His Other Lover

by Lucy Dawson

Mia has her life in order. She is a grown up and enjoys a grown up's relationship with Pete. Not passionate or spontaneous, but solid. She knows he is 'the one'. But then she sees a text message on Pete's phone that throws her world into a spin. It is more than friendly, signed off with a kiss, and Mia has never heard of the sender, Liz.

With her carefully mapped out life sliding out of control Mia will discover a side to herself she never knew existed, as she formulates a plan to win her happy ending. Because all's fair in love and war - isn't it?

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Thriller, Audiobook, Romance, Contemporary, Suspense

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 13, 2008

About the author

Lucy studied Psychology at Warwick University before becoming a children’s magazine editor. Her first bestselling book – His Other Lover – was published in 2008. Since then she has published four other novels and her work has been translated into numerous other languages. She lives in Exeter with her husband and children. Lucy finds writing in the third person uncomfortable.

Reviews

[Louise Ramsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading this book I have to say it's a page turner for sure.....you keep turning the page waiting for all this built up drama to turn into something.....

But in the end- it turns into nothing???

The author does a good job of keeping you hooked during the build up- but after the build up......theres literally nothing!!

This book is completely missing an ending!!

I read 300 pages of pointlessness......

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an easy and quick read but I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of it. I found the main character quite annoying - why didn't she just confront her boyfriend in the first place (although the book would have been a lot shorter if she had!). I felt she lacked backbone and was a bit disturbed.

I personally found the ending very disappointing, it's not your usual happy, chic-lit, ending and perhaps that is why I didn't like it. It left me feeling like "what was the point"... I would have rather she either lived happily ever after with her boyfried or got some serious revenge and kicked him out.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The great mystery of this book is the attraction of Pete. He appears to have no redeeming qualities. His actual qualities/facets and actions can be summarised thus: physically attractive to certain people, fulls of gifts/compliments/ surprises in early stages of a relationship, massive liar, cheat, dull, dull, dull.
Mia, now Mia has some moxie, which counts for naught because she loves dull cheat Pete. She stitches him and Other Woman of the title up, but chooses Pete as her prize. Oooh, I was cross. Pete knows he's a shit. Liz and Mia know he's a shit, yet he is the prize. NO. I wanted Liz and Mia and all their friends to examine the attractiveness of Pete, realize it adds up to nothing, question the concept of a partner as prize and live in a feminist commune happily ever after.

I mean, PETE. He is so ugh.

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mia lives with her boyfriend Pete and their dog Gloria. They've been together a while and are happily settled, with Mia knowing that Pete is "the one" for her. But Mia's world is about to fall apart when she discovers a suspect text message on Pete's phone from another woman which appears to indicate that he is having an affair. At first, she can't believe Pete would do this to her, but when reality sets in, Mia can't decide between splitting up or getting revenge on him. So Mia decides to meet the other woman Liz, and shock Pete into telling the truth. But will Mia get everything she wants?

The plot isn't anything special, but it did catch my attention. The idea of Mia exacting a revenge on Pete was interesting, and I was really curious about how the author was going to go about writing an involving story which made me want to keep reading. The book was very short for a chick lit book at only 272 pages, so I was unsure how a good story would be unweaved in this amount of pages.

The book is written in the first person from Mia's perspective, so we do get quite a biased story totally from her perspective, obviously encouraging our way of thinking about the plot to her mindset. It dives straight into the story, with a scene between Mia and Pete that tries to explain the state of their relationship, and how they are with each other. All the information about finding the texts is told to us as the novel goes on, which makes you want to keep reading to find out exactly how the whole thing unfolded and therefore to keep you in line with the rest of the story.

The characters were quite well written, with Mia described in detail from the start through her narration and also her self-description. She also describes Pete to us in detail, although again the way she talks about Pete depends on what stage of the book we are at and what she is thinking at the time, adding a somewhat realistic element to the book. We do also meet some of Mia's friends Lottie, Louise and Amanda, who work with Mia, but they aren't in the book much and don't really add a lot to the plot. Interestingly we meet a character called Debs, who is the flatmate of Liz, Pete's other woman. I won't talk about this too much as I don't want to give it away, but she is hilarious and a welcome relief from some of the down feeling and depressive dialogue of Mia. Mia herself was a great character, giving us great detail of rifling through Pete's emails and texts, snooping around when he is engaged elsewhere. However, this lends to us doubting her integrity too - is she any better than Pete by snooping around his private things?

