Sin
By the author of DAMAGE, inspiration for the Netflix series OBSESSION
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'Sin might be the spearhead of a new fictional genre' ANTHONY QUINN, INDEPENDENT
'The reader looks on with mingled shock and fascination ' NEW YORK TIMES
'Shocking . . . unrelenting in its intensity . . . you won't be able to put it down' COSMOPOLITAN
'Though she wounded me beyond pain, I too inflicted deep hurt. Not born to murder her, still I sought to break her . . . Her name was Elizabeth Ashbridge. And I even envied her that.'
A provocative novel of jealousy and betrayal between two rival sisters Ruth calls herself a malevolent creature, ruled since childhood by hatred and envy for her adopted sister, Elizabeth. She grew up in Elizabeth's shadow, always falling short of her goodness and generosity, constantly resenting her very presence in the family. As they grow old, Ruth sets out to destroy her without guilt or hesitation. Ruth will strike Elizabeth where she's most vulnerable-she will steal her husband and send her collapsing into ruin.
Written in Hart's concise, striking prose, Sin is a powerful and compulsively readable exploration of hate-and the destruction and tragedy it begets. It's about a woman possessed by an obsessive envy, a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. From the author of the bestselling Damage, now takes its proper place as a Virago Modern Classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of Hart's bestselling Damage will undoubtedly flock to the bookstores to snatch up her second novel, but they may be disappointed by this one, which essentially marks her as a one-note writer. Again there is an insistent yet oblique narrative voice; this time it belongs to Ruth, who is insanely envious of her cousin/sister Elizabeth, adopted by Ruth's parents when her own family died in an accident. Calling herself a ``malevolent creature,'' Ruth realizes that her desire to destroy kind, generous Elizabeth is the expression of a warped psyche. When she succeeds in seducing Elizabeth's husband, Sir Charles, Ruth exults in their lasciviously detailed red-hot sex, but after he repudiates her, she experiences terrible pain. The staccato sentences that successfully propelled Damage are here reduced to fragments so truncated they cry out for parody; elsewhere, Hart's prose is terminally overwrought: ``Ferocity had etched something high, cold and silver onto my face.'' Readers will discern a pattern in Hart's plot technique: obsession leads to evil, betrayal and lust, then to painfully ironic complications and eventually to tragic, symbolic retribution. The trouble this time around is that the melodrama palls and the frisson of suspense is lacking. 100,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
