See More From Book Club Friends

Sign up and log in to post, comment and join the conversation.

Book Club Friends is 100% Canadian 🇨🇦

Barbara Vine
The Minotaur: A Novel

The Minotaur: A Novel

As soon as Kerstin Kvist arrives at remote, ivy-covered Lydstep Old Hall in Essex, she feels like a character in a gothic novel. A young nurse fresh out of school, Kerstin has been hired for a position with the Cosway family, residents of the Hall for generations. She is soon introduced to her “charge”, John Cosway, a 39-year-old man whose strange behavior is vaguely explained by his mother and sisters as part of the madness that runs in the family.

Weeks go by at Lydstep with little to mark the passage of time beyond John’s daily walks and the amusingly provincial happenings that engross the Cosway women, and Kerstin occupies her many free hours at the Hall reading or making entries into her diary. Meanwhile, bitter wrangling among Julia Cosway and her four grown daughters becomes increasingly evident. But this is just the most obvious of the tensions that charge the old remote estate, with its sealed rooms full of mystery.

Soon Kerstin will find herself in possession of knowledge she will wish she’d never attained, secrets that will propel the occupants of Lydstep Old Hall headlong into sexual obsession, betrayal, and, finally, murder.

Author: Barbara Vine
Published: 2005
Page Count: 360

This page may include affiliate links.

Purchase on:

Amazon
Amazon

Book Club Discussion Questions For The Minotaur: A Novel

The Minotaur: A Novel
Discuss The Minotaur: A Novel With Your Book Club Friends

Do you want to take a deeper dive intoThe Minotaur: A Novel? Chat about themes, characters, settings, plots and let’s celebrate this book for our Book of the Month discussion!

Suggest The Minotaur: A Novel

More Book Club Discussions

A Better Man
A Fatal Grace
A Great Reckoning
A Rule Against Murder
A Trick of the Light
A World of Curiosities
All the Devils Are Here
An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s
Beautiful Ugly
Bury Your Dead
Glass Houses
How the Light Gets In
How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Iron Lake (20th Anniversary Edition)
Kingdom of the Blind
On Tyranny
State of Terror
Still Life
The Beautiful Mystery
The Boyfriend
The Briar Club
The Brutal Telling
The Crash
The Cruelest Month
The Frozen River
The Grey Wolf
The Housemaid
The Life We Bury
The Long Way Home
The Madness of Crowds
The Mighty Red
The Nature of the Beast
The River We Remember
The Rose Code
The Searcher
The Thursday Murder Club
See All Discussions

