Apple Tree Yard: From the writer of BBC smash hit drama 'Crossfire'

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However, the rape scene was heavily criticised by several victim support organisations, with Rape Crisis England and Wales spokeswoman Katie Russell branding the scene "harrowing". [ citation needed] Apple Tree Yard was produced by Kudos Film & Television (production company). Her lover Mark Costley, who had killed him, was sent down for manslaughter, but after hearing about his gross philandering we had long stopped caring about him.

So was Yvonne guilty after all? Both she and six million viewers were left with that chilling thought, and cleverly left us wanting more… I mean, I’m sure there are hundreds of wiry blokes with glasses and wavy brown hair that are irresistible babe magnets, and lots of highly educated, high-achieving, happily married women who are desperate to ---- (ahem!) in a broom cupboard in the House of Lords (or it could have been the Commons, I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter), but I would say the chances of such a pair meeting and mating was not a million to one, as Yvonne thought, but about a zillion to one against. And even if such an unlikely pairing occurred, how could it be sustained without passion, intelligent conversation, common ground, or any reason on earth to sustain it. And even if it were sustained, is it likely that a bloke who had a couple of ahems and a few coffees and carrot cakes in various cafes would go and top someone who had injured his insignificant other? There is a strong message here that – contrary to what you might be led to believe from Every Other Drama On Television – female sexuality doesn’t suddenly end at 35, but can become more powerful and more profound. Certainly for Yvonne it does, even if it somehow leads her to court. 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. ( From the publisher.) Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Award-winning writer Hilary Mantel comments hauntingly about this story: ‘There cannot be a woman alive who hasn’t once realised, in a moment of panic, that she is in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.’ I really enjoyed this book and thought Doughty was an excellent storyteller. It takes a talented writer to make you want to continue reading a story you've seen before, but there are still a good number of twists and turns to keep you thinking. There aren't many books I've read lately with this type of protagonist, and it really worked for me. And it certainly makes you consider your own life, your own relationships, and how a seemingly rational person could be so overtaken by desire and fear. Actress Emily Watson is superb at playing out the raw emotions, as she has been since she leapt to our attention years ago in the harrowing Angela’s Ashes among other things, and this thriller has been riveting from the start. We were instantly hooked on the clever idea of an attractive older woman with a dull husband (Mark Bonnar, who, confusingly, is also in ITV’s Unforgotten at the moment) suddenly finding fun again in the arms of a mystery man (Ben Chaplin) she likes to think is ‘a spook’. I bought this audio book in an Audible sale a couple of years ago. After reading the synopsis I decided the book wasn't for me and left it at the bottom of my TBR pile.

I cried, I really did. And, boy, it takes a lot to make me do that. But that’s how stonkingly good this sensational psychological thriller has been. The affair begins suddenly and is all-consuming for Yvonne. Her lover gives her a pre-pay phone with his number programmed in and she is to call him only on that. She fantasizes about him continually and her life is one long effort to be with him in every free moment. "It is worrying me, how easy you found it to have sex with me. I could have said, how easy you found it to seduce me...but seduction suggests a process of persuasion over the passage of time. You just went right ahead and I went right along with it - there wasn't any persuading necessary. I need you to know this was not normal for me." Before long they are huddled in the historic broom cupboard where suffragette Emily Davison stayed the night in 1911. The closet encounter fast leads to cupboard love. I have to admit, this really didn’t seem very likely, but hey. It had to start somehow…More surreptitious sex follows, first in a café bathroom and then in the famous Apple Tree Yard. Yes, sex in public places is very much his thing. Yeh, I would,” she said. “I want him to crap himself with fear. I want him to feel… half as terrified as he made me feel. I suppose you know people?” Spoilers for Apple Tree Yard episode 2 below. Still catching up? Read Sarah’s review of episode 1 here. Emily Watson’s character, Yvonne Carmichael, looks out of the window as the vehicle in which she is travelling crosses a bridge over the Thames in London. She reflects on human nature, on the choices we make, how fear turns us into animals. The Thames can make you reflect, although Yvonne has more reason to do so than most. She is not on a bus, but in a prisoner transport van, possibly operated by G4S. She is cuffed and on the way to court, to be tried for murder. So begins this four-part adaptation of novelist (and Christmas University Challenge finalist) Louise Doughty’s psychological thriller Apple Tree Yard (BBC1, Sunday). Devastated Yvonne feels she cannot and will not go to the police. Reluctant to tell her husband, she confides in Mr X with devastating consequences for them both.

Yvonne is caught up in the high of her sexual power, her ability to court a man who desires her so fully. The mystery of the affair is also a pull for her. It is so different from her daily life. "I am fifty-two. I have status and gravitas - when I don't have my tights around my ankles in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, that is." Spoilers for Apple Tree Yard episode 3 below. Still catching up? Read Sarah’s review of episode 2 here.I found out as Yvonne told her story, a mixture of recollections and letters to her lover that she would never send. At first I questioned the way the story was told, and I decided that a more straightforward confessional style would have been more effective, but as the story progressed I realised that I was wrong and the author was right: the style she chose allowed her to strike the perfect balance between telling the story and exploring Yvonne’s emotions, and the reasons why she did the things she did. I am just not sure what the book set out to achieve. I listen to audiobooks when I am doing the housework and what this book achieved for me was to make the housework seem more pleasurable than this humourless and depressing story. Those of my friends who know how much I like housework will realise this is a huge achievement. She then attends a work party, drinks champagne and exchanges saucy texts with her lover while sitting with a colleague, George, who suggests they share a cab home. Heading to his office, the warning signs may have been there when she declared: “it is definitely, definitely time for bed.” The two begin an affair, despite the fact that she doesn't know her lover's name at first, and he has kept most of his life a mystery from her. He is constantly paranoid, worried that Yvonne might say something to someone, or that their relationship might be discovered. Because of his need to control the situation, Yvonne believes her lover must be a spy for the British government, a fact that excites her almost as much as their relationship has. She knows that they can only see each other at certain times, yet she longs for more, longs for the passion he has ignited in her. The term "my love" was so overused in the story by Yvonne and it really got on my nerves by the final chapter.