Anything that includes expat life and ilicit romance makes my day. This book includes both and even though the plot (especially at the end) is a bit too crazy, it’s very entertaining. Complete review coming soon.

Great idea for a book and really well executed. A thoroughly good read. Highly recommended. .

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

This is a very different take on a woman finding herself. Sanya stands out in Copenhagen because of her dark skin but she settles in. Then she falls for Anders, the man who owns the company her husband wants to acquire. It's a good read.

Amulya Malladi never rests on the success of her previous novel, and this is no exception. With a focused eye, Malladi offers the reader a story of mental health challenges with love and humor. She knows the setting well as a world-traveling professional woman who lives in Demark for fourteen years. There's much to love, much to absorb, and much to think about in this novel.

I loved this story. Very entertaining and relatable. It also really makes me want to travel.
After Sanya loses her job and sinks deep into depression her husband moves her from America to Copenhagen to further his career. He thinks he's doing what's best for her but she's the one who knows what's best for her and him.

The Copenhagen Affair delves into the misconception that “emotional baggage will disappear if one changes geographies.” It’s about an American couple who decides that a move to Copenhagen, Denmark, is the right next step for them after the wife Sanya has had a nervous breakdown at her workplace and now suffers from depression. Her husband Harry has a work opportunity there, and according to him, the temporary move would improve his wife’s health.

While Harry spends his days at work, Sanya spends hers at home under her duvet. Slowly, she comes out of her shell and begins to interact with people in the city and get used to her new self. She meets and becomes attracted to a man whom it turns out owns the company that Harry’s company is acquiring. Sanya struggles with the conflict of previously being “Old Sanya” (happy and positive, devoted to work and family, eager to please) and now becoming “New Sanya” (depressed, at times difficult and stubborn, attracted to defects and the unknown). As the story progresses, Harry and Sanya are also forced to contemplate their marriage and the future of it.

Though I felt some sympathy for Sanya and her struggles with depression and anxiety, I did not care for most of the supporting characters in the story. They were all generally part of Copenhagen’s wealthy, elite class. The women were only interested in designer brand names and gossip. They were actually a bit representative of “mean girls.” Even Sanya at one point described one of the women as being a “vindictive little bitch.” And in this society, hitting on others’ spouses and having affairs was commonplace. Not my ideal kind of people to hang out with.

I did enjoy the book more when Sanya, a financial consultant by trade, began to take an interest in her husband’s business acquisition deal and put her skills to use to try to find out what was actually going on. It became a little bit of a financial mystery story then which made the book more interesting to me. The ending, though a little over the top, made me hopeful that Sanya and Harry would work things out one way or another.
Overall, it was an enjoyable book. It was a quick and easy read. One aspect I especially enjoyed was the setting. Malladi certainly showed she knows Copenhagen well. She often mentioned specific stores, cafes, restaurants, and parts of town. For anyone wanting to visit or revisit Copenhagen, this book certainly provides that opportunity.

Sanya was a hard-working woman. She was a numbers whiz, a master of her company's spreadsheets. She was a loving and devoted mother. And she was the perfect wife. 

And then she broke. 

After years of being who everyone else wanted her to be, after being slowly and quietly beaten down by the responsibilities and isolation of her life, she came to the end of her rope. Sanya started crying in her office one afternoon and couldn't stop. So after she had this nervous breakdown and started spending her days in bed, debilitated by depression and anxiety, it was up to her husband Harry to try to keep their life together. When he has the opportunity to spend a year working in Copenhagen, he signs them up, hoping a trip to the other side of the world will be just what Sanya needs. 

In The Copenhagen Affair, Amulya Malladi takes us all on a trip to Denmark, to see how the upper half live in their capital city. The story of Sanya and Harry and their new friends and colleagues is a layered story of love and marriage, of infidelity and illness, of finding new life and new love in a new city. 

I've heard this book called chick lit. I've heard it called a rom com. I've heard it called a farce. Personally, I don't see it. Maybe it's because this one hits a little close for me. There was a time I fell apart and had to figure out how to put myself back together. I know the depression Sanya feels, and I still struggle with anxiety. I never got to live in Europe for a year to heal, but I found her challenges realistic and honest. 

