John Banville is best known for his book ‘The Sea’ which won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. His latest book in paperback, ‘Mrs Osmond’, is a sequel to ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ by Henry James published in 1881 and a very different read altogether.

It is written in the style of James with large descriptive passages, but it does move along slightly quicker than The Portrait of a Lady! It is not necessary to have read the former as Banville provides the back story of Isabel Archer’s disastrous marriage to Gilbert Osmond and the discovery that her step daughter, Pansy, is in fact the daughter of her so called friend, Serena Merle, and not the first Mrs Osmond.

John Banville brings in new characters such as Miss Janeway, who is part of the suffragette movement and who leads a very frugal existence compared to the heiress, Mrs Osmond.

There is humour with Isabel’s aunt, the redoubtable Mrs Touchett, and Gilbert Osmond is fleshed out into a dastardly villain. By the end of the book Isabel has used her wealth to wreak revenge but is still wrestling with the subject of personal independence and happiness.

Banville ends the book in much the same way as Henry James finished The Portrait of a Lady – one is left wondering which path Isabel will take next.