Wife

Longlisted for the 2025 Comedy Women In Print Award A beautifully observed novel by literary star Charlotte Mendelson about the joys of passionate love and those left in its wake when passion curdles, told with Charlotte's signature wit and wisdom. When Zoe Stamper, specialist in Ancient Greek Tragedy, meets fellow academic Dr Penny Cartwright at a faculty music recital, she seems impossibly glamorous to Zoe, who is, after all, several rungs down the academic pecking order--and a nervous ingénue as far as Penny's sophisticated circle is concerned. But Penny leaves Zoe a cryptic note, and a passionate affair ensues. Once Penny confesses all to her live-in lover, Justine, their happiness seems assured. But there is something else Penny needs as badly in her life as Zoe's adoration, and thus the beginning of their affair might also have signaled its end. Set in the world of London academia, both past and present, Wife is heartbreaking and funny, profound and gripping, as it takes the reader from the end of a relationship to its beginning, and back again.