I really loved this book. I thought it was just the right mix of painful and humorous, just the right balance of Sanya's independence and her relationships with others. To me, it felt serious but never overwhelmingly sad, and there were many light-hearted moments. Plus, you got a hearty helping of life in Copenhagen, through the eyes of those who grew up there as well as from ex-pats. The Copenhagen Affair is a layered novel of hope and healing, of humor and honesty, in a country known for focusing on family. I highly recommend this one! 



Galleys for The Copenhagen Affair were provided by Lake Union Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.

By Tracy Wright on September 26, 2017
Amulya Malladi has written a love letter from a beautifully rendered Copenhagen. We meet Sanya, whose experience with depression is poignant and her husband Harry, whose career moves them to Denmark.
The descriptions of the city, the culture and the slight theme of insecure mean girls makes this sparkling novel a bit spicy, as do the various flirtations. There is poetry, love, music and sex. This is a gourmet meal of a book for readers. I enjoyed the real person Sanya was, her battle with mental illness, and her journey back to herself is something most wives, mothers, any parent or partner, really, will find relatable. A truly enjoyable read.

The Copenhagen Affair is the first book I read by this author and I can already tell you it won't be the last!! When I read that this was a comedy about depression, I was not really expecting much, but the author surprised me. This book is so well written, and you can't help but root for the protagonist, Sanya.

The way the author describes the landscapes, the people, the food, made me feel like I was in Denmark myself.

This has become one of my favorite books for 2017 and I highly recommend this read!

Relationships aren't healing if you move countries. Instead, you are only faced with a new, often magnified reality, which shows 10 times or more bigger the big hole you are in.
Sanya and her successful charming and fashionable husband move for one year to Copenhagen hoping that the 'implosion' she suffered recently will go away, while he is busy to supervise the purchase of a local company. The new expat family is received with open hand by the high-end local society, for a very serious reason: there are so many secrets to hide among the people supposedly selling the company that they better behave nicely and even try to flirt or have an affair for the price of it.
Nouveau riches and old money, desperate dedicated housewives, illicit affairs and a lot of showing off, this is the expat world where the good Sanya is introduced too. But she is also going through a dramatic transformation, with a clear line between the 'old' and 'new' women who is trying to change into.
The writing is very captivating, although the story is not so original and the expat life in happy places around the world, with its illicit and legal aspects was often used as a background in recent books - for instance, The Expats by Chris Pavone. The intricacies of the mental breakdown Sanya went through are very well described and together with the other elements of the story, mid-way between irony and thriller, with unexpected twists and some unanswered questions - what really happened between Sanya and Ravn during her 'kidnapping'? - which make the book a pleasant and hard to put down read.

I loved this book. Depression is not a laughing matter and yet this book has humor in it.

This book turned out to be different than what I expected.

I expected a bit of a Rom Com: married couple relocate from sunny California to Copenhagen for a year; she meets someone and has an affair, and then has to decide what she wants to do once it's time to go home.

Instead ... this was a story about mental health issues, learning about oneself, learning about your partner after 20 years of marriage, adapting to a new environment ... oh and there was a bit of a white collar mystery thrown in for good measure.

The highlight of this book was 1. Copenhagen. It was obvious that the author had lived there and loved the city because the book feels like a love letter to the city. 2. Brilliant depiction of someone with mental health issues. As someone who has suffered from depression, I appreciated that the author didn't try to make light of depression and was able to bring real empathy to the subject.

All in all - this was more serious than what I was expecting - except for the ending, that's where the white collar, mystery, love triangle "fun" part of the book really came to light ... the two different plots just felt a little bit forced and didn't quite come together the way I would have hoped.

That said - if you love to travel and are keen to spend a few hours enjoying Copenhagen, I recommend this book. Like I said, it just wasn't what I thought I was getting myself into. That doesn't mean it wasn't decent.

“The Copenhagen Affair” by Amulya Malladi

An interesting novel about depression, recovery, affairs, moving forward, and examining ones past.