For me, due to its length, the book just passed me by way too quickly - I read it in just a couple of evenings, half at a time. The narrative was really engaging, enabling you to feel Mia's emotions with her and giving great visuals as to her state of mind and what she is doing. Pete is written as the bad guy obviously, but even by the end, I was starting to pity him because of Mia and her behaviour. It started strongly for me, with a great story and a beginning which left you wondering about a few things, but it quickly tailed off to a somewhat strange and odd plot line. Mia quickly became annoying and her actions were awful - I don't think they're realistic and just seemed like she was an unhinged woman. By the end I was hoping for a great conclusion, everything revealed in a definite ending but I wasn't even given that. I couldn't believe what was written and for me, it didn't seem plausible at all - it almost went off on another tangent! Strange yet disappointing, I'm only glad I didn't fork out any money for it. I'm not sure I would recommend it, I can't quite work out whether or not I like it myself!

[Nandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just have no words the main character Mia is remarkably naive, stupid and slightly deranged and your find yourself thinking towards the end they both deserve each other. Mia appears to become unbelievably desperate to keep her unfaithful lover at any mean possible. Mia goes down a dark route of tracking down his lover and somewhat stalking her by getting close to her flat mate. For a short read it does cover a lot of ground however, I have more questions than possible answers? Example;
I found myself wondering where they actually live to get in and out of London with such ease and grace. I digress the boyfriend appears to have form of unfaithfulness and she appears to be a doormat. I guess some people just live for the happy ending which this doesn't have i'm afraid.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been on my kindle for a long time and I finally decided to read it and am pleased I did. Mia is devastated as she has major fears that her long time partner Pete is having an affair after she finds texts from another woman on his phone. This leads Mia to question what else Pete may be hiding, how well does she really know him? It is at times like these that we learn a lot about ourselves and Mia is about to learn how fear, anger and betrayal can drive us to do things we may have never imagined we were capable of. This is quite a twisted story but has all the ingredients for a great read, enjoy.

[Lu Bielefeld · Rating 1 out of 5]

WTF!!!!

[Cozmik_Sunflower_Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️1/2

[M.M. Wedin · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you've read a book and it sticks with you? You feel like you were involved yourself, or like you can relate to the emotions so much it hits home? Well, I felt like that reading this page-turner.

I have had a scroll through the negative reviews, and all seem to miss an ending. I liked the ending. Sure, I would have wanted a bit more info, but books are like that sometimes, they end and you are left guessing.

I loved the suspense, couldn't put it down, and I laughed multiple times, feeling for the main character. Honestly, I rarely give 5 stars, and this deserves it. Highly reccomended, just amazing.

There wasn't a single section in the book where I felt bored. Praise for Lucy Dawson.

[nique · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was the most boring, drawn out story of a terrible relationship with a narcissist and a dependant personality. The story itself would have been enjoyable if written as a synopsis, kind of like a half page news story, but to have 700 pages where nothing happens no suspense - I even skipped chapters and still knew what was happening. It's like watching a year's worth of episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful when you could understand the entire season by watching like 2 episodes. I loved Lucy Dawson's book 'Everything you told me' although that was quite predictable at least it kept my interest. His other lover has no spoilers, no suspense, and lame characters.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have enjoyed all of Lucy Dawson's books and this her debut novel is a favourite of mine. Her style is not your typical chick lit as her stories have darker elements, flawed characters and twists which keep you guessing.
His Other Lover was brilliantly written with a clever and intriguing plot, I was so engrossed I read it in one day. It really had me gripped wondering what would happen next.
As with all of Lucy's books the ending left me thinking about it for ages after and I really wanted another chapter!

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of build up that leaves you feeling unsatisfied. The protagonist goes to extreme measures to hold onto a relationship that is clearly over. While the author does a good job of building the story to keep you interested the whole thing just falls apart at the end. No likable characters.

[Jen Contreras · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story, but the ending fell flat for me. I wouldn't have even read this had I known the ending would literally be just her trying to salvage her relationship with the cheating boyfriend. I hoped she would stand up to him and leave. Disappointing.

[wrkatreading · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for the page turner. So much drama for an anticlimactic ending. Doormat h and skeevy lying H.

[thebookfox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uhhhh...

Ok so I first got into Lucy Dawson when I listened to “The Daughter” and “White Lies” and loved them both to 5 star level. That’s when I decided I wanted to listen to the rest of Dawson’s books in order of publication.

“His Other Lover” is Dawson’s first book and I found it just as addictive as the other two; Mia starts to suspect her boyfriend Pete of having an affair and we get to hear all about her investigations as she searches for the truth. It was wild and hooked me from the start and I couldn’t wait for the conclusion...

Except, instead of a shocking “twist” or big “revelation”, the story just... fizzles out.

I feel a bit mean giving it 3 stars considering how much I enjoyed listening to it but the ending was just such a let down.

