Published 28th March 2024 by HQ.
From the cover of the book:
April Eden is about to have the night of her life. The Vanished Woman, the film she wrote and directed is up for a raft of major awards. Her leading lady, Essie Lay, is on the cusp of a stunning comeback after the disturbing scandal that ended her small-screen career a year before.When Essie messages April to say she can’t face the ceremony, April presumes nerves and goes to her Hampstead mansion to persuade her to attend. Instead, April finds Essie dead in her swimming pool.
In that moment, April makes an agonising decision, which will force her onto a course of action she couldn’t have imagined. If she is to find out what happened – and protect her own freedom – April is going to find herself face to face with some of the most powerful people in her industry, unforeseen dangers, and discomfiting truths from Essie’s and her own past.
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TV star Essie Lay's career was in meltdown, when a face from the past, rising director April Eden, gave her a way back into the limelight with a leading role in her ground-breaking film, The Vanished Woman. The film is now up for a raft of awards, and is sure to herald great things for director April and 'born again' star Essie. However, on the night of the glamorous British Film Associate Awards, where they both stand to win, April receives a call from Essie to say that she cannot face turning up to the ceremony.
April makes a last minute dash to Essie's mansion, Lotus Lodge, in affluent Hampstead, to try to persuade Essie to attend the event, but instead of having to find a way to calm her anxious star, she is faced with a very different sort of dilemma... for Essie lies dead, face-down in her luxurious swimming pool. April is forced to make a decision whether to deal with Essie's tragic demise now, or continue the night as if nothing has happened. The choice she makes takes her on a dangerous path that has her confronting uncomfortable truths about her own and Essie's pasts, and the connection that lies between them.
In an absolute masterclass of plotting, Helen Monks Takhar spins a jaw-dropping tale of betrayal and revenge in the brutal world of film and television production. Told through the voices of April and Essie, the story unfurls in delicious slow-burn style in the past and the present, cutting back and forth between the time the two women met, the paths of their careers, the film production that reunites them, and the chaos that ensues from April's decision. Each thread adds context, and atmospheric texture to the story as a whole, and Monks Takhar uses them to stunning effect by gradually exposing the secrets at the heart of this mystery, and the truth about the moments that have defined April and Essie's relationship. It is not often that I really do not know where a story will land, but this genuinely had me second guessing myself the whole way through, until the cracking twists and turns in the final throes of the novel brought everything together in a series of moments of cleverly conceived clarity.
Not only is this a thriller that keeps you on your toes with its drama, but it positively thrums with themes for you to get your teeth into on both the personal and professional fronts. Monks Takhar examines how abusive relationships and dysfunctional families affect the course of Essie and April's lives in a way that makes you sick to your stomach, and she has a ball using them as motivators to drive a story centred around the darkest of emotions. But what impresses me the most is the spectacular way she explores many facets of control, exploitation, manipulation, expectation, and sexism, through the many shades of meaning in her excellent title, Nothing Without Me.
This is a classy novel that begs to be consumed in a single sitting. It will keep you turning the pages well into the night - and leave you with a lot to ponder on about the entertainment industry, and the pitfalls of celebrity, particularly when it comes to the way men and women are treated so differently. I loved it!
Nothing Without Me is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to HQ for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Helen Monks Takhar worked as a journalist, copywriter and magazine editor having graduated from Cambridge in 1997. She began her career writing for financial trade newspapers in 1999 before contributing to UK national newspapers including The Times and The Observer. Born in Southport, Merseyside in 1976, she lives in North London with her husband and two daughters.
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