Fay Weldon's satires are original and witty, with a sharp edge. The author of Lives and Loves of a She Devil, she has written another "inventive novel. Described as a cross between "The Brothers Grimm" and "The Story of O," it's about Elena, a large, sexy and disheveled girl without a penny to her name, who accompanies a rich friend and employer, Victor, to the country house of his millionaire friend, Hamish and his wife, Gemma. In the course of the weekend, Gemma tells Elsa a tale of Nabokovian complexity, in an attempt to steal Elsa from Victor.

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