Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

One of the stories in "The Red Grouse Tales", adult tales for readers that like to think about what they are reading.

"The Golden Tup" is a quiet horror story, with a dash of paranormal, and a splash of religion and philosophy.

“But whom sent I to judge them?” John Milton.

Can evil be in a place?

The tale opens with Verity, a farmer's wife, recalling how a young couple were arrested a few years previously for killing their new born baby. How could such a nice young couple have done such a dreadful thing?

Through a series of flashbacks we learn how they had created their rural idyll, how an enigmatic man had come into their lives and how their idyll and relationship had gradually fallen apart - how, with references to Milton's Paradise Lost, their paradise was lost.

Gradually the young wife reveals a dreadful past, but Verity realises that she is holding something back, but what? What is the terrible truth that caused her and her husband to kill their baby?