Darling

Darling

A razor-sharp, gloriously funny retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love

Summary

Delight the bookworm in your life with the gift of this hilarious and heartbreaking modern-day adaptation of Nancy Mitford's classic, The Pursuit of Happiness.

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Marooned in a sprawling farmhouse in Norfolk, teenage Linda Radlett feels herself destined for greater things. She longs for love, but how will she ever find it? She can't even get a signal on her mobile phone. Linda's strict, former rock star father terrifies any potential suitors away, while her bohemian mother, wafting around in silver jewellery, answers Linda's urgent questions about love with upsettingly vivid allusions to animal husbandry.

Eventually Linda does find her way out from the bosom of her deeply eccentric extended family, and she escapes to London. She knows she doesn't want to marry 'a man who looks like a pudding', as her good and dull sister Louisa has done, and marries the flashy, handsome son of a UKIP peer instead.

But this is only the beginning of Linda's pursuit of love, a journey that will be wilder, more surprising and more complicated than she could ever have imagined.

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'A savagely funny, bracingly sad, dazzlingly clever reimagining of The Pursuit of Love. I loved it' Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss

'A triumph! Brilliantly done, faithful but imaginative, tremendously romantic and very funny' Nina Stibbe, author of Reasons to be Cheerful

'Fans of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit Of Love will adore this brilliant contemporary take ... The writing is as sharp, the details as perfect, the jokes as funny as [the] original' Daily Mail

'Beautifully and meticulously done' The Sunday Times

Reviews

  • It takes a brave author to attempt a contemporary reimagining of such a beloved novel. Luckily, India Knight [...] has courage and talent in spades ... It's beautifully and meticulously done, echoing the detail of the original plot as far as feasible, but with contemporary twists ... Knight is warmer than Mitford, and more comforting
    Sunday Times

About the author

India Knight

India Knight is the author of four novels: Darling, Mutton, Comfort and Joy, Don't You Want Me? and My Life on a Plate. She is a columnist for the Sunday Times, and she lives in Suffolk.
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