A House of Ruin

FROM THE AUTHOR OF I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN

Welcome to La Diguière: a disintegrating ancestral mansion, a matriarchy on the edge of ruin - a disaster lying in wait for an eligible solution.

After his car stalls to a slow halt on a moonlit lane, an architect finds himself stranded overnight in the Belgian countryside. His only hope for shelter is a decaying country home, where his hostesses permit him to lodge, at a steep fee.

Their wealth squandered by patriarchs gone-by, this family of mothers and daughters is industrious, fiercely independent and entirely charming. As our marooned traveller is drawn all too willingly into their warm embrace, it seems slowly certain that the household will stop at nothing to protect their home and their freedoms - especially when marriage brings a new and unwelcome intruder to their door.

At first a nightmare, then a dream, then a cold-eyed confession, Jacqueline Harpman's 1990s reinvention of the grand Gothic novel asks - with siren serenity - who here is damsel and who saviour, who the predator and who the prey?