Title: The Woman in the Lobby
Author: Lee Tulloch
Publisher: Penguin, 2005 (441 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-14-300333-5
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Grab: An erotic chocolate box (and please tell me where you got it!)

One of the review excerpts on the back of my 2009 paperback copy of The Woman in the Lobby describes it as “an erotic chocolate box of a novel”. Now to me, this just sets a book up for failure. A dozen pages in, I was already grumbling to my husband about the lack of erotic chocolates. But once I got past that, I found myself quite swept up in the world of Violet Armengard – mistress to some of the world’s most powerful and wealthy men.

After an unexpected fling with an international tennis player in a lush Melbourne hotel, newly divorced Violet heads to Paris. Unable to reconnect with her lover as planned, circumstances lead to her involvement with another wealthy businessman. This steers Violet slowly into a succession of relationships that keep her travelling the globe, staying in the most lavish of hotels in some of the world’s best-known luxury destinations. Lurking in the background of all this affluence, is the enigmatic Florin – Violet’s male counterpart in the seduction of the rich.

There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. The Woman in the Lobby didn’t always go where I thought it would, and Lee Tulloch’s writing was the real star of the story. It was a nice change to read a book for women that was able to provide both enjoyable escapism and food for thought.

For a more detailed review of The Woman in the Lobby, visit Susan’s reviews at Suite101.com.