The Candidate’s Husband

An ambitious working-class headteacher is selected as Labour candidate in a contest to replace a disgraced MP at the height of the #MeToo movement.

She’s seen as a breath of fresh air in a toxic climate. Only her husband, the deputy editor of the local paper, is unimpressed.

She ignores him and battles on. Over the course of six weeks, the election campaign brings to the surface the flaws deeply embedded in their relationship – until a revelation from the past threatens to derail the whole operation.

For politics is a ruthless business, especially, it seems, for a woman.

The Candidate’s Husband is a bookclub-friendly story about politics, marriage and social class, set during a fictional by-election in Hull.

Wendy Sacks Jones is a journalist and writer. As Wendy Jones she was a BBC education correspondent, Today programme reporter and current affairs presenter. She turned into a BBC suit for a few years (as deputy company secretary and then head of education policy), but left to go freelance, co-found an education charity, National Numeracy, and write.

She’s on the board of the writers’ organisation, 26, has co-edited a book about the prison charity, Fine Cell Work, and volunteers teaching English to refugees. She lives in south London with her husband and has three grown-up children.

The Candidate’s Husband is her first novel.

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