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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Queen K Synopsis
On a balmy evening in late March, an oligarch's wife hosts a party on a superyacht moored in the Maldives. Tables cover the massive deck, adorned with orchids, champagne bottles, name cards of celebrities. Uniformed staff flank a red carpet on the landing dock. This is what Kata has wanted for a long time: acceptance into the glittering world of high society. But there are those who aim to come between Kata and her goal, and they are closer to home than she could have imagined.
Witness to the corruption and violence underneath the shiny surfaces is Mel, a young English woman employed to tutor Kata's precocious daughter and navigate her through the class codes of English privilege. Now the closest Mel gets to such privilege is as hired help to the wealthy, and she is deeply resentful.
Exquisitely written and deliciously unreliable, Queen K takes the reader to some of the most luxurious places in the world. But a dark refrain sounds from the very beginning of the story and grows towards its operatic finale: a novel about insatiable material desire can only ever be a tragedy.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781800814905 |
| Publication date: |
16th February 2023 |
| Author: |
Sarah Thomas |
| Publisher: |
Serpent's Tail an imprint of Profile Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
271 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Crime and Mystery
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Sarah Thomas Press Reviews
Melanie is an outsider keeping her wits in a world of wealth and privilege . . . Thomas evokes these complex lives with compelling insight -- Suzi Feay - FT
Beautifully crafted and compelling. Thomas perfectly captures the textures of entitlement and the inner workings of Russian plutocratic life lived between Moscow and Europe's glamour resorts -- Caroline Knowles, author of Serious Money
Thrilling, revealing and disturbing, Queen K dives deep into the hidden lives of the mega-rich, the dark structures of privilege and power, and the lies we tell ourselves to keep the illusion afloat. Thomas knows her subject inside out and it shows - her dazzling debut is both a gripping mystery and a relevant treatise on the dangers of wealth without limits -- Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters
A wry, unsettling take on privilege, avarice and corruption. This book pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich and reveals a world fatally distorted by greed and arrogance; it navigates questions of class and complicity with a rare deftness. -- Keiran Goddard, author of Hourglass
Meticulously crafted - i-D
An enjoyably voyeuristic drama of ambition, exploitation and betrayal, which illustrates how desire for acceptance can lead us to neglect others - The Bookseller, Editor's Choice, Pick of the Month
Thomas has created a world of butter-cream-beige luxury, brimming with toxicity and darkness, that pulls you in, and under - Calla Henkel, author of Other People's Clothes
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