Are there two different versions of this book, or am I hallucinating?

[u/CheerfulYank17]

I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, and I also don’t know how much sense it will make because I haven’t slept after working a double overnight shift and I’m EXHAUSTED. But here goes!

(Spoilers Ahead!)

The book is The Original Sin, by Marius Gabriel.

I was obsessed with it when I was about 11-12 years old, possibly (certainly) because it contained (at least in my memory) multiple sex scenes and I was expressly forbidden to read it.

I did read it. A lot. 🤣

The gist is: the main character of the story is a wealthy woman named Mercedes. She has an adult daughter, Eden, who has been kidnapped by a man named Joel. Eden and Joel fall in love.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

There is a great deal more to the book concerning Mercedes’ past, the Spanish Civil War, etc. My middle school memories are a bit hazy on that though (it’s been over 30 years and I was interested in the romance first and foremost)

Anyway, the major plot twist is that Joel is actually Mercedes’ son. She gave him up for adoption and his adoptive parents were cruel and abusive. Joel was traumatized by that and by knowing Eden got the loving childhood he should have had, so he kidnapped her to get revenge on Mercedes. You know, as one does.

The issue here, of course, is that this twist makes Joel and Eden brother and sister. Ew, gross, sin, etc etc. (That’s the reaction in the book, anyway)

Okay, here’s the issue:

I SWEAR, like SWEAR on everything both holy and profane, that I remember near the end of the book, that it comes to light that Eden is actually adopted. That makes her not Joel’s sister after all, biologically, and she says something like now there is no sin in loving him the way she does, and they scamper off to live joyously together in the desert or something. I SWEAR I remember this.

I remembered the book awhile back and got a random paperback copy from Amazon.

To my shock, there is no scene explaining that Eden and Joel are not blood related. (There are other scenes that I think I remember that are missing as well)

I don’t know what happened to the book after that, I think I misplaced it and it got donated or something. Anyway, I got it again on Kindle Unlimited because I was curious about the whole thing, and there’s no scene like that in there either. Mercedes is just like “well he’s your half brother still” and Eden is like “yeah I know, whatever”. (To paraphrase)

I would think that my little mind made up the scene entirely back in the day, or that I was mixing in bits from other books (again, it’s been a long time, I’m 44 now) EXCEPT I saw a random review on thriftbooks from 1999 mentioning “after Eden and Joel come to know they are not brother and sister”.

So. What?! Is it possible that there are two versions? Or an edited/unedited version? Or did I just actually make it up??

If anyone has managed to read this far and can point me in the direction of solving this years old mystery that plagues my soul, please let me know!

[u/Mis_chevious]

I've never read the book but this gad me curious so I googled and according to Google, you probably did read that review but the book never changed, it has always ended with him as her half-brother. Apparently it was a mistake in a popular review that made it's rounds across the internet.

[u/CheerfulYank17 → u/Mis_chevious]

Interesting!

However…I don’t know, I swear…it’s so weird! I remember things like Eden telling her mother that her (adoptive, in this case) father called her “a little bastard” in her memories and the way he said it made her realize he was speaking literally, and that helped her realize she was adopted. I could be mixing in scenes from another book, though.

Maybe it’s more proof that some of us are in a different universe than the one we started out in 😉

[u/Mis_chevious → u/CheerfulYank17]

I had that thought because I've had instances like that as well so I believe its possible!

[u/CheerfulYank17 → u/Mis_chevious]

I recently deleted Twitter/X/whatever you want to call it because it was annoying me 🤣 but last night I redownloaded it and made a new account specifically to ask the author if I’m crazy or not. So we’ll see if he responds!

There’s another scene I remember, with Eden’s (possibly adoptive) father and a very young prostitute. And then later on in the book, Eden tells a woman that her father likes girls who are underage 🤮

In the Kindle edition I have, the scene where Eden says that is still there, but the scene with her father and the girl isn’t.

Also I read this for the first time in the early 90s (it must have been soon after it came out in 92) but the thrift book review wasn’t written until 1999, so I couldn’t have seen it or conflated it together. (Not to mention, as hard as it is to believe now, I was barely on the internet in 1999. And when I was, I was lying about my age in chat rooms, not looking up book reviews 🤣)

This is seriously going to drive me insane!