Therese Raquin Book

You know how it is. Your mother marries you to your sexless cousin and in silent defiance you enter a torrid affair with a peasant painter. All those hours spent humouring the dull man in your dreary shop, waiting for your next animalistic tussle with your fiery lover. Then one day, you realise the conventions of early 19thC society are going to prevent you from ditching the boring old blood tie, and you will never be free to give yourself to true love.

God, the boredom! I mean, you can't even knit properly, can you? That last cardigan was missing an armhole and wasn't even big enough for my nephew! So what do you have to live for? You are, after all, a docile little mouse brimming with despair and desperation whose only chance at happiness lies in the arms of a bone-idle gadabout who only wanted a quick shag anyway. Perhaps if he bumped off your other half, made it look like an accident?

Oh now you've gone and done it. Didn't I warn you watching your husband drown would come back to haunt you? How do you expect to look your mother in the eye ever again, you dozy bint? Well. I suppose it'll have to be several years of mental torment, depression and unrelenting misery, followed by a teary confession to your paralysed mother, until someone finally pours you a cup of poison and ends your sorry lot once and for all.

Hold out, there's hope. But not in this book.