HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty
Loading...

Apple Tree Yard (2013)

by Louise Doughty

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
6724834,077 (3.54)54
"An intelligent, erotically charged thriller with deep moral implications. Yvonne Carmichael, renowned geneticist, public authority, happily married mother of two, sits in the accused box. The charge is murder. Across the courtroom, not meeting her eye, sits her alleged accomplice. He wears the beautiful pin-striped suit he wore on their first meeting in the Houses of Parliament, when he put his hand on her elbow, guided her to a deserted and ancient chapel, and began to undress her. As the barrister's voice grows low and sinuous, Yvonne realizes she's lost herself and the life she'd built so carefully to a man who never existed at all. After their first liaison, Yvonne's lover tells her very little about himself, but she comes to suspect his secrecy has an explanation connected with the British government. So thrilled and absorbed is she in her newfound sexual power that she fails to notice the real danger about to blindside her from a seemingly innocuous angle. Then, reeling from an act of violence, Yvonne discovers that her desire for justice and revenge has already been compromised. Everything hinges on one night in a dark little alley called Apple Tree Yard. Suspenseful, erotically charged, and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard is an intelligent psychological thriller about desire and its consequences by a writer of phenomenal gifts"-- "Gripping literary thriller about a woman who makes one rash choice and ends up on trial for murder"--… (more)
Member:clairecc
Title:Apple Tree Yard
Authors:Louise Doughty
Info:Faber and Faber, Edition: Export - Airside ed, Paperback
Collections:Your library
Rating:****1/2
Tags:None

Work Information

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty (2013)

  1. 00
    The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison (fountainoverflows)
  2. 00
    Rupture by Simon Lelic (jayne_charles)
    jayne_charles: Entirely different stories of course, but both examine the danger/violence that exists in ordinary society, I was constantly reminded of one while reading the other
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 54 mentions

English (46)  Spanish (1)  Swedish (1)  All languages (48)
Showing 1-5 of 46 (next | show all)
“We discovered that safety and security are commodities you can sell in return for excitement but you can never buy them back.”
― Louise Doughty, Apple Tree Yard

Stunningly good. 4.5 stars.

TRIGGER WARNING:.. Very graphic rape scene.

You know how many a thriller lets one down? Not Apple Tree Yard. Exceptionally well written, dark, brooding and riveting, this is a must read for all Suspense fans.

When the book opens, we learn that Yvonne is on trial for murder. The book switches back in time to show the events that brought Yvonne where she is today. But there is so much m ore to the story. I think it has become a TV show or Mini Series in England though I am not sure about that. What I AM sure of, is the book is terrific.

This is not your average thriller that is for sure. I actually think it is less a thriller then a character study on the whole emotional unraveling of Yvonne.

It was much darker then I thought it would be and I wish whoever did marketing for this book made it sound as interesting as it is because it is outstanding and honestly the blurp did not make it sound so and I almost did not pick this book because of that factor.

If you like strange, dark, intense, rather haunting books that are character driven then you will like this. ( )
  Thebeautifulsea | Aug 4, 2022 |
Well-written thriller/courtroom drama. ( )
  usuallee | Oct 7, 2021 |
Seldom has it happened that a television production I watch ends up leading me back to the novel adapted for that video presentation. Although this is happening more than ever right now because of the semi-isolated lifestyles so many of us have been forced to adopt in recent months, it still comes as a pleasant surprise to me when it does. I recently came across Louise Doughty’s 2013 Apple Tree Yard as a four-part television series that was originally broadcast by the BBC in early 2017, and I didn’t notice the book-credit until I began the second episode. The series stars Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, and Mark Bonnar, among other familiar faces. I noticed, too, that Doughty was not the screenplay writer, and that made me more curious about how the book and the television adaptation would compare.

