Heartstones

by Ruth Rendell

Sixteen-year-old Elvira's mother is dead. Elvira is sad, of course, but not so sad as her younger sister Spinny. Spinny is afraid their father, Luke, will be heartbroken, but Elvira knows better -- after all, Luke has her to take her mother's place. But then Luke brings home a pretty young woman and introduces her as his fiancee, and Elvira decides that she will stop at nothing to stop her father's marriage . . .

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Gothic, Mystery Thriller, Horror

85 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

A.K.A. Barbara Vine

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Numa loja Fnac (nas outras não sei, nem quero saber para não me enervar), têm O Santinho do Simenon na secção de policiais. Falei com uma assistente e expliquei que aquele autor escreveu muitos livros que não eram daquele género, onde se inclui a obra exposta. A funcionária olhou para a etiqueta e demonstrou-me que eu estava enganada pois a obra tinha sido catalogada (por um "especialista" da Fnac) como policial. O livro mantém-se na prateleira das novidades policiais para enganar os distraídos...
Isto para dizer que classificar certos autores por género pode ser "nocivo" para os seus leitores.
Os que apreciam o puro policial - com crime, investigação e resolução - sentir-se-ão "ludibriados" pois não encontram essas características na maioria dos romances de Ruth Rendell e, no entanto, ela é conhecida como a "Rainha do Crime". Em minha opinião, deveria ser chamada de, por exemplo, a "Rainha da Mente", pois os seus romances não se focam nos crimes mas sim no meio social e familiar de quem os comete, analisando as condições psicológicas que os impulsionaram.
Os leitores que não apreciam o género policial, nem sequer os vão ler.

Em Corações de Pedra os crimes são a consequência de perturbações decorrentes de um abalo na estrutura familiar. Através do diário de uma adolescente, que sofre de anorexia, é-nos revelada a sua vida familiar: a mãe que morreu, o pai, a irmã comilona e a futura madrasta.
É um livro pequeno mas muito assustador, principalmente o final...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written and chilling. I marvel at how Ruth Rendell wrote so descriptively while quietly building an atmosphere of menace, which crept stealthily upon me. This is a short audiobook, which was only 2hours and 19 minutes in length, however it didn't feel short!

Standout quotes:

“He allowed the doors of his mind to burst open and me to read what lay within. It was so clear that I wonder all those present did not read it. The passions and unwise desires blazoned in fiery letters.”

“It was as if my soul had become one of those limestone figures on the west front of our cathedral and some restorer, incompetent at his craft, was chipping away at it with a sharp tool flaying its surface and splintering off those soft perceptive parts so that at last only a plain featureless nothing would remain.”

“Subjects under discussion droned about me swooped and twittered like birds of passage and birds of prey”

“Her mind that I have never claimed to read must be a place where slimy things swim and jostle pale eyed as in some subterranean sink”

Alexandra O’Karma narrates the story wonderfully well and captures the nuances of the characters and the creeping atmosphere.

[Zeynep T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kitabın psikolojik gerilim kısmı çok iyi ama olayların akışı, karakter gelişimi fazla hızlı. Mitolojik göndermeler kimi yerde süsleme kalmış gibi. Yine de okunası kitaplardan. Ruth Rendell'in en kötü işi pek çok yazarla karşılaştırıldığında ders olarak okutulacak nitelikte. Gizem ve gerilim türünü sevenler yazarın kitaplarına mutlaka bakmalı.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 5 out of 5]

ruth rendell'ın bu kitabını yıllar evvel okumuştum, sonra kaybolmuş. bir sahaftan alıp yine okudum. ve evet, yine müthiş.
remzi kitabevi'nin murathan mungan'ın genel yayın yönetmenliğini yaptığı çilek dizisinin tek bir kötü kitabı bile yok zaten.
bu incecik novella baştan itibaren müthiş bir gerilim atmosferi sağlıyor. o tekinsizlik hissini hep veriyor ve acayip bir biçimde ters köşeye yatırıyor.
taştan hüküm de bu dizidendi, o da muhteşemdir ^.^

[Joanne Sheppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure if Heartstones is still in print in the UK. I first became aware of it when I was about 13, when I borrowed it from the library. It's aimed at adults, but by that age I was reading a lot of adult crime fiction and found this story a deeply compelling one, perhaps because the narrator is herself a teenage girl, and I read it several times back then. I hadn't heard anything of it since until I found it on Audible recently, and couldn't resist downloading.

