— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Darling
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): India Knight
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Contemporary Romcom
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 20th October 2022
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4/5

Okay readers, don’t judge me, we’ve all done it, but I requested this book solely on the basis of loving that simply gorgeous front cover.

And I have no regrets.

I knew nothing about this book going into it, I didn’t even read a blurb, I just climbed right in and found my feet stuck in the muddy fields of Alconleigh with Fran as she observes her free spirited cousin, Linda, on her journey to find love. Trouble is, Linda’s lived a very sheltered life and tends to see the best in people, even when people aren’t being their best.

So, this book is actually a retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Never read it. But honestly, I didnt expect to be laughing so much, and I now need to read the original!

What struck me most was the sheer warmth of the writing. It was like being invited into a family, one that has their own idiosyncrasies, language, and being let in on their inside jokes as they make fun of people. Reading this book felt like curling up in front of a fireplace.

However, can we talk about that last chapter please?! I couldn’t believe what I was reading! I felt like my life had been ruined. I felt genuinely traumatised with the abrupt, matter-of-fact manner in which the story was tossed aside. I felt betrayed my man kind. I’ve spent all day trying to work through the shock and have self-diagnosed myself with c-PTRD (complex post traumatic reading disorder). I’m still not over it. I’m not sure if I will ever be able to trust again. Best pick up my next book and find out!

🧚🏻‍♀️

OK – so I need to hold my hands up first and say I’ve never read ‘The Pursuit of Love’ by Nancy Mitford – so whilst this is a retelling – it was a brand new story / set of characters for me – but as a fan of India Knight’s writing I requested an ARC from NetGalley.

The book is narrated by Frances, a cousin of the Radlett siblings, who has been sent to live with her Aunt Sadie and Uncle Matthew by her flaky mother. Matthew is a retired rockstar, Sadie is his earth mother wife – and they home school their children – and Franny.

The characters are all brilliantly written – with Uncle Matthew my favourite, with some amazing one liners – and lists of things he hates. I’ve just re read one of the lists now – and have laughed out loud as I type (in a coffee shop in Worcester whilst waiting to collect my kids from private school, and ironically one of the things on this list is ‘overconfident public schoolgirls with loud voices’) Another favourite is ‘wellness, (why should I take advice from posh girls with eating disorders?’ But I will stop listing them now, as you really need to read them in their wonderfully written rant mode to fully appreciate them!!

The book starts with the kids growing up in rural Norfolk – with the occasional trip to Cromer for the children’s excitement. Their homeschooling means they know incredibly random things – but not your standard three Rs. They also have their own codes, words, abbreviations – which as a mother of 4, and with our own family ‘things’, I totally understand.

The book then follows all of the family – but primarily Linda on her pursuit of love, taking in London and Paris as well as Norfolk. Each of the locations is written about and described really well and you feel like you’re there.

There is an eclectic supporting cast who are excellently described – Davey and his gut health being very informative!

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book – it was clever, witty, funny and an escapist read. I just can’t comment on how it is as a retelling!

It’s out later in October 2022. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

3.5 Stars
Well-written and replete with deadpan humour, sarcasm and irony it’s a banter-filled, yet poignant tale. So very English. So very satirical. I absolutely flew through it.
It’s a decent enough, weekend read. The final third was less engaging but that didn’t spoil the overall impression.
I haven’t read the original upon which it’s based - <i>The Pursuit of Love</i> - but will hunt down a copy to compare.
My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin General UK - Fig Tree for granting this e-ARC.

A reimaginng of Nancy Mitfords "The Pursuit of Love". This is the story of teenage Linda, daughter of a strict rock royalty father and bohemian mother, who is trying to escape from their shadow and make it on her own.

An absolute joy.

