Maybe it was January torpor that got me off to a slow start with this - because it's a novel that ought to be read with the brain switched on - but heavens, I'm so glad I persevered because it got so gripping that my bedside light hasn't been switched off until 3am for the last couple of nights.

As for the slow start, well, Cornflower put it very well when she said that Jane Harris's plot is like a rope played out.

I feel as if the Victorian spinster narrator has tickled me like a trout ... and now I'm flailing in her net, and I'd happily go right back to the beginning to see how many clues I didn't pick up on.

As for the ending ... What? I'm sure I really did let out a yelp as I nearly jumped out of my bed.

The trouble is, this is a very difficult novel to review without spoiling it for anybody else.

In 1888, the summer of Glasgow's International Exhibition, Harriet Baxter, a financially-independent female, makes the aquaintance of a young artist and his family and, by making herself useful, soon becomes a fixture in their home.

That's enough. You'll have to read it for yourselves. All I'm going to say is that I should have been listening harder right from the start ...