At the heart of The Paper Wife is the relationship between two young women, Kate and Lily. It's the sixties and they have known each other half their lives. Closer than sisters, they have chosen each other. But at university, their friendship is tested when Lily betrays her friend in the face of passion. Confronted with the pain of disloyalty, and the need to resolve her own desires, she runs away to Mexico only find herself entangled in a series of sinister events she can hardly comprehend.

Linda Spalding takes us into a mysterious land of enchantment where intrigue and danger lurk, where Lily must finally choose between love, honour and friendship.

Linda Spalding is the author of the bestselling The Follow. She is editor of Brick magazine and lives in Toronto with her husband, Michael Ondaatje.

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"A brilliantly disturbing story about a modern wife's love and loss, set in a sultry island paradise where mangos rot under foot, and where innocence and corruption both wear the face of a lovely child. A novel one can't forget." --Victoria Glendinning
"Obsessive passion is at the heart of Linda Spalding's excellent first novel. A complex, subtle work." --The Evening Standard
"If you have just picked up this book don't put it down. The writing here is amongst the bet you will read this year - the people between the covers are unforgettable and their story is a shocker: it rises like shark in paradise." --Timothy Findley