BOOK REVIEW / Paperbacks: The Possession of Delia Sutherland by Barbara Neil, Headline pounds 5.99

This atmospheric love story concerns the relationships between repressed English Delia (the possessive owner of a run-down rural estate), her Bahamian playboy husband and his bastard son. All the elements of an updated Bronte-style plot are here, with the husband dying and leaving a messy, emotionally charged legacy. Delia, accurately drawn in Neil's intelligent prose, grows to slow, painful realisation that those who place all value in possessions are putting their humanity at risk.