Author Interview: Tamar Cohen

I read and reviewed Tamar Cohen's debut novel The Mistresses Revenge recently, and thought it was a great piece of fiction written in a way which really involves you in the story. After reading it, I was offered the chance to interview Tamar, and I jumped at the chance as I had quite a few questions to ask her about the book, and how it came about. Here is the interview, my thanks to Tamar for answering my questions, I hope you enjoy reading it!

Q1. Tell us briefly about your novel 'The Mistress's Revenge'.

The Mistress’s Revenge charts the fallout from the ending of an illicit affair as told through the journals of the dumped mistress, Sally. Unable to accept her affair with Clive is over, Sally inveigles her way into the lives of her ex lover’s wife and children. As her obsession with them grows, she neglects her own family, career and home, with inevitably catastrophic results.

Q2. It's quite a controversial story in that the main character has been having a long-standing affair, did you worry about how it would be received?

I didn’t have any worries about the moral aspect simply because I don’t believe it’s necessary for the reader to have sympathy for the characters, only to find them believable. As a reader, I don’t want to be put into the position of making value judgements on characters based on a given situation. I’d much rather make up my own mind about them based on what is revealed throughout the course of the book. Also, I think most people aren’t so black and white about infidelity any more. For goodness sake, our future monarch is now married to his former mistress! I think we’re more able to accept that human relationships are complex things, and don’t always follow a fairy-story arc.

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