Simple Life

From the bestselling author of The Kashmir Shawl Dinah Steward has a secret. Hidden beneath the comfortable family life she shares with her successful husband Matthew and their two sons lies a shameful secret that has haunted Dinah for fifteen years. She and Matt never speak of it or the impossible choice he forced her to make all those years ago: they think the cracks have been papered over. But when a chance encounter brings the past into sharp focus once more, Dinah realises she can no longer deny the truth. She decides to risk everything – her husband, her sons, her perfect lifestyle, in order to claim what was always hers.

‘Love, seduction, magic and illusion collide as Rosie Thomas takes us on a spellbinding journey through an extremely shadowy world’ Daily Express Praise for The Kashmir Shawl: ‘A superbly researched and vivid evocation of wartime Kashmir and Ladakh’ Daily Mail ‘A spellbinding tale. Beautifully written, honest and compassionate…a delight from start to finish’Daily Express ‘An epic tale…A complicated entanglement of family secrets, love during wartime and dangerous liaisons. For fans of Maggie O’Farrell’Red ‘A superbly written novel, marvellously descriptive and especially evocative of the war years . . . a gorgeous treat’ Choice ‘Thomas’ portrayal of a young wife struggling to cope with life in wartime Kashmir, her husband’s indifference to her and her attraction to a charismatic mountaineer is beautifully written, touching and believable’ The Daily Express

Rosie Thomas is the author of a number of celebrated novels, including the bestsellers The Kashmir Shawl, Sun at Midnight, Iris and Ruby and Constance. Once she was established as a writer and her children were grown, she discovered a love of travelling and mountaineering. She has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, competed in the Peking to Paris car rally, spent time on a tiny Bulgarian research station in Antarctica and travelled the silk road through Asia. She lives in London.