This novel is a tribute/re-imagining of Nancy Mitford’s book “The Pursuit of Love,” which centres on a wealthy, bohemian family and the romantic exploits of eldest daughter, Linda. I haven’t read the original as I had never liked the idea of it much, but enjoy India Knight’s writing elsewhere so wanted to give it a go. Although it is meant to be set in the present, with mentions of mobile phones and Linda’s father cast as a former rock star, it seemed very old-fashioned, particularly in the descriptions of the children running wild in the countryside and Linda’s two rushed marriages with men completely unsuited to her. The whole focus on her desperation to bag a man seemed very out of step with modern life. Having said that, the characters like Uncle Matthew, the Bolter and the flamboyant fashion designer neighbour are amusing, and overall the book is a light and witty concoction that many will enjoy. I did find the ending very abrupt and discordant, dampening the jolly and sparkling feel of what went before.

'Darling' is a gloriously entertaining updating of Nancy Mitford's 'The Pursuit of Love' in which the narrator Frances describes her cousin Linda Radlett's amorous adventures. We first meet Linda and Frances growing up on the Alconleigh estate in Norfolk, home-educated by Linda's parents Aunt Sadie and Uncle Matthew (an ageing ex-rock star in this retelling). We follow Linda through two unsuccessful marriages, first to Tony Kroesig, the son of a wealthy UKIP donor, and then to Christian Talbot, an obscure socialist literary novelist, before she eventually appears to find happiness.

Writing about a bunch of rich eccentrics during a cost-of-living crisis is not without risks, but India Knight ensures that the Radletts are consistently lovable, unpretentious and aware of their privilege, in contrast to the Kroesigs whose desire for wealth and social advancement leaves them constantly unfulfilled. The novel thus felt like wonderful escapism - like Laurie Colwin's 'Happy All the Time', a novel about characters' whose struggles are not primarily economic. There is a real warmth to the way that India Knight writes about family and love - despite their verbal jousting, we are never in any doubt that the Radletts care deeply and fiercely about each other. One benefit of the modern setting is the candour with which the characters are able to speak about intimate matters, and many of the funniest lines of dialogue involve characters over-sharing.

Much as I enjoyed the central narrative, it was mostly the supporting characters who had me roaring with laughter. There are lots of great running gags, such as Uncle Matthew's veneration of 'A Streetcat Named Bob' as the pinnacle of Western literature and Davey's wellness fads ("Evacuation becomes an absolute dream, and I do think thorough evacuation's always the goal, don't you?"). Frances's mother, known universally as 'The Bolter', is just as much fun as in Mitford's original, and I was particularly tickled by the minor character Pooper Carmody (a wealthy friend of Tony) who is treated with the contempt he deserves.

I was partly drawn to the book by the blurb quotes from Katherine Heiny and Meg Mason, both of whose novels I adore (and both of whom I ended up reading after seeing India Knight's enthusiastic reviews in The Times). 'Darling' is very much a novel in the same vein as theirs, full of warmth, love and laughter, and an absolute delight to read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

The Pursuit of Love revisited in this charming updated version of the classic

LINDA Radlett is almost too good to be true. 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.

Without a formal education Linda’s head is permanently in the clouds, but her natural curiosity and sharp mind means she has no qualms about her unconventional schooling, and absolutely no pretentions. Of course, she is beautiful, with an innate sense of style; every girl wants to be her, every guy wants to be with her.

Her story is told by Fran, the cousin who had been sent to grow up with the Radletts when it became clear that her care-free mother couldn’t give her the stable childhood she needed. Fran is grounded yet not without her own whimsey, and they are the perfect pairing to get up to low-stakes mischief.

Linda’s life is charted from early adolescence, and takes in her loves and losses, successes and failures. Hers is a higgledy-piggledy life that is always buoyed by good cheer, and everyone swept up in her wake is left changed by the encounter, no matter how small or big it is.

Darling is a modern re-telling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, and anyone familiar with that book will recognise the clever updating of the people, places and societal nuances of the original. Author India Knight uses her signature dry wit and style veering on unapologetically, playfully politically incorrect to spin the narrative along, capturing the fun of the original while modernising it for contemporary readers.

