Sin, like Josephine Hart's third novel The Stillest Day, is an explicitly cautionary tale. Ruth Ashbridge is, from childhood, obsessively jealous of her orphaned cousin Elizabeth. At first, her envy leads her into only minor misbehaviour--adopting her smile, stealing her jewellery and silk underwear. Yet these small thefts quickly escalate into major transgressions as Ruth sets about stealing Elizabeth's husband and her happiness. The confessional nature of Hart's first-person narrative suits the outpouring of hatred and envy. Ruth's position is succinctly summed up: "Like Satan before the Fall, I came to hate the very nature of goodness, to fear its power." However, her emotion is occasionally overemphasised and the descriptions of her overwrought, resulting in Ruth sounding unintentionally comic. She says of her own marriage to Dominick: "We were balanced. His love. My coldness." With Sin, Josephine Hart aims to create a modern biblical parable. In order to foreground the didactic content of her novel, Hart keeps characterisation to a minimum, shunning the complex psychology and narrative tension of her first novel Damage. In Hart's world, sin--succumbing to an impulse in complete disregard of its consequences--leads inescapably to tragedy. Through that tragedy, the heroine will learn too late the true value of goodness. --Vanessa Cook --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Ruth is beautiful, intelligent and privileged, but she can never be satisfied - there is a moral vacuum where her heart should be. She envies her cousin Elisabeth and this obsession leads her inexorably to tragedy. By the author of "Damage".

Literature & Fiction

JOSEPHINE HART

Contemporary

Arrow

Sin *Ome*

Arrow Books, Ltd.

Oblivion

Vintage

Ruth smiles, but beneath the surface nurses a hatred as powerful as the sea, and as sharp as the coldest of blades. The object of Ruth's malevolence is her cousin, Elizabeth - orphaned at nine months and raised by Ruth's parents as their own - whose very presence stole Ruth's birthright as only child. From this twisted sense of betrayal grows an envy, dark as night, from which there can be but one refuge: Elizabeth's destruction.

Catching Life by the Throat

Poetry

Hachette Digital

New York Times Bestseller: This psychological thriller is “a taut, sinister tale of erotic obsession” (Vanity Fair). Damage is the gripping story of a man’s desperate obsession and scandalous love affair. He is a man who appears to have everything: wealth, a beautiful wife and children, and a prestigious political career in Parliament. But his life lacks passion, and his aching emptiness drives him to an all-consuming, and ultimately catastrophic, relationship with his son’s fiancée.Chilling and brilliant, Damage is a New York Times–bestselling masterpiece—a daring look at the dangers of obsession and the depth of its shattering consequences.

Damage

Open Road Media

Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why

History & Criticism

Virago Press Ltd.

Signed without dedication, looks unread, dust jacket is in a protective sleeve. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Truth About Love

Virago Press

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.'  Sin is about a woman possessed by an obsessive envy, a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Sin, from the author of the bestselling Damage, now takes its proper place as a Virago Modern Classic. 'Stripped down to a single, inexorable storyline that centres on the destructive power of passion. As in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, innocence and virtue are cruelly and deliberately betrayed, as the reader looks on with mingled shock and fascination ...a tour de force' New York Times

Sin: By the author of DAMAGE, inspiration for the Netflix series OBSESSION (Virago Modern Classics)

virago press uk

A successful doctor and politician arrives at middle age and the high point of his career, having pursued a dutiful and passionless life. Then he becomes obsessed by his son's lover, the strange and secretive Anna.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JOSEPHINE HART. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by JOSEPHINE HART

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by JOSEPHINE HART. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sin

Sin Ome

Oblivion

Sin

Catching Life by the Throat

Damage

Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why

Truth About Love

Sin: By the author of DAMAGE, inspiration for the Netflix series OBSESSION (Virago Modern Classics)

Damage