ROSE TREMAIN Trespass ***

I normally love Rose Tremain, but not this one. All the characters are really unpleasant and hard to empathise with and the story seemed very contrived - though beautifully written, of course.

It's about different ways in which people trespass (hence the title) - on land, on other people's happiness, on people's past, on people's bodies. In some ways it seemed more like an essay exploring the subject than a story that developed organically from the characters.

The setting is rural France. All the main protagonists are in their 60s. Aramon is an old man who lives in squalor in an old farmhouse called Mas Lunel. He and his sister Audrun, who lives in a bungalow next door, despise each other. Living close by are an English couple - Victoria, a garden designer and her lover Kitty, who's a fairly talentless painter. Then enter Victoria's brother Anthony, who has decided to pack in his exclusive London antiques business before it fails completely and buy a place of his own in France. Aramon wants to sell him Mas Lunel, but the deal-breaker is Audrun's ugly little bungalow spoiling the view...