The Child's Child

When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house, they surprise a few people by deciding to move in together. But they've always got on well and the London house is large enough to split down the middle.

There's just one thing they've not taken into account though. What if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, and immediately picks a fight about the treatment of gay men, the balance is altered - with almost fatal consequences.

As Grace tries to rise above the situation, she's more than happy to oblige a friend when he asks her to read an unpublished manuscript about a young unmarried mother in Devon between the wars. But then the situation in the house takes an unexpected turn and the book begins to seem remarkably, and uncomfortably, close to home.

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and The Child's Child is the first book she has published under that name since The Birthday Present in 2008. It's an intriguing examination of betrayal in families, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality.