Guilt [Paperback]

Hilary Norman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2004

Abigail Allen's deepest, darkest secret is that when she was thirteen years old, she was responsible for killing her parents and boyfriend in an accident. Now a cellist with a modest career, guilt has become Abigail's most constant companion. She has reconciled herself to living alone. Alone, she knows, is what she deserves. Until she meets Silas Graves. Charming, persuasive Silas, the photographer who knows about her past but loves her in spite of it - maybe even because of it. Silas has his own dark secrets, though he's never experienced real guilt. Few things shock him, and nothing is as important to him as love. But the women he's loved most in his life, his mother and his sister, Jules, have both, in his eyes, betrayed him. Silas, a possessive, jealous man, can forgive almost anything except betrayal. Abigail is different. Abigail needs him, adores him. And besides, they have two things in common. Their secrets. And death. Abigail won't betray him. She'd better not.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A story beset by menacing undercurrents. Grimshaw's novels evoke many of the contradictions of her native country' OBSERVER 'Grimshaw creates sharply drawn urban landscapes, whose noirish, unsettling atmosphere is powerfully caught.' THE TIMES 'Charlotte Grimshaw creates an overwhelming sense of despair and romance.' TLS 'Extraordinary. It's engaging, gripping and full of inspired, risky prose scribbled with evident relish.' TIME OUT 'Although it has many of the attributes of a conventional crime novel, the writing plumbs greater psychological depths.' DAILY TELEGRAPH

About the Author

Hilary Norman is the author of fourteen internationally bestselling novels written under her own name and translated into seventeen languages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Piatkus (December 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749935006
• ISBN-13: 978-0749935009
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,428,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Domestic Abuse at the Highest Level, March 30, 2007

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Guilt (Paperback)

Norman has written a number of great novels (some average ones as well to be honest) whose subject matters emulate the paths taken of classics modern great writers such as Bernard Taylor. To be honest although her books were great she'd never quite mastered the obsessed, possessive evil one thriller to the level of the great authors. That is until she wrote Guilt.

Guilt is a can't put down until the last page masterpiece of a mentally deranged and insecure young boy who grew up to become pure self centred and evil man. Silas Graves uses domestic abuse, physical but mostly mental, to manipulate his sister then later in life girlfriend Abigail to get whatever he wants. He expects them both to love him exclusively and sees everything they do without his permission such as talking to another man or accepting a lift home when he abandons them in the middle of nowhere for acting childish (in his opinion) as utter betrayal. Silas knows he must punish and make the situation right by any means necessary. Guilt is a window into pure evil and domestic abuse taken to its highest level. Sure you won't exactly feel sorry for Abigail as she's not the most innocent person herself, but you'll see through her acceptances from his words that situations were all her fault, mirrors of real life victims, this realism makes Guilt that much more terrifying.

Also read Twisted Minds by Norman, it is another great novel of manipulation of others by possessive evil.