged marriage with Parth, which has left her “falling into a black hole” in a country she never wanted to move to.
Early on, a shock scene presents Ciara’s dead body, and the narrative slips to events that led to the death, while also skipping back to the women’s pasts. There are lies, liaisons, and full-on affairs. There are frustrations, longings and anything but sisterly support, and the men are hardly bastions of decency, either. All of which means Dirty Laundry will thoroughly entertain readers who love the scandal and thrill of twisting stories about dirty suburban secrets.
| Primary Genre | Thriller and Suspense |
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