By making Mr Radlett a working-class rock star rather than moneyed aristocrat, Knight gives herself the opportunity to rib the upper classes through his frequently irate, defiantly egotistical lens. His wife comes from money and has always been comfortable, and combined they have been free to raise their offspring as they see fit, without the worry of any social services coming to call or of any future financial repercussions.

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. If you can accept that, it’s perfectly fun to get swept along with Linda and her numerous beaus and enterprises, and to lean into the naughty, off-kilter humour that Knight is so good at.
Darling serves a heightened sense of reality in a decidedly upper-middle-class world, where worries are real but they are less where the money for the mortgage is going to come from and more will they be able to afford a junior suite at the Ritz in Paris, or will it have to be a mere double room.
As a re-imagining of such an iconic comedy of manners, Darling certainly hits the mark. All the old faces are there, ripe to take on the modern world; Franny’s mother The Bolter fits surprisingly well into the 21st century, as does Lord Merlin, who is now an avant-garde fashion designer, and who was before his time in the original in any case.
Linda herself, impossibly perfect as she may be, is nevertheless a winning heroine to root for. She wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn’t apologise for it, and is funny and astute in her observations.
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.

I wasn’t quite sure who this was aimed at. The original Pursuit of Love is still fresh and vibrant and, although it is set in an England which is all but unrecognisable now, the success of the recent tv adaptation and shows like Downton Abbey mean that everyone is familiar with the period. I could understand if Knight had merely taken inspiration from Mitford and given the whole thing a modern twist. Or if she had set it in the original period but with a modern sensibility, like Bridgerton or The Great. But this is an odd mishmash of the two and for me didn't quite work as either.
The characters are the same as in the original with the odd tweak: Linda, Jassy, Aunt Sadie, Uncle Matthew. One of the girls is a boy and Fanny is now called Franny. Uncle Matthew is effectively the same character but is for some reason an ageing rock star, working class but with the same prejudices as the original upper class Uncle Matthew. They live in the twenty-first century but, in order to maintain the innocent and eccentric air of the original family, they are allowed minimal access to social media and tv, and they are home schooled by Aunt Sadie. It just didn't seem likely that anyone in the present day, let alone the children of a rock star, would be so sheltered, or even if they were, that they would develop the sensibilities of early twentieth century aristocrats.
That said, Knight’s pithy prose is Mitford-esque and she is witty and is adept at referencing modern influences.. As a light, fun read it hits the spot and has a lot of charm. If you have never read the original then you would probably love it. I just wish that Knight had left the original alone and gone somewhere a bit new with her homage. To be fair, I have not ever felt moved to read re-imaginings or sequels to classic novels, even ones as literary as Emma Tennant’s Pemberley and Emma in Love but at least they explored new territory. This seems just to be a straight re-writing of Mitford’s classic, like a piece of fan fiction. It’s not bad, I just think Knight’s formidable comic talents are wasted re-writing a book that is still fabulous in its own right.

'Darling', by India Knight, is a dazzingly charming retelling of Nancy Mitford's 'The Pursuit of Love'. The book follows Linda, a hopeless romantic, on her pursuit of love, going from rural Norfolk to Paris and back. Knight introduces the reader to her eccentric, esoteric family, the Radletts - in fact, that's one of the strong points of this novel: Knight's portrayal of different families, and different types of familial love. From estranged parents to very involved parents, antagonistic daughters and obsequious sons, Knight characterises all of them believably and sympathetically.

The early chapters describing the Radlett children's upbringing are particularly enchanting, jam-packed with anecdotes about their childhood - how Uncle Matthew would chase them with bloodhounds, or how they crowded around a phone in the one place with mobile signal to wonder at questions about adult life.

There's a rather hamfisted discussion of cancel culture, and media as a whole, around three-quarters of the way through that rather soured the book for me - I know nothing about the author, but the novel suddenly felt frustratingly didactic, rather than as previously enchanting. The ending also seems incredibly abrupt - I won't spoil, but there was, in my opinion, limited unity at the end. I was left rather wanting.

