Apple Tree Yard: A Novel Author: Louise Doughty | Language: English | ISBN:
B00DXICW5C | Format: PDF
Apple Tree Yard: A Novel Description
An intelligent, erotically charged thriller with deep moral implications
Yvonne Carmichael, a renowned geneticist, public authority, and happily married mother of two, sits in the witness box. The charge is murder. Across the courtroom, not meeting her eye, sits her alleged accomplice. He wears the beautiful pin-striped suit he wore on their first meeting in the Houses of Parliament, when he put his hand on her elbow and guided her to a deserted chapel, where she began to undress. As the barrister’s voice grows low and sinuous, Yvonne realizes she’s lost herself and the life she’d built so carefully to a man who never existed at all.
After their first liaison, Yvonne’s lover tells her very little about himself, but she comes to suspect his secrecy has an explanation connected with the British government. So thrilled and absorbed is she in her newfound sexual power that she fails to notice the real danger about to blindside her from a seemingly innocuous angle. Then, reeling from an act of violence, Yvonne discovers that her desire for justice and revenge has already been compromised. Everything hinges on one night in a dark little alley called Apple Tree Yard.
Suspenseful, erotically charged, and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard is an intelligent psychological thriller about desire and its consequences by a writer of phenomenal gifts.
- File Size: 1056 KB
- Print Length: 358 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0571297889
- Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books (January 14, 2014)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00DXICW5C
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,479 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Erotica > Thrillers - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Erotica > Mystery - #14
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Genetic Engineering
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Erotica > Thrillers - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Erotica > Mystery - #14
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Genetic Engineering
I cannot think of a better way to start 2014. Louise Doughty nailed it perfectly with her flawless prose, superb character development and her original storyline. Apple Tree Yard delivers a literary thriller, psychologically nuanced with a compelling courtroom drama all expertly combined to make for a page-turning journey.
In the prologue we learn that Yvonne's (Y ) and her lover (X) are on trial. and their fates will be determined in the dock of Old Bailey in London We initially are not aware of what the charges are against them. This we learn as Yvonne begins the twisting and winding course that has brought her to this crossroads.
Yvonne Carmichael is 52 year old Geneticist at the top of her game. She is happily married and has two grown children. While she has lived through heart-break she is in control of her life. That is until her chance meeting with a charismatic and secretive man in the House of Parliament, turns into a precarious affair. As Yvonne tells her lover in this cautionary tale, this can happen to anyone.
"I need you to know this was not normal for me, and if you
had tried a year before or a year later, or simply when I was
in a different mood, it would never have happened. You caught
me at the precise moment I was ripe for it."
Unfortunately, the affair leaves Yvonne vulnerable to receiving justice for an act of violence that is not her fault. Yvonne's story is cleverly told in the first person narrative, as if she is speaking to her lover. Very similar to the novel "sister" which was told in the form of an open letter.
I cannot imagine anyone not liking this novel. Perhaps the difference between a 4 or 5 star review depends on how you feel about Yvonne.
What makes this an effective mystery, in my view, is that it is delivered to the reader by a clever device: it’s as though Yvonne is telling the story and her background to her lover. In that way, information is revealed in drips and drabs, she drops hints about pertinent events in her past that she’ll get around to talking about later, and the timeline jumps all over the place for most of the story. I think this was a smart decision on the author’s part because the reader is constantly wondering what’s going on, what is the nature of the criminal act with which Yvonne and her lover have been charged, how they went from embarking on a risky affair to being on trial, and of course, how it’s all going to end.
When you’re reading this, you feel compelled to keep turning the pages to find out the answers to all of those questions. The journey on which Louise Doughty takes her readers is one filled with darkness, yearning, infidelity, love (or obsession) at first sight, betrayals, revenge, and violence. It offers a peek into the mind of a middle-aged wife and mother as she makes the choice to have an affair, why she believes she made that choice, and its repercussions. It also eventually becomes a very interesting study of a court case, as we’re given the chance to see the ins and outs of the trial- the prosecution’s strategy, the problems that come with having two defendants each having their own representation, stall tactics, and a fair amount of surprise testimony.
There are a lot of twists (most of which are actually intriguing) throughout this story, up to the very end, and I give the author a lot of credit for writing a mystery with the power to truly keep readers guessing, because that is quite a feat in today’s day and age.
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