Apple Tree Yard: From the writer of BBC smash hit drama 'Crossfire'

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The four-part series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 20 February 2017. [9] Accolades [ edit ] Year DNA made me and DNA undid me." So confesses the protagonist of Louise Doughty's 2013 novel Apple Tree Yard, a middle-aged scientist and mother, Yvonne Carmichael, now standing trial for a grisly murder. As last night’s penultimate episode opened, it turned out to be her pet spook. Phew. All was well – or was it? He was in a bit of a state… “Drive – now, now!” he demanded, staring frantically this way and that. Once I got into part 2 though things became a lot more interesting. I still didn’t like the characters much but I was interested in how the court case would pan out. Award-winning writer Hilary Mantel comments hauntingly about this story: ‘There cannot be a woman alive who hasn’t once realised, in a moment of panic, that she is in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.’

Apple Tree Yard does feel like a very female thing. And that’s good. Female in a positive, powerful, celebratory way, too. Although I didn’t feel much of a bond with it, or with Carmichael – in spite of Watson’s excellent performance. Or with Chaplin either, to be fair, but his is more of a role than a character. This is about her, and because this part is all about how she feels, it would help if I felt more for her. His fury yielded another fantastic, if scary, speech about the horrors or rape and what victims go through – one of the best things about this drama is the way it hammers that message home. Yvonne Carmichael is a highly respected geneticist, married for many years to her husband Guy. Yet in an impulsive moment, she falls into n erotic affair with a man she calls “X”. In the months to follow, they meet clandestinely, each not willing to jeopardize his or her marriage and Yvonne only learns the barest details about “X’s” life. And then something horrendous happens that shifts everything into high gear and inexorably links their fates.Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to put the wind right up that pathetic piece of sh*t,” said her lover after they had resumed relations in a so-called ‘safe’ house. So was Yvonne guilty after all? Both she and six million viewers were left with that chilling thought, and cleverly left us wanting more… Yvonne Carmichael is a renowned geneticist, well-established in her career. She and her husband Guy, a fellow scientist she met while in college, is loving and comfortable, and they have two adult children. One day, after testifying before a committee of Parliament on a scientific issue, she meets a man. They talk, they walk, her takes her by the arm, and leads her to a little-used chapel in the basement. And Yvonne begins to undress.

There is a strong message here that – contrary to what you might be led to believe from Every Other Drama On Television – female sexuality doesn’t suddenly end at 35, but can become more powerful and more profound. Certainly for Yvonne it does, even if it somehow leads her to court. Both Yvonne and Mr X are happy to have a fling but do not want to end their marriages. I don't want to ruin the story for you but Yvonne's life is turned upside down after a party at her university.

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I listened to Apple Tree Yard. I am positive that the expert narration by Juliet Stevenson added to my enjoyment. So, Apple Tree Yard has been sat patiently waiting on my kindle while many people have told me to get on with it, its terrific, one of the best books of the year…and so I decided it was about time I gave it a go. Do I agree with all the hype? Well. Yes.

Another structural issue was the prologue, which adds little to the book other than giving away something which would otherwise be a source of suspense and tension. The ending is also dragged out - almost everything is resolved, so it's obvious that there is going to be one final reveal, and there is really only one thing that it could be. Yvonne Carmichael seemed to be a woman who had everything. A successful career; she was a scientist, a geneticist, and she had climbed to the very top of her profession. A long and stable marriage, to a good man. Two children – a boy and a girl – both grown up and independent. A lovely home …Everything we have worked for, everything we have tried to protect – it is all about to tumble… Everyone is fixed on me – everyone, my love, apart from you. You are not looking at me anymore." I mean, I’m sure there are hundreds of wiry blokes with glasses and wavy brown hair that are irresistible babe magnets, and lots of highly educated, high-achieving, happily married women who are desperate to ---- (ahem!) in a broom cupboard in the House of Lords (or it could have been the Commons, I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter), but I would say the chances of such a pair meeting and mating was not a million to one, as Yvonne thought, but about a zillion to one against. And even if such an unlikely pairing occurred, how could it be sustained without passion, intelligent conversation, common ground, or any reason on earth to sustain it. And even if it were sustained, is it likely that a bloke who had a couple of ahems and a few coffees and carrot cakes in various cafes would go and top someone who had injured his insignificant other? I am just not sure what the book set out to achieve. I listen to audiobooks when I am doing the housework and what this book achieved for me was to make the housework seem more pleasurable than this humourless and depressing story. Those of my friends who know how much I like housework will realise this is a huge achievement. The reader is kept on tenterhooks by an unreliable narrator. We have only Yvonne’s word to make our judgments, to align our sympathies and guess at the truth. Louise Doughty plays out the suspense, twisting the road so we can never see more than a step or two ahead.