I Capture the Castle

I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers -- Joanna Trollope Everyone I've passed it on to has found it a hit - it works every time, for absolutely everybody -- Nigella Lawson Smith rivals Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate series for 1930s toff charm -- Katy Guest * The Independent * A deliciously evocative portrait of England -- Tasmina Perry * Daily Mail * Dreamy and funny...an odd, shimmering timelessness clings to its pages. A thousand and one cheers for its reissue. A + * Entertainment Weekly *

Cassandra Mortmain lives in a beautiful but dilapidated castle and is determined to capture scenes of her everyday life in a journal. She has plenty of material to work with! Her father, who wrote a critically acclaimed novel some years before, is suffering from writer's block, and from a wilful blindness that ignores the poverty his family endures. His second wife, Topaz, a beautiful, fey, ex-artist's model, likes to commune with nature wearing nothing but boots. Cassandra's older sister, Rose, is a scheming romantic; and Thomas, their intelligent younger brother, lives in his own world. When wealthy Americans become their landlords, Rose (who has always wanted to live in a Jane Austen novel), decides she will marry Simon, the heir, despite not loving him. Cassandra chronicles all this in an endearingly clear-eyed style, recording amusing episodes and more serious matters, including her own inconvenient love for Simon… This is a beautifully polished, seemingly effortless, novel, one which I have revisited with a great deal of pleasure many times over the years and which still retains its charms. Lindy