This is one of my very favorite Vines, one I seem drawn to re-read every two or three years - I just re-read it this past January - it "called" to me whilst I was in the midst of reading another book, and I couldn't resist!As with many Vines, there are parallel stories - Jenny is in the thrall of her first extra-marital affair, when Stella Newland, one of the patients in the nursing home where Jenny works, reveals a secret to Jenny that not even her children know: she owns a house a few miles away that she hasn't been to in decades, and begins revealing to Jenny the details of her own marriage and affair, which led to tragic consequences.As always with Vine, the past casts its shadow on the present, clouding the happiness of the participants. No one ever really gets away with anything in a Vine novel, even if the "crime" is something no one else knows about.This is an excellent portrait of village life in England, in which some of the characters, while firmly rooted in the present, still have a finger or two in the past, as the women in Jenny's family still hold with various superstitions and spells. By the end of the novel, though, Jenny's experiences will cause her to re-think the superstitious beliefs she's continued to hold. It's also an interesting examination of various female relationships and their strengths and weaknesses - sister/sister, mother/daughter, friend/friend. The male/female relationships here are much more dangerous!I'd have to rate this as my second favorite Vine, right after ASTA'S BOOK. I'd love to see it made into a film with Kate Winslet as Jenny.12/26/11: And here I am, in the midst of another re-read of THE BRIMSTONE WEDDING, last re-read in January 2009 - I'm not having much luck with anything else, and enjoyed my re-reads of ASTA'S BOOK and THE KEYS TO THE STREET so, oh well, why not?12/30/11: Masterful.
I never write reviews but this book sucked. I read it because I was out of books and it came up on an Amazon list for the week or month's lower priced books for my Kindle. The summary seemed interesting enough but the book was written in such a confusing way. There are 2 points of view throughout the story- Stella and Jenny. Normally, that's not a problem in a book if its made clear when the POV is changing but with this book, I found myself rereading sections because I'd realize that I had been envisioning the wrong person as the narrator. It's not hard to stick a name at the beginning of a POV change as a new chapter. I had an easier time understanding The Time Traveler's Wife with its changing timeframe and older/younger version of the same character overlapping. The summary suggests that there is a surprising plot twist at the end. The surprise ending was so lame and so short that I read over it without even realizing what it was (partly because I thought the wrong person was talking). I was hoping the book would get better when this big finale came but it was a dud and was why I ultimately gave this book 1 star. No redeeming qualities. Womp.
What do You think about Brimstone Wedding (2006)?
Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell's nom de plume for her series of "psychological" suspense novels, differentiated from her crime mysteries. Every time I pick up a book written by Ruth Rendell, I am astounded all over again by her powers of imagination. Every book of hers is quite different, the plots are ingenious and brand new, and the characters finely drawn. Rendell skilfully plumbs the depths of the mental influences within her characters, leading them to enact both evil and good. The Brimstone Wedding in set in the Yorkshire countryside. It tells the parallel stories of Genevieve, a young woman who works as a caregiver in a retirement home, and Stella, one of the residents who confides in her. Both Genevieve and Stella have passionate love affairs - Stella's in the past, Genevieve's in the present time of the novel - and both these affairs come to no good, with sinister complications.
—Bea Alden
The uninitiated may wonder what the difference was between Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine. The answer can be found here. The Rendell books are firmly set in the real world, usually feature an antagonist who can’t quite function in the real world, and there’s a rational explanation for everything, even apparently supernatural elements. There’s no such certainty in ‘The Brimstone Wedding’. This is a rural environment where the story is told from the point of view of someone who is very much in charge of her own destiny (with self-awareness about the true state of her marriage, her family and her own motivations) and there is absolutely no reason to think that the age-old superstitions which govern her life are not completely true. And the parallels between her life and the recollections of an old lady in the care home she works at certainly add to the masterful plotting of a very strong book.Personally, I prefer the Rendell books for the reasons I allude to above. But the Vine books have a style and macabre charm of their own. Technically, this is a triumph.
—James Barnard
This book about the parallel life stories of caregiver and elder took some time to get into but sticking with it was worth it! Vine (really Ruth Rendell) crafts an amazing, slow-paced story about the line between love and obsession as she slowly invites the reader in to Genevieve's present and Stella's past. Each woman experiences the challenges of a consuming love affair as they struggle to keep their sense of self and right and wrong afloat. Getting into Genevieve's character was a bit difficult as she seems so naive but once you really imagine what life was in an isolated English village before the age of the Internet, it becomes easier to understand why Genevieve is so completely sheltered. Really great stuff and Vine keeps the plot moving steadily forward by holding off the big "reveal" until the last chapter. Good stuff.
—Kate
