A Herald’s Best Summer Book

‘An unusual and accomplished first novel . . . moves in intriguing leaps and twists.’ Economist

‘Gorgeous’ New York Times

‘Grapples with the complexity of familial love.’ Marie Claire

French teenager Margot is the illegitimate daughter of a prominent stage actress and an influential politician. The comings and goings of their unconventional family, in a small Parisian apartment, cast her whole life under a veil of secrecy and shame.
One summer, Margot decides to exercise her own agency when she meets a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain. But as Margot is drawn into an adult world, she learns how one impulsive decision can change the contours of her life, and the lives of those around her, in ways she could never have imagined.
In this simmering debut Sanaë Lemoine explores private and public faces, truth and deceit, love and persuasion. The Margot Affair is a novel about the bone-deep bond between mothers and daughters, the devotion and betrayal of friendship and the dangers of pushing beyond the boundaries of a life lived in the shadows.