Harriet Said...: A Virago Modern Classic | 
Thankyou so much Leah. For the lovely card and bookmark, a book to read to my little grandchildren, Grandmothers ! And Harriet Said …. Thrilled to pieces. That Beryl Bainbridge cover is amazing, everything is.Thankyou my lovely friend 😘 @LeahBergen
Major score. I‘ve been looking for this one for a long time. It‘s loosely based on a crime that was committed in Australia. I found this at the Maple Street Antiques Mall in Mason, Michigan. #mittenlitten
"It was not that my feelings illuminated and transformed me, as Harriet became transformed in diabolical anger or joy, it was more a dreadful eagerness and vulnerability that made my face like an open wound, with all the nerves exposed and raw."
MOOD.
"Then I was filled with disproportionate fear, as if I had lit a match and dropped it in the grass, seeing in the small flame a whole world afire before I trod it underfoot."
"The woods seemed smaller and blacker, the church tower breaking through the pines, tiny and ineffectual. Time was when the whole earth lay buried beneath the blue trees, and the tower split the clouds with a fist of iron."
"Three people of one flesh, all alone in separate rooms, one chewing sweets and reading the evening paper, one chanting out his tom-tom message of doom, and the third motionless on her bed, dry eyes wide open under the electric light."
"Voices could be heard bouncing in a tight ball against the ceiling."
"We walked down the field, further into the darkness; at our feet in the wet grass, among the old tins and rubbish, lay the reflections of lights, fragments of glass in blue and yellow and orange, not big enough or tangible enough to take home and look through later, turning the world to gold."
"Sometimes in a mood of contentment and affection I confided things to my mother. Usually I had reason to regret it."
Mood.
"We both tried very hard to give our parents love, and security, but they were too demanding."
"The tide was a long way out, the sea lay motionless; at the rim of the sky an oil tanker stayed still."
It's October. Perfect time for a horror story based on the Parker-Holme murder case in New Zealand. You know, the one where two teenage girls kill one of their mothers by bashing her head in with a brick? Juliet Hulme is now better known as Ann Perry, author of murdery detective novels.
This is why I will never read her books; it's all I can think about: they bashed her with a brick in a stocking.
pickMy first Bainbridge, but not my last. A book with no “likable” characters that sucks you in and keeps you pinned. Wow.
#BookMail
This is five-time Booker-nominated Beryl Bainbridge‘s first novel, written in 1958, but rejected by publishers because the two characters were “repulsive almost beyond belief”. 😂😂 The story is based on the creepy girls involved in the Parker-Hulme (Heavenly Creatures) murder case and was eventually published in 1972. Has anyone read it? It sounds like a good October read.
pickDo young teen girls have any idea how cruel they can be? What of them can be attributed to youth and what to mean-spiritedness? Bainbridge explores these themes in the novel of two young girls and their seduction of a neighborhood gentleman. Reminiscent of 'Heavenly Creatures," Bainbridge creates a world where girls write rules and play parts. Repercussions of their game rush upon the reader as this book spins towards its ultimate conclusion.