I enjoyed the BBC production, but I’ve found that despite their overall plot similarity, Doughty’s novel is much the better of the two. In the BBC version, most everything unfolds in its natural, chronological order. One thing happens, and that leads, to the next, etc., and the viewer is right there to see it all happen. In the novel itself, things only happen as they cross the mind of the book’s narrator and central character, Yvonne Carmichael, as she holds an internal conversation with the book’s other central character. As Yvonne ponders something that has happened, or she wonders what would have happened if she had done “this” instead of “that,” everything is slowly revealed in the manner of jigsaw puzzle pieces falling into place. The novel, in fact, begins near the end of the story, so as Yvonne thinks back about her life and reveals more to the reader, we already know that all of this is not going to end particularly well.

“And after the imagined drama that made our daily lives bearable, we got a real drama, more of a drama than we could handle, and then we wanted our daily lives back, but they didn’t exist anymore. We discovered that safety and security are commodities you can sell in return for excitement, but you can never get them back.”

Note: Anything that follows is also revealed by the novel’s book jacket - no spoilers.

As Apple Tree Yard begins, Yvonne Carmichael and a man she hardly knows have been charged with murder and their trial is reaching its climax. The wonder of the story is how someone of Yvonne’s stature could have ended up where we find her in the novel’s prologue. She, after all, is a middle-aged woman who has been married for decades to the man who fathered their two adult children. She is a well-respected geneticist who at one point was involved in some groundbreaking work regarding the mapping of DNA. She is so good at what she does that she is often called in as an expert to advise special Parliament committees on ethics matters and potential legislative fixes.

But now, her reputation, her future, and her very life hinge on one disastrous moment of sexual attraction and reckless behavior that led her to do something so out of character in a London alley called Apple Tree Yard that she can’t explain what happened even to herself. Or can she? She certainly tries hard enough to rationalize everything that happened before and after that encounter, but can we trust her to tell us the truth?

Bottom Line: Apple Tree Yard, the novel, is brilliant. Its pacing is so perfect that, even after already having watched the BBC series, I could hardly wait to get to the next chapter. There are differences in the endings of the BBC show and the novel, mainly, I suspect, because the television series needed more dramatic visuals than the novel provided at the point in the storyline, but the novel is still the hands-down winner of the two. In Yvonne Carmichael, Louise Doughty has created one of those fictional characters I don’t think I will ever forget. I highly recommend this one. ( )
  SamSattler | Jan 27, 2021 |
Loved this book; had me hooked from page 1.

( )
  joweirqt | Jan 15, 2021 |
Domestic crime... is that a genre? Story set mainly in central London, Westminster and the law courts, as well as suburbia. ( )
  Teresa1966 | Dec 22, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 46 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Louise Doughtyprimary authorall editionscalculated
Kagan, AbbyDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Munday, OliverCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stevenson, JulietNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stevenson, JulietNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
The moment builds; it swells and builds - the moment when I realise we have lost.
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

"An intelligent, erotically charged thriller with deep moral implications. Yvonne Carmichael, renowned geneticist, public authority, happily married mother of two, sits in the accused box. The charge is murder. Across the courtroom, not meeting her eye, sits her alleged accomplice. He wears the beautiful pin-striped suit he wore on their first meeting in the Houses of Parliament, when he put his hand on her elbow, guided her to a deserted and ancient chapel, and began to undress her. As the barrister's voice grows low and sinuous, Yvonne realizes she's lost herself and the life she'd built so carefully to a man who never existed at all. After their first liaison, Yvonne's lover tells her very little about himself, but she comes to suspect his secrecy has an explanation connected with the British government. So thrilled and absorbed is she in her newfound sexual power that she fails to notice the real danger about to blindside her from a seemingly innocuous angle. Then, reeling from an act of violence, Yvonne discovers that her desire for justice and revenge has already been compromised. Everything hinges on one night in a dark little alley called Apple Tree Yard. Suspenseful, erotically charged, and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard is an intelligent psychological thriller about desire and its consequences by a writer of phenomenal gifts"-- "Gripping literary thriller about a woman who makes one rash choice and ends up on trial for murder"--

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary
in the dock,
the most scathing scrutiny
isn't from the jury,
it's from herself,
for a life half-lived

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.54)
0.5 1
1 9
1.5
2 14
2.5 4
3 52
3.5 26
4 61
4.5 13
5 28

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,243,153 books! | Top bar: Always visible