Ruth Rendell was of course known best for her Inspector Wexford novels, but I think some of her best work can be found among her dark, psychological standalone novels and short stories. Length-wise, Heartstones is somewhere between the two - it's a novella of around 90 pages.

The narrator, Elvira, lives in a cathedral close in a university town with her father, Luke, and her younger sister Spinney. Their mother is dead from a (curable, it's implied) cancer after refusing the 'mutilation' of surgery and trying to treat herself with a strict vegetable diet, but Elvira is confident that her own relationship with her adored father, an academic and a clergyman, will be enough to stop him from being lonely. Their bond - intellectual and spiritual as it is, with the two of them studying Latin and Greek in the evenings - is so intense that Elvira is convinced it will endure beyond all else and transcend all other relationships. So when Luke announces his intention to marry Mary Leonard, another academic whose intellect is, Luke says 'almost equal to his own', Elvira's world is shattered. Meanwhile poor Spinney, in all other ways the more practical of the sisters, is convinced their ancient house is haunted by a terrifying witch and her ghostly cat.

When I read this book as a child I found it extremely unnerving and creepy, and I have to say that I still find it so today.

What I hadn't quite got the full measure of as a child, however, was quite how peculiar Elvira's relationship is with her father and quite how it permeates every anxiety she has about herself. So obsessed is Elvira with her father's love of intellectual and spiritual pursuits above all else that she is desperate to emulate it, to the point where she begins to believe even eating is a crudely physical activity that she must avoid, let alone any possibility of ever having a sexual relationship with a boy. She is furious with Spinney's suggestion that perhaps Luke's attraction to Mary might have a physical element because she fully believes he is above such things; she fears the day when her periods might finally start because she believes any kind of bodily function to be a weakness. Moreover, as an adult reader I found I was much more able to see through Elvira's glowing descriptions of her father and pick up on some additional clues about Luke's true character - not only is his intellectual snobbery insufferable, but there are hints at some unpleasantly controlling behaviour too.

At the beginning, Heartstones has shades of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In The Castle about it, with its clearly disturbed narrator and the general sense of dysfunction and darkness that hangs over her family. Although the tone does change quite suddenly in the middle of the book when a horrific event gives Elvira a welcome new perspective, this only serves to lull the reader into a false sense of security before the sinister undertones and claustrophobia gradually crank up again. The haunting atmosphere of impending disaster that builds, subsides and builds once again over the course of this short read is an absolute masterclass in atmospheric suspense.

I was prepared to be disappointed by this book upon revisiting it, but if anything, it's even better than I remembered. Get it back in print, please!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

A good novella of about seventy pages. Has a great Gothic and a haunting atmosphere. Wonderful story, narrated by a teenage girl, with a difference! Not precisely a crime mystery, but only a reader would know. :)

Having read two of her short story collections, a standalone novel and now this book, I am convinced that Ruth Rendell is an amazing writer (not sure of her Inspector Wexford stories though, never read any of those yet). Her characters are weird, and eccentric, many times with some or the other sort of mental issues or distorted feelings and thoughts. Its stuff of what I like. :)
This one is recommended.

[Tom Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Rendell is so much better and more satisfying when not shackled to Inspector Wexford. This gothic novella is so good and reminiscent of We Have Always Lived in the Castle except I liked it better. It feels more like the Barbara Vine version of Ruth Rendell, and its relative briefness is an asset.

[Gila Gila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raven-dark little gothic murder mystery that in truth is not all that mysterious- but it goes down like delicious crimson red wine just the same. A looming, 120 foot high stone cathedral topped with archangels; two recently bereaved daughters living adjacent in a 15th century home containing "various ghosts" (including the prowling ghost of a cat said to be buried deep within the walls); a possibly incestuous relationship between one daughter and her father, whom she will only refer to by his first name, the strength of their connection too fierce and otherworldly to allow for anything else; and murder, murder, murder, till the very end (I believed the end not one whit, and still loved this book). Heartstones seemed to me a curiously trite, romantic title for this Rendell novella; when I came to realise what it actually meant, I was happily horrified. Yum.
As sad as I was at her passing last year, it's a wonderful thing to fall in love with Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, for every time you think you've got a handle on every title of her extraordinarily prolific work, there's ... more. Novels, novellas, short stories, television shows, films, children's books! God. For those of us who struggle to finish a sentence by the end of the day, she's the ghost of the cat's meow, padding through the house trailing ink wherever she goes.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many years ago I had a copy of Ruth Rendell’s Collected Stories which I remember enjoying so much that I read it twice (with a few years in between). Her short fiction represented some of her best work, and Heartstones, a novella published in 1987, is further proof that she was as much a master of the short form as she was of the psychological crime novel. It’s a dark and gothic story of uncomfortable family relationships, particularly a bad case of sibling jealousy. Other reviewers have observed that it owes something to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and this is particularly noticeable in the laconic and archly literary style in which Elvira, the book’s narrator tells her tale. There’s accidental death (or quite possibly murder), suicide, poison, a witch legend and a ghostly cat, all of which add up to a nicely creepy tale of suspense and mystery. This first edition hardback is enhanced by several unnerving illustrations by George Underwood.

[John Mccullough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rendell’s contribution to the Harper/Hutchinson Short Novel Series begins with the telling sentence: “In those days I had never given a thought to poisoning and I can be sure of this, that I had nothing to do with our mother’s death.” Bang! Get the picture? Pictures??

Elvira Zoffany is a headstrong, self-convinced young girl who has a self-proclaimed sense of never having been a child. She is in love with her father, Luke, and believes her father loves only her, despite demonstrating love to other women. Her mother dies and Elvira “knows” that Luke’s entire sense of love must now center on his daughter, Elvira. If other women enter the picture, should they be allowed to live? Could they just accidentally not live anymore?

Rendell twists the reader though various propositions that may or may not have absolute resolution in the book. Elvira’s sister, Espina, keeps seeing a mysterious black cat rumoured to be the pet of a witch hanged several hundred years ago that hauntts the house – where is it now? Elvira saves in a jar some poison used to kill wasps in the house – what has happened to it? Are deaths accidents?

Rendell’s small contribution to both mystery and horror literature presents several important questions and leaves the reader to answer them. It is a cold-blooded look at a sociopathic little girl and young woman and what she might have done. Or not done!

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio books appeared to be rising in popularity and are now available from my local Hampshire Library service via an app to an ipad or phone. Just the job, I thought, to have playing while working in the "Man Cave", until I found myself sitting in the chair, with tea, just listening to the story!

Ruth Rendell was a wonderful story teller and Geraldine Somerville who gave the reading produced a captivating recording. This is one of those tales that gradually creep up on you and provides a captivating experience.

Elvira and her younger sister Spinny are left with their father, an academic Reverend, after their mothers death in an old house that is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a cat that had been buried in the walls. Elvira becomes delusional as anorexia takes its toll and she fantasises what she might do to her father's new girlfriend. Then tragedy strikes and takes a toll on her father. Moe fantasising and Elvira is in hospital but what is happening and why is the coffee taking so long?

Very good. 4 stars.

[Romulus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Rendell writing in her prime and at her supreme best. (For me, her best is the non-Wexford novels of the mid to late 80s.) Heartstones is a fascinating psychological study (of a very strange girl) — as well as a most ingenious piece of story-telling. It is literate, effectively creepy and compulsively readable. It succeeds where most other attempts at Modern Gothic fiction fail. Alpha Plus.

[William Clemens · Rating 4 out of 5]

In trying to broaden my reading Ruth Rendell was one of the authors I wanted to check out and I picked the shortest book I could find at the library. I came away wishing I had picked a longer one.

The mystery here made me laugh more than it shocked me, but I really liked her writing and the gothic feel of this book.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There is death in that remark, the sound of death.” - Antigone

Psychologically as well as intellectually this novella is as satisfying as it is perplexing. Written by one of the doyennes of crime fiction, Heartstones has intimations of unnatural deaths but without a sleuth leading the reader through to a revelatory conclusion.

To me Heartstones is a modern-day equivalent of a Classical Greek tragedy, one that’s transposed to an anonymous cathedral town (probably near the south coast of England) and played out with a limited cast, and sundry bystanders as chorus. With passing references and quotes from Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea there’s no doubt the author wanted us to make this particular connection, but Greek drama isn’t the only echo we are meant to hear: almost everything seems to have a symbolic significance, from the title to the house the fated family live in, and on to the stories told about the building.

At a little under eighty pages there’s a lot packed into this volume, but we ponder the genres Rendell hints at — crime fiction, Gothick romance, ghost story, horror tale, psychological thriller — particularly when the novella begins and ends with references to poison.

The premise is as follows. 15-year-old Elvira is writing an intermittent diary. She lives with her sister Spinny and recently widowed father Luke, an academic at the university, in a late medieval building within sight of the west front of the cathedral. The thoroughfares are laid with heart-shaped stones from Newhaven, East Sussex. Elvira believes she has an especial, if not exclusive, relationship with her father — it comes across almost as sublimated incest — and so is dismayed when Luke announces he hopes to marry a young academic, for whom she naturally forms an instant dislike. In the meantime her sister Despina (who, like Elvira, is named after characters in Mozart operas) is wary of a ghostly cat and fears hearing the voice of a woman believed to have been executed as a witch in the 17th century.

“There is death in that remark, the sound of death,” is Elvira’s translation of a line from Antigone, a play she is going through with Luke. This seems to be the lines (933-4) Antigone says to Creon of Thebes, translated by Edward Hayes Plumptre as “Ah me! this word of thine | ⁠Tells of death drawing nigh.” The king has ordered Antigone walled up, condemned to death for burying her slain brother in violation of Creon’s express order that the body be denied final rites, and Elvira’s translation, “There is death in that remark,” suggests that Antigone knows that the king’s last words portend her imminent death. In actual fact Creon’s stubbornness is merely the prelude to more tragic deaths.

Now the situations in Antigone and in Medea are not in any way exact parallels with those in Heartstones, but the fact attention is thus drawn to them indicates deliberate intent, because the main protagonists in Rendell’s tale, and the portents that are continuously but subtly alluded to, are the very stuff of Greek tragedy. Elvira emerges as a daddy’s girl, addicted to Gothick tales by Ann Radcliffe and Edgar Allan Poe, seemingly precocious but actually deluded in this regard. She also has a tendency towards anorexia, in contrast to her younger sister who enjoys her food, perhaps too much. Luke, meanwhile, is cold and aloof, if not distant, but his infatuation with Dr Mary Leonard will lead inexorably to her dramatic descent from scaffolding erected on the front of the cathedral. Did she fall or was she pushed? If that latter, who arranged it? And what has happened to the poison that Elvira in an earlier melodramatic moment had laid aside?

There is an additional thread about a witch’s cat which had allegedly been sacrificed by being, like Antigone, walled up alive. Why is Spinny so affected by the apparitions that her sleep is constantly disturbed, and whence come the mysterious holes which later start manifesting around the house?

I mustn’t say more of the plot, because that would severely hamper the enjoyment of those who haven’t read this novella yet. But I must say something about Elvira’s characterisation, which I think the author has got spot on. She captures the girl’s literary obsessions perfectly, her use of words like ‘perforce’ and ‘specious’, her pedantry with ‘anorectic’ being more correct than ‘anorexic’, her inflated feelings of being exceptionally gifted, and above all her lack of self-awareness.

That there is an apoarent upturn in Elvira’s fortune and wellbeing towards the end of the narrative is of course a typical step in tragedy’s ultimate trajectory. Rendell’s psychological skills even in a miniature such as this are astounding.

“None of those poets has discovered
How to put an end with their singing
To grief, bitter grief . . .” - Medea

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Heartstones' by Ruth Rendell is a haunting tale that is brilliantly written. All seems to start well enough, if not a bit off kilter. As the story goes along all turns and turns and turns. Finish this just before bed and you may being turning a lot in bed.

I try to keep my reviews void of any actual story, but have to remark of the change of the main character and what a terrific job Rendell does. i marvel at how Rendell took me from a view of the main character to something else altogether. This book is near towards a horror story and certainly no standard mystery. In that I despise horror or science fiction, which i see as one in the same, and place the rating I have indicates how much this book caught me in it's writing and plot.

It might've been nice if the story fleshed out a bit more. But am certain the book would have far less impact if longer.

A side note of the backward thinking of today: Younger people might have trouble with this book in that psychological problems are at issue. The silly idea that you are what you say you are and one lives only for the moment, that is favored today, would have one leave this book wondering what had happened at the end and not understanding the book at all. A great point of discussion for a book group.

Bottom line: I strongly recommend this book. 10 out of 10 points.

[lethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

De Nederlandse vertaling hiervan (Hartestenen) had ik destijds al twee keer van de bibliotheek geleend en ik ben jaren op zoek geweest naar de Engelse uitgave (die ik uiteindelijk vond tijdens een Boeken op de Dam).
De paar romans die ik van Ruth Rendell gelezen heb, vond ik veel te lang. Eentje kwam bijvoorbeeld pas na zo'n 200 pagina's op gang.
Heartstones daarentegen is met zijn 77 pagina's precies goed wat mij betreft.
Het gaat over twee zusjes die alleen met hun vader leven na de dood van hun moeder. Als hun vader een nieuwe vriendin krijgt, komt die al spoedig bij een ongeluk om het leven. Maar was het wel een ongeluk?
Het oudste zusje vertelt het verhaal en we komen er al snel achter dat ze niet de meest betrouwbare verteller is...

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gothic novella I picked up in the dollar bin at the used bookstore. As New York Times critic Andrea Stevens said in her original review, "The tantalizing aspect of this book ... is not the trick ending but the development of [main character] Elvira. By the end, the character is no longer a precious, unsympathetic twit but a young woman of some depth and insight." However, Elvira's new insight doesn't go that far: Most readers will probably guess the twist ending well before she does. Entertaining, but this is one of those novellas you walk away from thinking it was OK, but that maybe it could have been better as either a really tight short story or as a more detailed full-length novel.

[Chrystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and predictable.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this about 15 years ago and it has stayed with me ever since. I foolishly 'lent' my copy to a 'borrower' who never returned it, and have looked for it, in an admittedly desultory fashion, ever since...so stumbling across it last month in Chapter's Bookshop was brilliant - I pounced on it as I imagine a grizzly does on a flailing salmon propelling itself up the falls...
Heartstones is a perfectly formed psychological gothic thriller, and brandishes the obvious Poe influence proudly. For all of it's 80 pages, it packs a powerful punch - perfect for pre-Hallowe'en reading!

[Jen Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really good. It's a new personal favorite.

[Pedro Alexandre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um thriller que nos transporta para um mundo gótico e sinistro, onde segredos obscuros e fantasmas do passado atormentam as irmãs Elvira e Despina. Uma história repleta de suspense, mistério, aparições fantasmagóricas e onde se abordam temas como an anorexia e conflitos familiares.

A escrita envolvente de Rendell prende o leitor do início ao fim, num crescente de emoções que constroem um clímax surpreendente e perturbador.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very short novella (which I listened to as an audiobook), reminded me (as if I needed reminding), what a fabulous writer Ruth Rendell was.

The story, its depth, the truly meaty characters, together with plot and its (oh so clever) twists, were worthy of a much more substantial story. This further proved Rendell’s craft as a writer, that she was able to lay seeds of inference that were so fulsome that whole back stories and spin offs occurred in the imagination of the reader that it felt so much more.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eerie modern folktale that shares DNA with Rosamund Smith and Barbara Comyns. Features a strange, precocious protagonist with a skewed self-concept (reminiscent of Shirley Jackson) whose preoccupation with "The Black Cat" is yet another reminder that I need to read more Poe.

[Kristi Lamont · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just the right sort of short read in between other books/social commitments. Nicely gothic. Sort of an English version of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Rendell's writing is far from perfect but she sure writes some dark shit.

[Valerie 3 · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the book is about: Heartstones by Ruth Rendell is an old mystery novel following an anorexic adolescent named Elvira who has to cope with the aftermath of her mother's death. Along the way, she meets some new people and a few of them do not make it out alive. This novel is thrilling and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

What I thought: I personally strongly disliked this book and thought it to be confusing in the beginning and later on, boring. Throughout the entirety of the novel, I could not shake the feeling that I had opened a random page of a book, started reading, and then abandoned it before I'd finished. Although I looked into the story to make sure this was not the case, I think that there was a big deficiency in the plot department. The characters were underdeveloped, the book moved too rapidly, there was a large lack of details, and the writing was quite weak. The only positive comment I can mention is that I enjoyed seeing Elvira's life-changing transition that took place near the end of the book. It was reassuring to see the turn her life took, however it came completely out of nowhere, and not in a good way. It seemed as though some pages had fallen out, but once again this was not the case. While this change was abrupt, it did cause me to enjoy the remainder of the book much more than the beginning and middle. In my opinion, the author did a horrific job of tying up the loose ends and it seemed that there should be much more of the story than there actually was. I do not foresee myself reading any more books by this author and I hope to save anyone reading this review from the pain this book will cause you if you decide to pick it up.