Won’t stop me from listening to the next one though :-p

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. A very easy read.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mia thinks of herself as a grown up. Her twenty-two-year-old sister, Clare, is once again in the death throes of an affair that was always doomed to failure. Mia now understands that relationships need work; that in an adult partnership, passion and spontaneity give way to something different but more lasting. With Pete she knows that her search for ‘The One’ can stop.

Until, tripping over Pete’s phone on the way to the loo one night, she reads a text message that sends her blood cold. Everything in it – its tone, the kisses at the end, Pete’s evasions about the sender ‘Liz’ – is wrong, and suddenly the blinkers are off. It’s time to get back in the game, and with everything to play for, Mia is about to discover a capacity for deceit she never knew she had.

After all, when Happy Ever After is at stake, any weapon at your disposal is fair game – isn’t it?

I absolutely loved Lucy Dawson’s debut novel His Other Lover. It’s dark chick-lit and it’s enjoyable. Sure Mia may come across as a tad bit unhinged but what would YOU do if you found out the man you loved was texting another woman?

I don’t think you can market Lucy Dawson as chick-lit, not really. Mia isn’t ditzy, there are no laugh-out-loud parts of the story – nothing you usually expect when people think “chick-lit”. It’s more about revenge and how far someone will go to keep the person they love.

Some of the things Mia does seems completely insane. From trashing the house and blaming it as a burglary to framing the other woman and making Pete believe it was Liz who did all those things. And yet I thought it was a brilliantly written novel. It’s also short – under 300 pages – which makes it all the more readable as well as being told in first-person.

All three characters have faults: Liz is sleeping with a man with a girlfriend, Pete is cheating on his girlfriend and Mia goes completely Bunny-boiler over-the-top in her bid to keep Pete. Liz started out as the villain but the real villain was Pete – even when found out he still lied and made it sound plausible that Liz was insane. I felt sympathy for Liz – even if she was the other woman, she believed everything Pete said.

I know Mia said she loved Pete but is a man really worth all of what she did? Really? But who really knows what they would do to keep the one they love? And that is exactly what Lucy Dawson explores. It’s an original story line because generally novels about cheating partners have them being dumped fairly sharpish. It’s telling it from the other side – what happens if, actually, you want to stay with the man?

I found the minor characters relief from the main plot – Claire, Patrick, Lottie, Debs etc. but they were really minor characters so it didn’t get away from the main plot for too long.

I wanted Mia to see Pete for what he was: a liar and a cheat but you would have to say they deserved each other what with the way she goes about lying and deceiving.

However that’s just a minor opinion I had on the book – I still enjoyed it regardless, an author rarely makes such an impact with a debut novel but Lucy’s was fantastic and I can’t wait to read more of her novels.

Rating: 5/5

[Christie (The Ludic Reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I seem to be on an infidelity kick lately. I read Lucy Dawson’s debut novel, His Other Lover, over two nights, reading until my eyes burned. In all the ways Love and Other Natural Disasters failed, His Other Lover succeeded.

One night, Mia, a 20-something woman who works for a small advertising firm somewhere near London, discovers a text message on her live-in boyfriend’s phone. Mia thought Pete was the one. Turns out he’s someone else's one, too. That someone else is an actress named Liz.

The discovery of the text message begins a downward spiral of destructive behaviour which upends Mia’s life. But hers is not the only life shattered by the discovery.

It’s interesting, but true, I think: women who are cheated on often blame the other woman. Mia pours all her anger and hatred on top of Liz. She almost makes Pete seem like another victim, someone who fell into Liz’s Black Widow trap and was helpless against her sticky charms.

Of course it’s all much more complicated that that. Mia goes completely off the rails, calling in sick for days on end while she tries to track down Liz. She wants her boyfriend back and the only way to do that is annihilate the enemy.

Dawson does a terrific job of getting inside of Mia’s head. The whole range of emotions are there: grief, anger, the hot desire for revenge. Mia is single-minded in her thirst for getting back her man. The thing is: he’s not worth it.

But the book is.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

His Other Lover had been sitting unread on my shelf for years, I've no idea why! I took it on holiday to Corfu and read it within a day.

What a twisted, scarily real story this is. I expected a 'chick lit' type of story - it was obvious it was going to be about a girl whose boyfriend is cheating on her, and it is. What I didn't expect was such clever writing and such a twisted and almost psychotic lead character.

Mia and Pete have been together for years, as far as Mia is concerned their relationship is happy and solid. That is until she discovers that Pete has been texting another woman, in fact that's not all he has been doing. It is Mia's actions that shock the reader.

Most women would want to do what Mia does, but most of us wouldn't have the nerve. There is something about Mia and her actions that made me like her, despite what she does and how she does it.

