I read this book when I was about 12 after finding it in a holiday home we were staying at and was completely scandalised (despite not understanding half of what was going on). I decided to re-read it to see if it was as shocking as I remembered and oh my god it was so much worse. There are multiple occasions where the hero beats the heroine and calls her a bitch and a whore, and for some bizarre reason that seems to be what makes her fall in love with him. Not OK, Jilly! The romantic closer is Gareth telling Octavia "I'm going to wear the trousers. You're going to do what I tell you, and if you start upstaging me, I'll put you down. The boys in the Valley are like that. We keep out women in the background and we beat them if they give us any trouble, but we know how to love them." I mean, what the fuck! Also there is one (1) sex scene and in it Octavia compares sex to a washing machine. Hot. ( )

My very favourite of Jilly's earlier small novels, I read it in my teens and thought it was scandalous. ( )