Set in Toronto, The Robber Bride revolves around the lives of three fascinating women. Classmates from university, Roz, Charis, and Tony all shared the seductive and destructive experience of a past friendship with the flashy, sensuous, smart, irresistible Zenia. As the novel opens, they are twenty years past their college days and have met at Zenia’s funeral, but at lunch, after the funeral, they spot Zenia – not dead at all and up to no good.
In this richly layered narrative, Atwood skillfully evokes the decades of the past as she retraces three women’s lives, until we are back in the present – where it’s yet to be discovered whether Zenia’s «pure, free-wheeling malevolence» can still wreak havoc.