Synopses & Reviews
"This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met."
—J K Rowling
This enchanting novel tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her unusual family who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Cassandra’ s eccentric father is a writer whose first book took the literary world by storm but he has since failed to write a single word and now spends his time reading detective fiction. Cassandra’s sister, Rose, despairs of her family’s circumstances and determines to marry their affluent American landlord. She is helped and, sometimes, hindered in this by their bohemian stepmother, an artists’ model who likes to commune with nature. Finally there is Stephen who is hopelessly in love with Cassandra. Amid this maelstrom Cassandra hones her writing skills, candidly capturing the events that take place within the castle’s walls, and her own first descent into love.
About the Author
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.