Highly Recommended Books by Barbara Vine Book Club Friends

Doors Open
A Question of Identity
Sovereign
The Sins of the Wolf: A William Monk Novel
Smoke in the Wind
The Crack Cocaine Diet
Motor Mouth
Lethal Prey
The Washington Decree
Report for Murder
Long Road to Mercy
Naked Prey
Midnight and Blue
A Line to Kill
Cruel and Unusual
The Secret Hangman
The Favor
Breaking Silence
The Colorado Kid
Nobody Walks
No Good Deeds
Angel's Bidding
Tricky Twenty-Two
Trickster's Point
Dixie City Jam
The Tale Teller
Five Fires
All the Devils Are Here
The Bone Garden
A Bitter Truth
The Pure in Heart
A Body in the Bathhouse
Death in the Cards
Luck and Judgement: A DC Smith Investigation
A Prey to Murder
House of Many Shadows
Do Not Disturb
Death of a Scriptwriter
The Wife Upstairs
Borderline
A Christmas Garland
Sharp Force
Death Comes to Pemberley
The Long Call
Death of a Policeman
Silent Prey
Harm Done
The Lions of Fifth Avenue
Ammie
The Golden Tresses of the Dead
Dead Souls
Smoke and Mirrors
Nothing Gold Can Stay
One Fatal Flaw
Not Dead Yet
The Hollows
Hide
Double Homicide
The Spy Coast
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place
What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust
The Great Hippopotamus Hotel
A Last Goodbye
We Are All Guilty Here
Iron Lake (20th Anniversary Edition)
The Knowledge: A Richard Jury Mystery
The Marriage of Mary Russell
We Three Queens
The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers
Cain His Brother: A William Monk Novel
Invisible Girl
Lamentation
The Charming Quirks of Others
Brunswick Gardens
The Night Fire
A Beautiful Blue Death
The Golem of Hollywood
Bitter Medicine: A V.I. Warshawski Novel
Second Watch
The Other Side of the Door
The Last Remains
Death of a Hussy
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
Shock Wave
Silent On The Moor
The Ape who Guards the Balance
The Grownup
Daughter of the Morning Star: A Longmire Mystery
State of Terror
Hardcore Twenty-Four
Breaking Point
Murder in Montparnasse
The Gate Keeper
Bad Move
For the Sake of Elena
Angels Flight
Death of a Village
Nightblind
Death of a Dentist
The Gimlet Slip
The Twenty-Three
The Pact: A Kate Burkholder Short Mystery
The Vanishing Man
India Gray
No Time for Goodbye
The Widows of Malabar Hill
In This Grave Hour
Outsider
Fugitive Colors
Lie Down with Lions
Atonement of Blood
When the Bough Breaks
Eye for an Eye
Two Bagger
Heartbreak Hotel: An Alex Delaware Novel
Dr. Death: An Alex Delaware Novel
Less Than a Treason
Freeze Frame
Westwind
Do You Remember?
The Ides of April
Jacket Man
Diamond and the Eye
A Matter of Justice
Shadow Prey
Darkest Fear
The Bones of Paris
Badlands: A Nora Kelly Thriller
The Paris Apartment
A Christmas Legacy: A Novel
A Cruel Fate
Besieged: An Outlander Novella
Better to Rest
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Two for the Dough
The Finisher
Remarkably Bright Creatures
An Unexpected Peril
Gaslighted
Crack Down
Fire Sale
Reader
The Dancing Floor
A Night Too Dark
Diamond Dust
The Grave Maurice
Storm Prey
Sunburn
Scratch a Woman
Christmas in Newfoundland Memories and Mysteries: A Sgt. Windflower Book
An Unkindness Of Ravens
Desolation Mountain
Safe Harbour
A Cruel Deception
A Highland Christmas: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery
Absolute Proof
Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford
No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds Novella
Gone for Good
Master of Souls
The Hyde Park Headsman
Blood and Circuses
Murder on a Midsummer Night
The White Lady
Tunnel Vision
A Cold Heart: An Alex Delaware Novel
The Daughter of Time
A Death in the Small Hours
Devil's Waltz
The Zig Zag Girl
1979: An Allie Burns Novel
Songbird: A Kings Lake Investigation
Queen of the Flowers
Rock with Wings
I Found You
The Singing of the Dead
An East End Murder: A Charles Lennox Short Story
Ill Wind
The Night Crew
Put on by Cunning
See Delphi and Die
Showstopper
The Winner
The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse: A Flavia de Luce Story
The Second Death
Stop Them Dead
Widowmaker
The Windsor Protocol
Faithless: A Novel
J is for Judgment
A Tap on the Window
Morality for Beautiful Girls
Queen of Hearts
Watershed
A Game of Fear: A Novel
To the Land of Long Lost Friends
Glass Houses
Hasty Death
The Woman on the Island: A Vera Stanhope Short Story
The Chalk Pit
A Birthday Lunch
Land of the Living
Cave of Bones
Death at Victoria Dock
The Redbreast
The Lost Bird
Evil Bones
By a Spider's Thread
OverKill
Now May You Weep
Mexican Hat
Blue Genes
Bad Guys
Evan's Gate
M is for Malice
No Cure for Love: A Novel
Precious Cargo: A Story from Birds of Prey
Third Twin
Missing and Endangered
Empress of the Seven Hills
The Running Grave
Skinwalkers
Shell Game: A V.I. Warshawski Novel
The Girl in the Green Raincoat
Murder on the Short List
The Thirst: A Harry Hole Novel
Credible Threat
In the Woods
Full Tilt: A Novel
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
Southern Cross
Open Season
Come Death and High Water
Death on Blackheath
Here One Moment
Sworn to Silence
Trouble Island
Through a Glass
Holy Ghost
The Lost Get Back Boogie
The Boyfriend
Killing Tide: A Brittany Mystery
A Red Herring Without Mustard
Death of a Celebrity
The Summer Guests
Common Murder
The Keeper of Lost Causes
Mrs. Pollifax Pursued
In a Dark
Telling Tales
Forbidden Fruit
Winterkill
Livid
Femme Fatale
The Mysterious North
Milk and Honey: A Decker/Lazarus Novel
Rupture
I'll Keep You Safe
Wicked Business
A Whisper in the Dark
Lost Prophecies
Buried Road
Crash & Burn
Sinister Graves
Lord John and the Hellfire Club
Killing the Shadows
Christmas in Absaroka County: Walt Longmire Christmas Stories
Proof of Life
Out of Bounds
The Handsome Man's de Luxe Café
Stately Holmes
Dark Assassin: A William Monk Novel
Monday Mourning
The Memory Game
Dead Beat
Down Among the Dead Men
Red Mist
Return to Sender: A Longmire Mystery
Murphy's Law
Baltimore Blues
Deadly Decisions
The Leper's Bell
The Punishment She Deserves
Potboiler
The Perfect Suspect
The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel
Touchstone
Another One Goes Tonight
Not in the Flesh
The Crowded Grave
The Kingdom
The Black Cat: A Richard Jury Mystery
Evan and Elle
Death of a Gossip
Grave Secrets
Boundary Waters
Waxwork
Fatal Pursuit