Scenes Originating from the Garden of Eden - Tapa blanda

Flora Penfold is determined to change her life, and if possible to find Paradise on earth in the process. Forsaking her actor lover, the increasingly faded charms of London and her job at the Islington Arts Centre, she heads for rural bliss in the village of Little Tickencote, Meltshire, and the cottage of her dreams.

Yet evil lurks – naturally enough – in Paradise. Someone in Little Tickencote doesn't like Flora much, it seems, and is prepared to go to unusual lengths to let her know it. Flora's emotional life may be pleasurably fulfilled, but death's sudden intrusion, and the rather odd behaviour of some of the colourful people she now shares her life with – not to mention the mysterious infertility of the women of the village – bring ominous shadows into the Garden.

'Scenes Originating in the Garden of Eden' is an immensely assured novel, which confirms Ann Oakley's reputation as one of the most provocative and entertaining writers at work today.

'Both a romance and a mystery ... Oakley's book is candid, strong on character, and observant about place, atmosphere and mores'
NICOLETTE JONES, 'Sunday Times'

'Worth reading for its old-fashioned integrity and for what Oakley has to say about men and women and the way we live our lives'
JENNIFER POTTER, 'Independent on Sunday'

'She eloquently conveys the desolation of irrevocable loss and her exuberant descriptions of the countryside suggest "something pre-modern, anti-rational and magical" at its heart'
KAREN ARMSTRONG, 'The Times'