The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

Everyone in this historical fiction novel seems to have a secret. The expats living in Malaysia in the early 1900s live a life reminiscent of The Great Gatsby; parties, illicit love affairs, murder and an added touch of revolution. When the author, W. Somerset Maugham, comes to visit he has a way of getting people to talk so that he can find inspiration for his work, but he also has secrets of his own that he’s trying to hide.  

In The House of Doors (2023) Tan Twan Eng returns with more of the beautiful, atmospheric prose that I fell in love with while reading his earlier book, The Garden of Evening Mists. It has an old-fashioned feel to it that would appeal to lovers of the classics and, of course, the works of W. Somerset Maugham.