I read this book age 13 after I found it sneaking through my parents book collection. What a revelation, it was wild and sexual, Thea on a rollercoaster journey from trains to forests to Lourdes. I could not put it down. I thought to myself is this what life has in store? When we moved house I lost it and could not remember the title. Today I remembered a scene where Thea cooks an Aubergine feast (eggplant) and talks at length of the almost obscene purple flesh so I go online and type in PURPLE and guess what comes up? I am now going to order the book and slip back into some heady escapism! I would definitely recommend this...erotic, violent and sensual...this is for the hedonist in all of us.

A very odd book indeed. It is all about obscurely named and impossibly temperamental Thea. She seems to be on the road to her own destruction and we enter the story just as she begins to make her descent.

The book starts in the middle of Thea's destructive relationship with the dark, violent and somewhat shadowy figure of Leo. She has already left her relationship with Adrian, her husband - but she hasn't quite let go of it either and so her comings and goings between these two characters dominates the first half the book. In fact I almost stopped reading the book numerous times in this first half. Thea's lack of reality (it has been called child-like and naive, but to me was mostly annoying) made this a difficult read. The situation, too, seemed so grim and violent, and when Thea finally ends up in hospital with a bashed in mouth it was almost the end for my reading too.

However from this point the book attains some of the most blackly comical highs in literature. They all tie in with Thea's need for a mission, her need for spiritual cleansing and her attempted seduction of a priest. It is just wonderful. Thea who has proved herself canny enough to be coldly, almost machiavellian, in her manipulations succeeds in turning situations on their head to justify her position and to seak her own absolution. Eventually she ends up in Lourdes and thinks she has found what she is looking for, but perhaps it is all too hard to be a modern saint.

Behind all this lay two even shadowier figures - that of her absent father, and that of the mythical figure of Patricia Jane, the perfect daughter her mother always wanted. I suppose it would be easy to try to make some kind of glib psychoanalysis of Thea based on her background (absent father, searching for love in all the men she meets) but it is much more complex than that. The Catholic church, absolution and beatification (along with miracles) are all woven in together to the story.

The novel is highly explicit sexually - I felt somewhat prudish reading it myself. It isn't so much its sexual explicitness as Thea's complete lack of shame about it. Anyway, be prepared for that if you pick this up. It is a very powerful book and thought provoking. I enjoyed it immensely.

I was absolutely hooked from the beginning, as intense as "The Bell Jar", Perriam writes about sex and madness with a wicked sense of humour and intelligence.

Perrium tackles religion and female sexuality with her trademark wit and intelligence. Sister Mary Hilary has run away from her convent, yet is unable to leave behind the inforced feelings of guilt and need for self punishment. "Devils, for a Change" is a at times disturbing as the 39 year old innocent tries to take control of her freedom and sexuality.