When Sanya gets a promotion at work she was long overdue for she suddenly falls apart. After having been the wife and employee who always played by the rules and was pretty much perfect to a fault, she is overwhelmed and just plain tired when she is finally promoted. She starts crying and can’t stop. She lives inside her cave of a bed for several months. When her husband is given the opportunity to go to Copenhagen, the city of the happiest country in the world, they both choose to do so.

Slowly Sanya gets out of bed and begins to go outside and eventually socialize. She meets a man that she finds absolutely fascinating and wants to see more often. He is interested in her and in having an affair. While the idea appeals to Sanya, and despite knowing her husband has had at least one, she won’t go that far. This time it is not to be perfect or play by the rules, but because she simply makes the choice.

Slowly, she recovers and her marriage recovers. How she and they get to that point is the interesting aspect of the novel.

I found this book to be enjoyable, at best. I enjoyed following Sanya’s journey. Otherwise, the repetitive focus on who was interested in who and who had slept with whom simply lost me and my focus more than halfway through the novel. I kept reading, because I was interested in how Sanya “recovered” from her cubby in the covers to living a life that worked for her.

While the author’s intent was to write a lighthearted read, for me, the author missed that goal. Perhaps it was the ongoing focus of affairs, or of disjointed marriages and how the couples got there. I felt that this focus on drowned out the characters, diminished the novel, and was repetitious plot wise.

While this novel did not appeal to me overall, I did enjoy aspects of it and look forward to reading another book by this author.

Rating: 3.4

⭐️⭐️⭐️

** I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A breakdown or a breakthrough?

Sanya and Harry move to Copenhagen as he negotiates the acquisition of a company there. Sanya is a bit at loose ends following a spectacular breakdown at her own job after she is finally offered a partner position there. Still trying to come to grips with her own feelings and work her way out of the pit of depression, she meets all kinds of people in Copenhagen and enjoys the beauty of the city. Lots of name dropping and references to specific places, designer brands, etc. show Sanya in a fairly elitist position enjoying the things that money can buy as she figures herself out. She's too long been acting the part of perfect wife and mother, subjugating her own desires until she no longer knows exactly who she is or what she wants from life, her marriage, herself. She references herself as Old Sanya and New Sanya, and everyone she connects with represents a chance for her to try it all on. Especially one particular man -- the owner of the company that Harry is investigating for purchase -- Anders Ravn. He's the mysterious man with a scar who takes a romantic interest in Sanya and makes her feel that she can love again.

The author refers to this book as a romantic comedy about depression, and I think it is also somewhat autobiographical for her. It's a poignant story, a bit of a farce, and definitely shows the uniqueness of the city of Copenhagen and it's obvious that Amulya loves it. The cast of characters is quite colorful the interaction between them is laugh out loud at times and quite brutally honest at others. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to end up for the marriage of Sanya and Harry. And I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted for either of them! Since I usually only read suspense thrilers and mysteries, this was a departure for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the diversion. I've read all of this author's books over the years and she always touches on subjects that have deeper themes about relationships, family, work, marriage and life. Bravo!

Set in very modern Copenhagen, the travails of depression, marriage and image having to be maintained all combine in a very modern, funny tongue in the cheek very British sense of humour type of story.

Sanya was a very supportive wife. She not only had a very demanding job but she also took on the role of carer to her daughter and was a very supportive wife to Harry. When a sudden breakdown happens in office to the surprise of all the onus is now on Harry. His plan is to move across the world to Copenhagen where he feels a fresh start with new people is just the pep that Sanya needs. In this he is clueless as to what makes Sanya tick and though he thinks he knows how to handle women, he does not and this makes it a comedy as well as farcical at the same time.

Alongside Harry's ineptitude is Sanya breaking out almost falling in love with two very different people and being perfectly happy about it. She who never thought of being unfaithful or even different to others, is now open to ideas, options and new ways of life!

How these very disparate ways of looking at life are brought together finally in a spirit of understanding and respect and how each character reverses their usual form to accommodate the other is very well told.

