Barbara Vine is a pseudonym for the British author Ruth Rendell. Under this name, she explores psychological crime novels that delve into complex family dynamics and the repercussions of secrets and crimes. Her writing is distinguished by elegant prose and sharp insights into the human mind. Vine masterfully crafts compelling plots and characters, reflecting social changes over the last four decades, including issues of domestic violence and the evolving status of women.
In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there, what they are doing or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and a child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery.
When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous.
Jarvis lives in a crumbling house with a view of the Jubilee Line: he loves the tube with all its secrets - its hidden tunnels, its mysterious "ghost" stations, its incidents and accidents, which he records. He lives in a house which was once a school, but now he lets out rooms.
A love affair is flourishing between Ivor Tesham and Hebe Furnal. What excitement Hebe lacks at home is compensated for by the well-bred and attractive Tesham. On the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday, Tesham decides to give Hebe a present to remember: something far more memorable than the costly string of pearls he's already lavished upon her.
Kirstin Kvist is 24 wanneer ze Zweden verlaat om in Engeland te gaan werken. Via haar vriend komt ze terecht op Lydstep Old Hall, een oud, verwaarloosd landhuis in Essex. Daar gaat ze zorgen voor John, een veertigjarige schizofrene man. Al bij aankomst beseft Kirstin dat ze in een ongewone familie is beland. Johns familieleden gunnen elkaar het licht in de ogen niet. Het enige wat hen bij elkaar houdt, is zijn geld. Wanneer een van zijn zussen een relatie krijgt met een kunstschilder uit het dorp, is dat de aanzet tot een reeks gruwelijke gebeurtenissen. Het noodlot lijkt onafwendbaar…
From “the most brilliant mystery writer of our time" (Patricia Cornwell), The Child’s Child is a thriller, set in London, about a brother and sister involved with the same man.When 30-something Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in London they decide to move in together. They’ve always gotten on well and the house is large enough to split down the middle. Yet when Andrew's partner James moves in, the balance is altered – with almost fatal consequences.A master of psychological suspense, Barbara Vine takes us where violence and social taboos collide. She shows how society's treatment of those it once considered undesirable has changed – and how sometimes it hasn't.
Gone with the Wind is a great romantic story of love and war and one of the best-selling books of all time. In Part 2, the American Civil War has destroyed Scarlett O’Hara’s comfortable world. Will she lose her home too? Or can she save it and rebuild her life?
When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That in fact he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years?'so ingeniously constructed, its truth and falsehoods are so deftly and convincingly interwoven, that its solution ... is as jolting as a flash of lightning' Sunday Times
