Comments on: A Dark-Adapted Eye, Barbara Vine

By: Gin Jenny

Gin Jenny — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 20:33:18 +0000

In reply to Alice Whooley. Are there others of her books that you've liked? I haven't read that many Barbara Vine books, but I'd like to read some more!

By: Alice Whooley

Alice Whooley — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:37:53 +0000

A Dark Adapted Eye was my first Vine book to read. It was the one that got me hooked right from its very first devastating opening sentence!
I love everything about this book: the writing; the atmosphere; the suspenseful telling; the characters; the ending…

I first read it about ten years ago and have just started into my second read which I am enjoying even more than the first!

I re-read very few books. The ones I have re-read many times (and will again) are: Look at Me by Anita Brookner and Only Children by Alison Lurie. I am sure that Vine’s too will be returned to many more times!

By: Review: From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell « Jenny's Books

Review: From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell « Jenny's Books — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:00:33 +0000

[…] was Very Shocking at the time. It’s all, you know, fine. It isn’t as brilliant as A Dark-Adapted Eye, for example, but it’s a solid detective murder mystery and I enjoyed […]

By: Philip Swan

Philip Swan — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:03:15 +0000

The second Vine, A FATAL INVERSION, has a neat twist on the last page – mystery novelist Julian Symons thought it the best-ever ending to a mystery novel.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:24:36 +0000

In reply to Susan Bennett. What a shame! But I can understand why. It was a perfect mystery for me because they told you the end at the beginning, but I can see how that's not everyone's cup of tea.

By: Susan Bennett

Susan Bennett — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:32:26 +0000

I tried to read A Dark Adapted Eye but I just couldn’t get into it.

By: Review: The Book of Lies, Mary Horlock « Jenny's Books

Review: The Book of Lies, Mary Horlock « Jenny's Books — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:03:09 +0000

[…] Okay. Here’s what it is. When a book is called The Book of Lies, I I wanted the narrator to be truly, truly unreliable. Unreliable as hell is what I wanted. I wanted her to bleed unreliability. I wanted to never feel sure what was going on, and at the end of the book, I wanted there to be a SHOCKING TWIST where the book told me, Hey, you thought you knew what was going on? Boy were you wrong (a la A Dark-Adapted Eye). […]

By: Nathalie Foy

Nathalie Foy — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:02:38 +0000

I’d read a blog about the TBR shelf. A friend of mine alphabetized hers recently and is already on J. Vrrrrrrm sounds like the perfect velocity for getting through all the good stuff you know is waiting for you. I second (third? fourth?) the request for More Information About the TBR Shelf.

By: Philip Swan

Philip Swan — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:17:37 +0000

Rendell did indeed wish to go in a somewhat different direction from her other works, and chose to do it under the Vine pseudonym (though the public was aware right from the start that Barbara Vine was Ruth Rendell) – the Vine novels are more psychological studies than mysteries, though they certainly have elements of mystery, and often concern a crime or murder (though sometimes we don’t know until the very end just was has occurred, or to whom): mainly they are about the long shadows cast by old sins. Her readers were already used to her producing two kinds of books (the Wexford series and her psychological suspense stand-alones), but she wanted to signal that she’d gone in yet another direction. Interestingly, many of her reviews as Barbara Vine are superior to those she receives as Rendell, with many commenting about her writing as Vine being superior as well! Readers, apparently, CAN tell the difference (I can). And while fans often debate that some of her Rendell stand-alones could almost be Vines, she herself says that she always knows quite clearly, right from the start, before she starts writing, whether a book is to be a Rendell or a Vine.

By: amymckie

amymckie — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:25:40 +0000

Heh love hearing about your TBR shelf. Also, so odd that the books are so much worse when written under the different name!! Perhaps that is the point? Two different styles or something that she wanted to explore?