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bunnieslikediamonds's review against another edition
4.0
Gentle Rosamund, driven to a rage by her insufferable maneating neighbour, wakes up feverish, suspecting herself of killing said neighbour. Darkly funny and very entertaining.
iphigenie72's review against another edition
4.0
Last night Rosamund dreamed she killed her husband would be seducer from that moment we go into the past and meet new neighbour Lindy who is moving next to happily married Rosamund and Geoffrey. A “friendship” develops between the three, but Rosamund becomes jealous when her husband spends more and more time alone with Lindy. Then she had a fever and a weird dream… now, Lindy is nowhere to be found!
It may sound like a very recent family in peril book by the title, but it’s from 1965 and it’s not a thriller. We see the story from Rosamund’s point of view, but she doesn’t know everything herself. It’s a slow developing mystery where the clues makes sense in a certain way, but is it the way they should fit?
I had heard that there was a final twist and I tried to guess it… but I think I made it more complicated that it was and ignored clues I should have gotten. The ending is almost funny in a bumbling way.
I’m really liking Celia Fremlin, her characters are well written, the situations seem to be always twisted from what they appear and I like to see the era she wrote in (1960-70s) through her eyes.
It may sound like a very recent family in peril book by the title, but it’s from 1965 and it’s not a thriller. We see the story from Rosamund’s point of view, but she doesn’t know everything herself. It’s a slow developing mystery where the clues makes sense in a certain way, but is it the way they should fit?
I had heard that there was a final twist and I tried to guess it… but I think I made it more complicated that it was and ignored clues I should have gotten. The ending is almost funny in a bumbling way.
I’m really liking Celia Fremlin, her characters are well written, the situations seem to be always twisted from what they appear and I like to see the era she wrote in (1960-70s) through her eyes.
balancinghistorybooks's review
4.0
I adore Celia Fremlin's work; her writing is so controlled, yet builds to the most marvellous crescendoes. There is a real sense of claustrophobia in The Jealous One, as there is in most of her novels. I was immediately swept away, and cared tremendously for our protagonist, who was built realistically. The sense of foreboding slips in almost imperceptibly at first, but it is handled masterfully as it reaches its denouement. I did find the ending of The Jealous One a tad simplistic, but I was so 'in the zone' whilst reading the novel that I did not see it coming at all.
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