Publisher's Synopsis

'This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met' J K Rowling

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is the first line of this timeless, witty and enchanting novel about growing up.

Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fading glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.

'I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers' Joanna Trollope

**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

We Say


One of the greatest openings to a novel and the rest lives up to it's wonderful beginnings. One of my all time favourites and one I would read again every few years, it's like a wonderful warm duvet.

Rebecca

Book information

ISBN: 9780099460879
Publisher: Random House
Imprint: Vintage Classics
Pub date:
Edition: Reissue
DEWEY: 823.912
DEWEY edition: 22
Language: English
Number of pages: 407
Weight: 298g
Height: 197mm
Width: 127mm
Spine width: 28mm