Grasshopper

Perfect. I didn’t think I would find another Vine novel I loved as much as The Brimstone Wedding, but perhaps this is even better? Like Brimstone it has the distinctive narrative voice, like A Fatal Inversion it’s about a group of young people living together in a sort of bohemian arrangement. A......more

I did not really enjoy this melodramatic story about Clodagh Brown. It is told the n a flashback style where she is waiting for her husband to return. She is scarred and traumatized by a climbing accident on a pylon that killed her boyfriend Daniel Fleetwood. Coupled with that she is claustrophobic.......more

I read this book when it first came out, and had forgotten how amazing it is: smart and moving and mysterious and strange in the best possible way. I suppose it is a mystery, but only in the quirky way that all Barbara Vine's books are mysteries--not traditional, but deeply compelling. This one invo......more

Anyone seeing my praise and high ratings for other Vine novels will no doubt be surprised at this book's two-star rating - quite simply, it's my least favorite Vine, period. I was not enamored of it when I first read it upon publication (which involved putting it down and picking it up again several......more

Perhaps I've come to expect too much from the legendary Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, but despite a great premise and characters, this story rumbled along very slowly and lost momentum completely far too often. It would have worked better at half the length and with more focus. 2.5 stars.......more