What a strange story this is: British ex-pat Lucy Fly has lived in Tokyo for ten years and works as a translator; she befriends Lily, another Brit newly arrived in Tokyo. Her lover – she hesitates to use the word “boyfriend” is Teiji, an amateur photographer, about whom Lucy is quite possessive....
I have now read all of Susanna Jones's novels, and this - her second - was typically compelling, readable and haunting. Water Lily is subtitled 'a novel of mystery', which I don't think is quite accurate. A novel of obsession, maybe: a novel of delusion, certainly. There are two main characters -...