It oughtn't to work, given that it was written to a challenge, and also at a dark time in my life; but on re-reading, ten years on, it seems to. And it has two serious inter-related themes, the change in woman over a century and a half and different forms of enslavement and dependence.
'I hurtled on, gripped by the simplest desire any reader ever has. I wanted to find out what happened.'
--New Statesman
'The irresistibly melodramatic plot of D.M.Thomas's novel had me completely bewitched.'
--Val Hennessy, Daily Mail