Punters who were persuaded to buy Damage, Josephine Hart’s first, best-selling novel, because its striking black-and-white cover made it look like a box of chocolates were unlikely to have been disappointed. It was impossible not to devour the book in a single evening and, after you had finished it, you were left with a strong desire to put your finger down your throat: reading about all those ordinary people doing unspeakable things to each other while in the grip of uncontrollable obsession left you feeling both nauseated and guilty.

Sin (and the title lends itself nicely to another choccy-box campaign) is more of the same. This time the narrator is a woman, and this time the insatiable and consuming desire has a psychological explanation: Ruth’s passion for stuffy Sir Charles, her adopted sister Elizabeth’s husband, springs from her uncontrollable