Why I rated it how I did: I rated this book a one out of five stars because I found it to have a weak writing style and a bad follow-through. I would not recommend this book for anyone of any age and I strongly recommend trying to find a book that has better reviews. I think that this book is undeserving of a higher review than the one that I gave it and I hope to read something better soon!

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this novella at a used book sale years ago and only this month decided to finally give it a go. I am not familiar with Rendell, so I did not have any expectations. I began reading.. and finished it the same night.

It is a story about a young girl named Elvira and her younger sister, Spinny, and their lives in their kind of haunted Gothic home with their father, Luke, after their mother's death. Elvira is a strange sort of misfit girl, starving herself because she wants to be all spirit and no body, and has an abnormal obsession with their father, believing they share a special relationship.
One day, Luke invites over a pretty woman named Mary, and Elvira decides she will do whatever it takes to ensure no one gets between him and herself. The story is suspenseful, and spooky; Spinny, chubbier and sweeter than her elder sister, helps to balance the creepy tones and add some comforting normality to the story, despite her frequent night terrors about a ghost cat whose skeleton is supposedly buried in the foundation of the house.
At one point we come to a rather unexpected change in the narration. Elvira's self-image and outlook on her surroundings seem to have matured as she recollects with emotional difficulty the events that have affected her and her sister's lives. I enjoyed this uplifting change (especially as I was reading late at night), and it acts as a powerful set up for a twisted, trailing ending...

I'm definitely pleased with my first venture into Rendell's work; she weaves a strange, suspenseful story with a skillful touch of spookiness, and yet it is an easy read. I did not want to put it down until I knew everything, and still the story sticks with me. This is one I will surely keep in my personal collection!

[Ken Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I read his thoughts(...) I smiled at him in the dark. What does it matter if the voice - which is a bodily function, an emanation of the body - lies? The soul cannot lie."

HEARTSTONES takes the form of entries from a teenager's diary. In the quote above, she is writing about her father. As messed up as that quote is, there is much more to come because it is from the opening pages! In the story, Elvira is a gloomy obsessive. She lives in an ancient crumbling mansion, and is a wannabe expert on all things gothic. She's a big Poe reader, so naturally her diary goes on and on about how madness blooms in the space between our senses and our memories. Speaking of memories, Elvira has started noticing troublesome gaps in hers, thus the diary.
Into this isolated world comes cousin Charles. Oops - no, he arrived in WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, which you surely have read, and of which will be pleasantly reminded. Into THIS book comes Mary, who is an actual scholar and an actual rival for Father's love. Why ever would father want to get married so soon after mother's death? One helping of stolen cyanide later and this tale starts taking gruesome twists and turns...

HEARTSTONES is a standout even among Rendell's more chilling work. It's quotable, amusing, disturbing, and gripping. If Barbara Vine was writing when this came out, it surely could have been one of hers. I think it is more a horror story than a tale of suspense, but it still has few nasty hooks that make it impossible to put down.

[Nolan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a creepy story of murder and passion. Two sisters live with their widowed father near a parsonage. Both girls are sad when their mother dies, but the 16-year-old determines to take her mother's place in every way you can imagine, and some you'd rather not. Fortunately, dea old dad in't nearly as messed up. He brings home a young woman and announces their plan t marry. s 16-yea-old daughter, who also suffers from a severe eating disorder, will stop at nothing to end the marriage. I've always enjoyed Ruth Rendell. I think this book is somewhat more sinister and creepy than most of her work, and it's by no means my favorite of hers. If you like happy mysteries, you probably ought to let this one stay on the shelf.

[Val Heed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true Ruth Rendell style short story written in the 80s.
Written as a initimate diary by Elvira who is 16, when her mother dies leaving a younger sister, Spinny (Despina) and their father,Luke a university lecteurer and occasional Dean at the local cathedral.
The scene is wonderfully set-a close daughter and father studious relationship with the younger daughter excluded and seeing ghosts.
However Elvira becomes more and more in the "soul" and eats less and lessfinally becoming anorexic with memory gaps. Are the deaths accidents, suicides or murders?
I love this kind of story especially the ending.