Darling

Darling

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

Summary

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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 moves to London to become a model. 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 her new life is unromantic: darker, wilder and more complicated than she expected.

Then one day, at her lowest ebb, Linda spontaneously boards the Eurostar to Paris. There she is swept up in a feverish love affair that will upend her life completely.

A razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud novel that re-imagines the cast of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love.


Praise for India Knight

'Almost unbearably funny' New Statesman

'Tender, tough, schmaltzy, witty and heart-warming all at once. Knight has a great comic touch' Metro

'Brilliantly funny and knowing . . . Clara Hutt could eat Bridget Jones for breakfast' Evening Standard

© India Knight 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

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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