Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1The Hours Before Dawn (1958)The Hours Before Dawn (1958)Published 1 Jan 1958Louise Henderson needs sleep, but the baby keeps crying and the rest of the household carries on needing her. Suspicion of a new lodger grows inside that exhaustion, where being too tired to explain yourself also makes it easier to be dismissed. Fremlin turns unevenly shared domestic work into the…0
  2. 2The blank wall (1947)The blank wall (1947)Published 1 Jan 1947Lucia Holley is managing a wartime home while her husband serves overseas when protecting her daughter draws her into blackmail. Holding keeps the shopping, shortages and family demands running alongside the crisis. That matters: Lucia cannot simply stop being the person who holds the household…0
  3. 3Chanson douce (2016)Chanson douce (2016) 9.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2016Published in English as Lullaby or The Perfect Nanny, Slimani's novel begins with the catastrophe rather than hiding it as a final surprise. A Paris couple employ Louise so that Myriam can return to work, then become dependent on a person they scarcely understand outside her usefulness to them. Sam…0
  4. 4The paying guests (2014)The paying guests (2014) 7.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2014In 1922 London, Frances Wray and her mother must turn part of their home into an income. The arrival of paying lodgers changes who can move where, what can be overheard and which feelings remain private. Waters gives housework and diminished finances enough room to make the later crime feel rooted…0
  5. 5Our house (2018)Our house (2018) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2018Fi and Bram organise their separation around keeping their children in the family home, taking turns to live there. Then Fi finds strangers moving into a house she has not sold. Candlish makes a valuable property the point at which emotional trust and practical security collide. The opening is…0
  6. 6Deep Water (1957)Deep Water (1957) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1957Vic and Melinda Van Allen preserve their marriage through an arrangement that appears to tolerate her lovers as long as family life continues. Highsmith examines the ownership concealed inside that apparent tolerance. Money and social composure help maintain a home whose terms are becoming…0
  7. 7Edith's diary (1977)Edith's diary (1977)Published 1 Jan 1977Edith's husband leaves, but his elderly uncle and their troubled son remain her responsibility. Her diary develops an increasingly successful version of life while the practical one becomes harder to sustain. Highsmith makes the unequal allocation of care central to Edith's isolation, rather than a…0
  8. 8The tree of hands (1984)The tree of hands (1984) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1984Three mothers' lives become connected through bereavement, deprivation and a disastrous attempt to put things right. Rendell makes the inequalities between their circumstances part of the suspense: what can look like rescue from one household may be a violation of another. The attraction is the…0
  9. 9The scold's bridle (1994)The scold's bridle (1994) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1994The suspicious death of an older woman brings Dr Sarah Blakeney into a household marked by cruelty, dependency and missing diaries. Walters lets the medical relationship complicate the easy account of what happened. Read this for the uncomfortable question of who gets listened to when a difficult…0
  10. 10Finders, Keepers (2020)Finders, Keepers (2020)Published 1 Jan 2020Verity's crowded, untidy home looks like an opportunity for her confident new neighbours to offer help. Durrant makes the boundary between kindness and interference increasingly unstable, while allowing the apparently eccentric woman a watchful perspective of her own. The slow accumulation of small…0