The Behaviour of Moths

The Behaviour of Moths
Genre : Fiction
Published : 1 Apr 2008 - Virago
From her lookout on the first floor, Ginny watches and waits for her younger sister to return to the crumbling mansion that was once their idyllic childhood home. Vivien has not set foot in the house since she left, forty-seven years ago; Ginny, the reclusive moth expert, has rarely ventured out. She has been selling off the family furniture over the years, gradually shutting each wing of the house and retreating into the precise routines that define her days. Only the attic remains untouched. There, collected over several generations, the walls are lined with pinned and preserved moths… Bordered Beauties and Rusty Waves, Feathered Footmen and Great Brocades, the Gothic and the Stranger…

Now that Vivien is coming home, long forgotten memories are stirred up and the secrets that have separated the sisters threaten to disrupt much more than Ginny’s carefully ordered world.

Told through Ginny’s unforgettable voice, this brilliant debut novel tells us what families are capable of doing to each other – especially in the name of love.

Reviews

This is a dark book, but an extremely funny one, recalling Mark Haddon and Barbara Trapido by turns. A brilliantly paced debut.

Daily Mail

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE comes to Devon, in Adams's gothic tale of madness, sibling rivalry and lepidoptera... Adams is a skilful, entertaining storyteller.

The Guardian

Damaged families, psychological drama and ghosts from the past abound. Adams succeeds in carefully building up an atmosphere of penumbral suspense, creeping towards a tense climax.

Literary Review

A striking debut novel... a convincing, true voice.

Financial Times

Ingenious… twisting and teasing… The book's real fascination [is] watching the author play her mischievous game of bluff with the reader.

The Independent

As vivid and disturbing as anything you'll read all year.

Scotsman

Delightfully refreshing... It's a subtle, fascinating and gently powerful performance.

Time Out

A chilling contemporary gothic... This genuinely eerie thriller is guaranteed to appeal to the same wide readership that propelled Diane Setterfield's suspenseful THE THIRTEENTH TALE to the top of the best-seller lists.

Booklist

An intricately crafted story, told with just the right balance of claustrophobia and compassion.

Psychologies

An atmospheric addition to the 'mess with your head' school of fiction.

Marie Claire

Disturbingly fab.

The Observer

Totally compelling.

Closer

One of my favourite books at the moment... It's a great story.

Tim Henman

This book has got everyone talking, and with good reason... With echoes of Daphne du Maurier, this is a fine, utterly engrossing read that will have your imagination working overtime.

Glamour

Adams has produced a clever take on the gothic thriller.

Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday

Poppy Adams keeps the reader pinned to the page.

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

Superbly written.

Woman & Home

This gripping novel is the read of the summer.

Elle

A chilling and disturbing novel.

Library Journal

Beautifully staged... Mesmerising and unsettling.

Good Housekeeping

Chilling... an eerie and accomplished debut.

Publishers Weekly

Engrossing.

Kirkus Reviews

A taut, tense tale of the ties that bind - sometimes a little too tightly.

Karin Slaughter

This lyrical and haunting story of two sisters, their troubling past, and the terrible secrets they each want buried will stay with you long after you close the book. A wonderful book loaded with twists and turns that come straight from the heart.

Harlan Coben

Powered by the same sort of confidently rendered literary suspense that propelled Donna Tartt’s 1992 thriller, THE SECRET HISTORY, onto best-seller lists… It is one of the achievements of this novel that Ms. Adams makes Ginny such an intriguingly unreliable narrator that the reader is continually kept off balance.

New York Times

With its stylish prose, taut plotting and dark psychology, [THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOTHS] is reminiscent of the best books by Ruth Rendell's alter ego, Barbara Vine... remarkably assured.

Washington Post

A suspenseful, provocative, deliberately ambiguous tale.

New York Sun

Steeped in both emotion and science… a novel laden with pathos and genuine emotional resonance.

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Deliciously creepy."<br />

The Montreal Gazette

A triumph.

The Vancouver Sun

Layers of increasingly disturbing family secrets are gradually revealed in this beguiling and chilling story with a brilliant narration.

The Observer (audio book)

A rewarding read.

Waterstones Books Quarterly

Couldn’t stop reading till I finished it at 3.30am. What a story.

Dublin Evening Press

An outstanding debut from an exceptional new voice in fiction.

Suffolk Free Press

A haunting first novel.

Go To Magazine

A gothic mystery that keeps you pinned to the page... Hitchcock-style menace.

Eve

Cognitive dissonance is what drives the plot, and that makes this quite a bold first novel.

Daily Telegraph

An engrossing atmosphere of gothic mystery.

The New Yorker

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