I know of few novels - except Pride and Prejudice - that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers
Joanna Trollope,

I know of few novels - except Pride and Prejudice - 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,

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

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

A deliciously evocative portrait of England
Tasmina Perry, Daily Mail

laura hassan 12 May 2010

How could you not fall in love with a book that begins ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’? Rose and Cassandra Mortmain are sisters living in a run-down castle with their eccentric father and bohemian stepmother. When an American family with two unmarried brothers move nearby, Cassandra begins to write about their life in her journal. Nurtured on a regime of Bronte and Austen novels, Cassandra is an enchanting heroine whose forays into first-love will steal your heart. First published in 1948, this is a delicious, charming, comfort read that has inspired lifelong attachment in anyone I’ve ever pressed it on.

Paniz Niaki 14 May 2010

A brilliant narrative story that you will remember well for long; very engaging!

Ruth Clements 05 January 2012

I have loved this book from early childhood when I was first read this, the book focuses on the main character Cassandra Mortmain who lives with her family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her father had at one time published a famous book, they seem to live off the royalities of the book, and he is currently trying to write another best-seller.

Her sister Rose shares a bedroom with Cassandra and the book focuses on the family's efforts to live on very little money, and what ideas that they have to ensure that more money comes into the family. Her sister Rose, who in the book is portrayed as beautiful and the archetypal older sister style, slightly bossy also, wishes that they had money for tea gowns, and at times wishes this more than the food that they have to eat.

Her stepmother Topaz is famous for her naked moonlight romps and she has a brother Thomas, who leaves early in the morning for school and comes home in the evening on the bus, Cassandra seems to spend her time writing her diary in her ha'penny notebooks, and she has a swain, Steven who gives her poetry, which he claims is composed by himself but turns out to be copied from other poetry such as Dunne.

I love this book, just for the simplicity of the opening line: 'I write this sitting at the kitchen sink'. I have gone through three paperback copies of this book, mostly obtained second hand, and I have given this book as a present to several girls of around the same age as Cassandra, but it is their mothers who have picked up the book, as a result of reading it in their own childhood.