Grade: A

Note: this is out in the UK now; out in the US in January.

Kristina Lloyd is a phenomenal writer. I picked up her first novel, Darker Than Love, in a second-hand bookshop. DTL is a fairly typical piece of historical erotica (ingenue heroine is kidnapped by pervert peer, subjected to unspeakable degradation and eventually rescued by handsome hero) but there was something about her prose that lifted it above the usual. It was enough to prompt me to buy her second novel set in contemporary Brighton, Asking For Trouble. That book blew me away.

Consequently I ordered Split from Amazon as soon as it came out in the UK and I was not disappointed. It’s another contemporary novel with the action taking place in the brooding Yorkshire Moors.

The Plot

Kate Carter lives in London and is in a long term relationship with her boyfriend Ollie that has been getting ’stale and lazy, contentment sliding into lethargy’. When they go on a walking holiday in the Yorkshire Moors, the bad weather forces them to hole up in a guesthouse in the unpromising village of Heddlestone. Whilst there, two unsettling things happen. First they visit an odd, rather creepy puppet museum. Then, whilst out walking at night, they spy a peculiar menage-a-trois taking place through the window of a seedy, run-down working men’s club.

Back in London, Kate finds herself thinking about what she saw incessantly, heightening her discontent. When she receives an email circular from the puppet museum which says that they are looking for an admin assistant, she sees an opportunity to escape her humdrum life. She applies for the job, is accepted and leaves London without telling Ollie where she is going.

When Kate gets to Heddlestone, she is met by Jake Duxbury, the owner of the puppet museum. Since her promised accommodation is not ready, she agrees to move in with him temporarily. There is an immediate attraction between Kate and Jake and they soon become lovers.

When Kate comes across Jake’s brother Eddie, and Eddie’s Russian wife Yelena, she realises that they were involved in the menage that she spied on her first visit to Heddlestone. She also discovers that Eddie and Yelena have an open relationship and that there are strange currents between the brothers.

Gradually, Kate begins to realise that all is not as it seems in Heddlestone and that Jake has plans for her that go far beyond what she has ever imagined. It all seems to be tied up with the local ghost, Laura, who drowned in Victorian times. But is Heddlestone really haunted? And who are Meredith and Chloe? Is it true that women disappear here?

The Characters

Kate is ‘five foot nothing, freckled and fair, pear-shaped but sprightly, a librarian on the run’. The novel is written in the first person and I very much liked Kate’s voice. She’s an entirely believable character: intelligent, flawed, honest, and given to making unwise decisions. I liked her self-awareness and her flashes of humour (when she is being tied up with a pair of stockings she thinks: ‘Dear God, he didn’t even select a matching pair… two sets ruined.’).

Jake, the male protagonist, is an intriguing character. He’s an expert puppet-maker and puppeteer and he’s obsessed with his creatures. There are some fantastic passages about the puppets that are both humorous and creepy. Jake’s beautiful and androgynous, a half-mad genius who thinks nothing of spending hours making up doll’s clothes on his sewing machine. He’s no romance hero but I could understand his unsettling allure.

I loved the way Kristina Lloyd described Jake’s physical appearance, offering a collection of beautiful and ugly elements: he has ‘big, bony knuckles’, and a ‘corrupted angel’s face’; he has ‘two moles like off-centre tears’ (later she neatly invites a Pierrot comparison). My favourite description of Jake, when he and Kate are out walking, is of him looking like a ‘weathered, degenerate shepherd boy’. Lovely, that.

The other characters are neatly drawn too. Eddie is a threatening, unpredictable presence; his wife, Yelena, is brightly vivacious with a ‘vast and dangerous hunger’. Almost my favourite relationship in the novel is the immediate friendship - almost comradeship - between Kate and Yelena.

The Sex

Make no mistake, this is an erotic romance with the emphasis firmly on the erotic. Kristina Lloyd writes incredible sex scenes. Her prose is beautiful - even when the scene being described is positively grimy - and she uses novel, original language. I find her voice fresh and interesting. The other thing that I liked about the sex in this book was that it didn’t have that manual-like quality that erotic books sometimes have. Sometimes you get everything but a diagram. Hate that.

The Romance

A lot of readers will take the view that this book does not contain the staple ingredients of a romance novel. My own criterion for whether a novel is or is not a romance is that it must contain a love story. That’s it. So, for example, although in Wuthering Heights Cathy dies and Heathcliffe is tormented by her memory for the rest of his miserable life [Thanks for the spoiler, dick! -Bam], I term their love story a romance.

Split in fact contains several love stories. The narrative itself is a kind of confessional love letter by Kate to Ollie. Then there is the relationship between Jake and Kate and the love-friendship between Kate and Yelena. But I know that for some people a romance must have one H/H and a traditional HEA. If you fall into that camp, you will not term this novel a romance.

The Verdict

Like Kristina Lloyd’s last novel, Asking For Trouble, this is an incredible read. As with AFT, she makes great use of the setting. Speaking as someone who visits Yorkshire a lot, her description of the moors really resonated with me. She describes Heddlestone as an (untypically) unpicturesque village - somewhat off the tourist trail - with its faded working men’s club, unwelcoming pub, and twee, unenthusiastic gift shop. Yet none of these prosaic details detract from the haunting strangeness of the moors and their ominous, isolated beauty.

I very much liked the way Kristina Lloyd played with ideas of puppetry and dolls throughout the book. Jake brings his puppets to life in a way that is ‘brilliant and appalling’ and he does the same for Kate. But it’s not just a case of Jake doing things to Kate. Even when Kate is apparently being manipulated or coerced by Jake, she admits that she is allowing what happens to happen to her. Kristina Lloyd is very clever at describing the subtle ways in which Kate signals her consent and it raised interesting questions in my mind about responsibility and cause-and-effect.

As for the Split of the title, is this a reference to Kate’s split with Ollie? Her split feelings for the two Duxbury brothers? Or is it an allusion to the splitting of body (puppet) and soul (ghost)? Or all of the above?

This book is clever, beautiful, dreamy and gritty. The language is rich, yet economical. The characters authentic and intriguing. I loved it. Grade A.

For more Tumperkin shenanigans, please visit her blog here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Plain Ole Erotica, Tumperkin's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.