Another nice aspect of the story is that throughout the author gives you glimpses into life in Copenhagen from its restaurants and bars to the general way of life there in that city. It added a lot of vibe and color to the story.
Goodreads and Amazon review posted on 31/10/2017. Review on my blog posted on 16/11/2017. Also linked to my FB page.

I loved this book!

When I first started I wasn't entirely sure that a story about someone having a breakdown at work was really the best fit for me right now (lol) but I kind of fell in love with it.

It hit me right in that 'getting in the heads of women and their ordinary lives' spot which I am really into in at the moment. This this was another one where I loved the honest, and sometimes unflattering, views of a female protagonist on her life, and depression, and marriage, and the world.

I was also a bit mesmerised by the portrayal of Copenhagen in this book, which almost made the city feel like an additional character in the story, and gave me all the 'homesick' for Denmark feels!

I gave this 4 stars, and I've been recommending it to all my friends =)

This is a raw, honest novel about modern-day marriage and the myriad of ways that it can be presented to the world.

I've been a fan of Amulya Malladi's since I devoured A HOUSE FOR HAPPY MOTHERS, and subsequently her back- list of books. This intricate novel is among my favorites by her. I was enamored by the setting- beautiful Copenhagen, Denmark, a place that I have had the pleasure of visiting myself. This book is, in part, Malladi's love story to a city that she loves, which is evident in her colorful descriptions.

This is the story of Sanya, a wife and a mother who one day implodes when she is offered a hard-earned partnership at her firm while she is living in the States. She starts crying and is unable to stop, and several months later husband Harry, largely absent in Sanya's life until this time, takes her to Denmark with him while he attempts to acquire a new company.

Sanya, barely able to get out of bed, agrees to the move and finds herself benefiting from the move in ways that she couldn't imagine. Meeting handsome and devilish Ravn awakens Sanya once again to the potential within her own life, and she embarks on a rich emotional journey centered around finding herself.

While this novel is based largely around various marital affairs, and around how no one truly remains faithful in modern times (or do they?), this novel was a rich portrayal of being true to yourself even in uncertain times. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and this is one of my favorites by Malladi to date. The scenery was breathtaking, the theme thought-provoking, and the conclusion open-ended yet somehow satisfying. I can't recommend this novel highly enough!

3.5 stars

I received a free copy from NetGalley for my honest review.

Sanya has been married twenty years, has a great career and a life many people are envy of. It is not enough in the eyes of her family, and she is not enough to keep her career driven husband fully engaged. She suffers an "implosion," she calls it (nervous breakdown) and has been battling to bring herself back; but, she realizes she is not the same person and she spends her time trying to figure out what person she wants to "bring back." Her husband, Harry, suggests a move to Copenhagen for his job in hopes of the move being the change she needs to get back to 'normal.' She meets a few couples that are business contacts of Harry's and finds herself developing feelings for one of them. The story tells of Sanya's journey to self as well as what other's would do to keep the life they are comfortable in, safe.

The story had a great start. I was fully engaged and thought it was very different from books I had been reading. I felt it was honest and real in its portrayal of one suffering from depression and anxiety. I could not wait to see what happens in the end for Sanya. With that being said, I was very disappointed in the ending. It was not necessarily a twist, but the direction it took just seemed way off base for me and the dialogue back and forth between the 3 main characters seemed a bit unrealistic given the situation. I do not know what I truly wanted for Sanya, I guess I was a bit surprised by the direction as it was not expected.

In taking a pause in writing my review, I had a chance to think about the ending more, I can see how it was not so far fetched and actually made sense given the character's emotional journey, but I still feel it lacked. I do still feel it was a worthwhile read and enjoyed how the author brought her characters to life.

An engaging novel that serves as a story about a middle aged woman's reinvention and as a love note to Copenhagen, where the author lived for some years. Sanya was the perfect wife, mother, and corporate worker, if "perfect" means subsuming yourself in excellent service to others. After a nervous breakdown, Sanya finds that a temporary move with her husband to Copenhagen shakes up her life in unexpected ways, not least of which is a love affair with the Copenhagen-dweller's way of life.