A tale of two sisters and a childhood home. An intriguing read. Shortlisted for Costa's first novel award 2008.

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An intriguing first novel by Poppy Adams with well drawn characters. Shortlisted for The Costa first novel award and the Author's Club first novel award.

Chosen from 'The UK Bookbox of Award-Winning Women Writers'. Thank You!

Quite interesting, sat and read quite quickly. Good story, one where you want to find out more, as you read.

Released by post as part of First Sentences VBB.

I chose the first sentence of this book as part of the First Sentences VBB. Thanks Kayellbee.

Will be sending this book off to Safrolistics since she won the EU "I've never won a RABCK" sweep. This may be the type of read that she likes.

Safrolistics, you're the winner of the EU "I've never won a RABCK" sweep.
Enjoy the book!

Thankyou, received in the post today as winner of the EU, Never Won A Sweepstake RABCK.

Thankyou for sharing this, I really enjoyed it, reminded me somewhat of The Wasp Factory. Would have liked it to tell me what was "wrong" the sister. And if Maud really had been murdered and by whom!

Being posted to my Secret Santa 2010 partner, Happy Xmas, hope Santa brings you lots of books to enjoy!

received this book from my secret santa! Thank you so much!

wow, strange book! but strange in a good way. It would have been interesting to have a second part to the book. One that shows the whole story again from the view of another person, to see what really was going on. This way, a lot of things are unclear - but maybe that's the charm of the book?

Sending this book as a surprise to Nepal. I hope it gets there by Christmas. :-)

Wow, this arrived in my post box today! What a great surprise! I've really wanted to read this book. Thank you, Grovalskii, how wonderful of you! Thank you also for the Christmas card and Berlin Calendar-- I am really going to enjoy using that in this coming year. Thank you for your kindness and generosity!

Just finished this book today, rushing through it in just a few days, as once I started I found I did not want to stop. It was a very interesting book, and I'm trying now to sort out my feelings about it, as it's the kind that makes you think. As it's hard to write a review without spoilers, you should probably stop here if you haven't read it yet.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

I guess the most interesting thing for me, after finishing it, was wondering what truth was, about anything. Was Virginia even a famous scientist, or had she made all that up, too? Like some other readers, I also wanted a few more answers. I felt I could make a good guess as to Maud's death, but I wanted to know what was "wrong" with Virginia, as I realized all was not right quite early on in reading. Was she perhaps autistic? Her social skills and reading people left much to be desired, another thing obvious from the start of the book, such as when she mentions her mother was wrong about her father not wanting the other manufacturers' moth machine because of his pride, of which she (Virginia) unequivocally said he had none. But if she had been autistic, wouldn't physical intimacy have been a problem? I also found it odd that Arthur is the only one who doesn't notice anything wrong about her at all. Why not?
All in all, I found it a fascinating read, really well plotted, and even the fact that there were still questions at the end interested me, I don't mind that in a story. One small detail was the fact that they called their parents Clive and Maude, which unless it was characteristic of that time and class seemed both odd to not have been explained, and also made for confusing reading at the beginning of the book, though I did get used to it. Virginia's long flights of fancy into nature or moths were occasionally boring reading, and I wanted it to get back to the plot, but it was also clever to give you that sense into her mind and madness by doing that. And she was so very arrogant, wasn't she.
So again, a great read and I would certainly seek out more from this author. Thanks for passing this book on to me, Grovalskii!

I left this with my sister while visiting her last week. Now, I know this is not a sister book in the conventional sense of the word :D but I really enjoyed it and thought she would, too.