Description

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'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**

About the Author

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Dodie (Dorothy) Smith was born in 1896 in Northern England. Although she studied drama, she turned her talents to writing, successfully submitting a screenplay to a silent movie company and writing the script for "Autumn Crocus," which opened in 1931 to rave reviews. In 1934, Dodie's husband Alec brought home a Dalmatian puppy named Pongo, a gift that would eventually inspire her to write on of the greatest works of literature today.