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

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As crazy as things get, there are poignant moments scattered throughout which remind us that love is sometimes not what we imagined, but it can also come when we least expect it. Armed with a key and new knowledge about his parents' past, Nik sets out to unlock the secrets that his mother has been holding onto his whole life. Husband number one, Tony Kroesig, has been perfectly refashioned as the son of a prominent right-winger. We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Read more about the condition Very Good: A book that has been read and does not look new, but is in excellent condition.

I came across at least three sentences which made me stumble, because there are mistakes in them which should have been sorted out. The daughter of a former rock ‘n roll hell-raiser and the mellow woman who tamed him, Linda grew up in blissful seclusion from the wider world in a sprawling estate in the Surrey countryside alongside her rabble of siblings and favourite cousin, Fran. Linda’s dud husbands are the fleshily handsome son of a Ukip peer (looking ‘like he lives off parma ham and cream, like an old woman’s bloody cat’, Uncle Matthew fulminates) and an Etonian anti-capitalist.Treat yourself to this novel - Katherine Heiny, author of Early Morning Riser You may also be interested in. Well-written and replete with deadpan humour, sarcasm and irony it’s a banter-filled, yet poignant tale. Public service announcement for fellow Nancy Mitford fans: India Knight’s modern retelling, Darling, is HEAVEN. Darling is a wonderfully escapist caper of a read that will sweep you up into Linda’s world as she navigates it all in the pursuit of that epic love that is always just out of reach.

Darling is a black forest gateau of a book: rich characters, sumptuous prose, delicious dialogue, and layered throughout with sharp wit and intelligence . They also have their own codes, words, abbreviations – which as a mother of 4, and with our own family ‘things’, I totally understand. A Little Luck is the story about the debilitating weight of lies, the messy line between bravery and cowardice, and the tragedies, big and small, that can ripple out from a single decisive event. Laika, the youngest, retreats into a contactless digital life, designing the trading algorithms that will ultimately prove his downfall in a condo near Wall Street. Eventually Linda does find her way out from the bosom of her deeply eccentric extended family, and moves to London to become a model.Her first venture into literature was 2000’s My Life on a Plate, charting a woman’s complicated family life which was more or less a fictionalised account of her own story. India Knight does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of Mitford's original story but brings overlays modernity that makes it more relatable for today. Some tweaks reflect contemporary sensibilities: sea swimming replaces hunting, and most of the characters have jobs: Linda runs a Dalston café, and her one true love, Fabrice, owns chic boutique hotels.

Mitford never wrote a really good marriage (Fanny’s husband, in Pursuit and sequels, is the very definition of a nonentity), and it’s tempting to wonder whether she ever could. Like the modernised versions of Jane Austen’s canon before it, Darling has to stretch itself a bit to fit anything resembling contemporary reality, and in failing to do so in any meaningful way ends up becoming somewhat dream-like and fantastical in places. 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.Husband two, anti-capitalist Christian (nicknamed “posh Trot” by Uncle Matthew), meanwhile, is an Old Etonian who puts about a myth that he grew up on a housing estate in Doncaster. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.

No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins. Knight’s characters are sparky and fun, and in some cases their relationships are crafted with more care than in Mitford’s original. Her updates are so so clever - Uncle Matthew is a cantankerous retired rock star living in rural Norfolk with bad wifi and little phone signal, and Auntie Sadie is posh Anglo-Indian boho, while Lord Merlin is now a sort of combination of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano (the doves dyed pastel colours totally fit! Linda Radlett lives with her siblings, Louisa, Jassy and Robin, and their parents, Matthew and Sadie, on a vast Norfolk estate.

This book had an interesting storytelling style, where the character at the central of the story (Linda) wasn’t the main narrator (Franny). Knight manages to be faithful to that beloved comfort read whilst updating the setting and characters to the present (albeit still in a bohemian-aristo thoroughly English way). If we told someone that this was our life,” says the central character in Darling, “they wouldn’t believe us.