Lucy Dawson has written an engrossing story of a woman scorned and left the reader with an ending that makes one think and ponder for a long time after the book is closed

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

All For Nothing

A spineless woman, a narcissistic liar and the other woman, three more pathetic people you would be hard pressed to find. The book starts off very intriguing, but by the middle it becomes like someone else wrote it.
Mia is the scorned live in girlfriend of Peter and you already know by reading the synopsis all is not well i with what she perceived as THE ONE.
Watching these two women unravel is both sickening and disturbing, if I could of I would have slapped Mia and Liz upside the head and yelled Get Over It.
Liz isn’t too bright willing to “wait “ for someone to eventually leave his girlfriend WTF?
The ending was soo lame that I was stunned
But after thinking about it the S O B Pete is the winner here, because reading between the lines to me showed he regrets nothing, it’s almost like he doesn’t need to pretend to Mia anymore that he’s all in. To think he gets away with his lying to both women made me see red. Ms Dawson owed us a better ending

[Koki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kniha hovorí o tom, čo všetko je žena schopná urobiť pre to, aby si udržala lásku svojho muža.

Mia miluje Peta. Žijú spolu v jednej domácnosti už niekoľko rokov a všetko sa zdá ideálne. Až kým si Mia neprečíta v jeho mobile esemesku. Žeby mal jej pomyselný princ na bielom koni milenku? Táto nečakaná správa ňou nevídane zalomcuje. Dostane záchvat... a ten ju dllllho, dlho neprejde. V mysli má iba jediné: zbaviť sa konkurentky. Rozbieha tak kolotoč lží, ktorý sa začína krútiť nekontrolovateľným tempom. A v momente, kedy si Mia začína byť istá víťazstvom, sa náhle zastaví a začne váhať. Urobila som dobre? Naozaj to bolo nutné?

Celú recenziu nájdete tu: http://kokina1.blogspot.sk/2014/11/mi...

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and was completely hooked from the start - I read it in one day!
It is basically what all women dread, and the lengths we would all go to, to unravel the truth, maybe seek revenge and also satisfy curiosities! it really is a gripping read, and you can really relate and sympathise with the main character.
I would give this book 5 stars, however the ending to me was a let down, I can't really say why because the reason would be a spoiler...it is still definately worth a read.

[Monica Akinyi Odhiambo · Rating 5 out of 5]

First the question this novel asks, is if he might be having an affair, would I walk out or fight back? I would obviously walk out.The lengths Mia went through just to keep her man was apalling. That you would skip work, stalk this girl and even resort to trashing your house, all to preserve a man, who you ain't even sure if he cheated or not. It just seemed abit too much for me, but all in all, I loved the angle she took with this book. It had genuine questions and concerns and probably options on what a girl would do in such a situation.Definitely worth reading :-)

[Meredith Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mia and Pete live together and seem happy until Mia discovers a suspect text message on Petes phone. A bit of detective work leads Mia to discover that Pete is having an affair. Rather than confront Pete and possibly lose Pete, Mia keeps her knowledge a secret and proceeds to deal with it in her own way, with a view to keeping Pete. This story goes through the steps that Mia takes to break apart Pete and his girlfriend Liz. Mia gets her way at the end of the story, but no-one seems really Happy.

[Chanel Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that started off gripping and very intriguing, but honestly the second half of this book disappointed me.
I instantly felt so much empathy for the main character, and my stomach was in knots thinking about how I would feel in her shoes. But Mia slowly became a character that was questionable and rather unlikeable. Her actions/behaviour was hard to justify. - and because of this, I disliked the ending. Shame really as the book started off so well!
Meh. My least favourite book from this author.

[Tess Boyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have so many mixed feelings towards this book. At points it was hard to read, hard to comprehend what was actually happening, and made me uncomfortable to believe that someone could be so deranged. The story line was gripping and drew me in, for some reason I couldn't look away and I had to know what was going to happen next. Actually super annoyed at the cliff hanger at the end, I found myself saying, "What?!" when I realized I had finished it. I'm not left with a nice feeling after finishing this book.

[Annie Ortiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro me toco a fondo, tengo algo con la infidelidad que me afecta y apasiona. Leí His other love como si la historia que estaban contando fuera la mía -aunque no he sido engañada-, la narración en primera persona en definitivamente ayuda a eso.
En realidad no me esperaba el final abierto, no lo quise así, hubiera preferido un final contundente.
Divertido, estrafalario,recomendado para leer.

[Birgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do you do if you find out your boyfriend has been cheating on you?
Kick him out?
Confront him?
Rant and rave at him?
That would have made it a very short and predictable book.

She wants to keep him and sets about doing just that. I really didn't know where this was going and have to say the end surprised me. Mind you I wanted to put my hand in the book and give all the characters a good slap.