Magpie

hen London couple Marisa and Jake rent their spare room to Kate, the three get along fine at first, even if things are a little awkward. The extra money is certainly helpful when Marisa becomes pregnant with a longed-for baby. But soon things turn weird and then sinister as unpregnant Kate shows up at Marisa’s prenatal yoga class and, in other ways, seems to be pushing her way into their lives far too much. Marisa fears that the interloper might even be having an affair with Jake. Then we switch to Kate’s point of view, to encounter the same events, even the same conversations, from a very different perspective. Day’s (The Party) story (while not recommended to those facing the pain of infertility, a major plot point) is fascinating because of the individual stories and the novel’s upside-down turn halfway through. The portrayal of Jake’s snooty mom, Annabelle, a wicked-witch-type mother-in-law, is the icing on the strange cake. Devotees of unreliable-narrator tales, snap this one up!