A Heart of Stone

Precocious Ellen is the only one of the four close Van Bemmel children who dreads the arrival of the new baby. She has told her parents to call the baby Ida, the ugliest name she could think of, and is afraid that this curse she has put upon the unborn child will come true. Her parents, eccentric and devoted to each other, seem to the outside world to be loving and caring, but after one of the children has a shocking accident a horror descends upon this happy household which leads to a disaster even Ellen, dubbed by her father 'the cement of the family', is powerless to prevent. Twenty-five years later a pregnant Ellen returns to the family home, where she is haunted by the voices of her dead family. She imagines the questions her own child will one day ask-'Mummy, why don't I have a granny? Why no grandad? No uncles or aunts? Why not?' A Heart of Stone is an elegant, memorable novel, warmed by a passionate affection for all its characters, full of laughter and love despite the tragedy at its centre.