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The Golden Rule

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

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The Golden Rule

By: Amanda Craig
Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
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Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

A Times, Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Mail and Financial Times Best Book of 2020 Pick

'A highly enjoyable story about female resilience and finding fulfilment on your own terms' Sunday Times

'An irresistible summer read' Guardian Book of the Day

'A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner' Daily Mail

She's such a skilful storyteller' Bernardine Evaristo

When Hannah is invited into the First-Class carriage of the London to Penzance train by Jinni, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them?

But when Hannah goes to Jinni's husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems - not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth - and who is the real victim?

Praise for Amanda Craig

'Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny' India Knight
'As satisfying a novel as I have read in years' Sarah Perry
'Amanda Craig is one of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists now working in Britain' Alison Lurie©2020 Amanda Craig Domestic Thrillers Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Political Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Crime Marriage
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Critic reviews

A highly enjoyable story about female resilience and finding fulfilment on your own terms, with a twist that is all the more compelling for its unexpectedness
An irresistible summer read: a rollicking plot, a heroine who is more than a match for anything the author throws at her and meaty social issues
The plot becomes so gripping - the sort of story where you want to pull the heroine out of the pages away from danger
A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner about two women who decide to murder each other's husbands
Such an interesting read! . . . A story of lies - and learning that people aren't always who they appear to be (Nina Pottell)
A pacy state-of-the-nation drama that tackles issues from domestic abuse to workplace harassment, gentrification to the gig economy
Clever and compelling, The Golden Rule is a modern mash-up of Rebecca and Strangers on a Train
The Golden Rule does what her novels do best, wrapping the reader in a tight, lean narrative, showing the strangeness that lies at the heart of normal-seeming lives
An acute and passionate observer of society in both town and country, and among rich and poor. She is harrowingly good at portraying the corrosive effects of poverty, particularly on vulnerable women with children to protect. Her prose is a delight...Best of all, Craig has the knack of creating interesting characters and of making one care about what lies in store for them. If you can do that, nothing else really matters (Andrew Taylor)
Perceptive and wise, particularly on the ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor
She's such a skilful storyteller who vividly dramatises our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion
Strangers on a Train meets #MeToo
Craig's ninth novel is one of her best. A clever take on Beauty and the Beast and Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, it is also an astute commentary on life in Cornwall and the widening gap between the city rich and rural poor
Addictive . . . a wide-ranging, incisive portrait of contemporary Britain
We reckon this cracker of a novel about the "haves" and the "have-nots" will whip you into a page-turning frenzy
If you like your novels wide-ranging, ambitious, socially panoramic, and engaged in the most important issues of the day, Amanda Craig is the writer for you. For more than twenty years now she has been anatomising the state of the British nation with wit and empathy
I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed The Golden Rule - evening reading that I looked forward to for days. Such a strong narrative, constantly taking you by surprise, persuasive setting, Hannah a sympathetic central figure - and the clash between different lifestyles. Very much a novel of our times (Penelope Lively)
All stars
Most relevant
This is my first book by this author. I had read some good reviews but was disappointed.

I felt the story was cliched and the protagonists massive caricatures. The story had some promise but ultimately didn’t deliver for me.

Also I didn’t particularly enjoy the reader.

Disappointed

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I think this novel would have been less cumbersome had I read it rather than listened to it. The author had a good idea but the plot became submerged in the issues .... cleaners’ conditions; Cornwall and it’s problems; divorce and the injustices suffered by women; Gaming versus reading .....all individually interesting topics but too much when tucked around the narrative .

Too polemic ... too many issues

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I really wanted to like this - the "back cover blurb" appealed, it sounded a good premise for a gripping story; unfortunately on the whole it wasn't. It's likely that it will probably offend people with rural backgrounds or lives and people who voted to Leave the EU, or Conservative voters - unfortunately the author wears her political colours very clearly on her sleeve and denegrates anyone who doesn't love London or the EU as ignorant bigots and Tory voters as misguided at best! If you can get past that, it's a benign enough book.

Not sure

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You will either love this or hate it, I think - hence the reference to Marmite. It is hard to see there being much middle ground here.I had heard good things about the author and the quality of her work, so I was looking forward to a good listening experience.

What I was treated to was a real mish-mash of cliched opinion, a portrait of Cornwall as an impoverished backwater, the portrayal of the Cornish as rich degenerates/rich outsiders/ignorant, poorly educated, anti-EU locals and the woes of divorcing women. As a representation of Cornwall and the Cornish the author has been very unkind and unfair in my opinion. But the worst thing, for me, was the preposterous central plot device the author used - two strangers meet on a train, discover a common grievance (rich men who are bastards) and agree to carry out the murder of each other's husbands. I just found the whole thing so hard to connect with. On the one hand, the author wants us to believe that the central character is an intelligent woman who has been wronged by her husband and who is struggling to make a life for herself and her young daughter. But on the other hand she wants us to believe that this same intelligent woman would agree to murder a complete stranger after a few glasses of wine on a train and, by doing so, put her daughter's welfare and future in jeopardy. Utter tosh.

The author clearly has strong political and feminist views. There is nothing wrong with either of those things but she did lay some of it on thickly; some subtlety and finesse would have helped. The characters themselves were well drawn and some of them were likeable. But overall, the silly central device plot ruined the whole thing for me.

The narration was very good.

A Marmite book

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Very good performance by the narrator.
I must admit that I struggled with this book.
The main character is SO annoying. Going on about Jane Austen and literature through (what were supposed to be) some very dramatic and traumatic events. The whole plot was totally unrealistic.
Having said that, I finished it (but only because it was a book club choice and I want to be able to talk about it with my group!)

Just about ok

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