Despite this, 'Darling', is overall a captivating book, packed full of evocative descriptions of food and family and homes - I read it in a day!

I’d rather read the original. However India Knight is a fantastic writer so it flows very easily but, for me a huge fan of Nancy Mitford, it was a pale imitation.

Despite being a long time fan of India Knight's writing, as a lover of Nancy Mitford's original novel The Pursuit of Love I have to admit to wondering what the point of a rewrite was. I couldn't see how the original characters' naivety and innocence - from which so much of the original's appeal comes - could be relocated to the modern age of social media-savvy teens: the Tik Tok generation, so to speak.

That feeling persisted for perhaps the first 30 pages, but I was quickly won over to the characters and ended up being entirely enchanted by the world Knight creates (or perhaps that should be recreates?). Warm, witty and light but with a welcome bite to it: just like the original.

Crazy, zany, madly eccentric, India Knight's 'Darling' is a lot packed into a small book.

'Darling' is a modernised, re-imagined version of Nancy Mitford's classic, 'The Pursuit of Love'. Linda Radlett's quest for love is narrated by her best friend, and cousin, Fran. Their unique, somewhat cloistered, childhood let their imaginations run rife; growing up is an adventure. Although Linda believes she wants to be free from the family confines, really she only dreams of romance and marriage.

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. Knight's effervescence of language magnifies the eccentricities of the families to satirical levels. 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.

A retelling/reimagining of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Beautifully written with some great characters, it was a lovely read.

I have long adored India Knight's writing in The Sunday Times and have been long awaiting this novel since its release date was pushed back! Based on Nancy Mitford's seminal novel 'Love in a Cold Climate,' this novel is inventive, engaging and a joy to read. 100% would recommend.

I didn’t actually finish this. After a while I realised that this book was putting me off reading. Time to abandon it! I simply didn’t believe in the characters or story, nor did I care.

An utterly charming reimagining of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. The characters are what make Mitford’s original, and Knight has captured them perfectly here in this contemporary update.

Knight has chosen to make her adaptation as faithful as possible, with strong echoes of the original throughout, so much so that I sometimes felt I was reading particularly excellent fanfiction. Her love for the source text is infectious, and while it’s hard for me to separate the two, I can imagine it carries even if you have never encountered the Radletts before.

Darling is a joy and a triumph, and instant favourite.

This is the story of Linda, a homeschooled beauty with a rock star father and earth mother. She gets her break into modelling and dives into the life that her parents tried to protect her from.

I haven't read In Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, which this is retelling of, but it is a stand alone story.

I found the telling of the story from Linda's cousin's point of view very strange - I felt quite lost as to how she fited into the story and when we would start hearing her story. So for a large part of the novel, I was waiting, expecting to learn more about Fran and her life and how their two stories linked together. Then when I realised that it wasn't about Fran, only Linda, I felt slightly cheated and disappointed - the strings of the story I was holding, thinking they would link to Fran's story were then left hanging in my mind. I have read other book like this - Julian Fellowes has written a couple in this style so I'm not sure how I missed realising this until late on.

Despite this, I did enjoy the story. I loved hearing about the childhood that Linda and Fran had and the stories from the world of modelling and the super rich were entertaining. The ending was quite a shock.

Classic Dry Wit..
A rather magnificent re-telling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Readers may well approach with some considerable trepidation, but worry not as this is simply wonderful. With a perfectly crafted cast of characters, snappy dialogue and a swiftly moving narrative, this hits the mark. Edgy, satirical, sharp, amusing and beautifully observed with a classic dry wit.

It’s been likened to ‘The Pursuit of Love’ but I haven’t read it so can’t comment, but I loved this book from start to finish.

Our narrator is Fran (the Darling of the title) who is looking back at the time she lived with her Radlett cousins at Alconleigh in the ‘absolute arse end’ of Norfolk. We meet Uncle Matthew (former rock star, anti-mobile phones, and many other things) and Auntie Sadie (matriarch, stately and serene), oldest cousin Linda (militant vegetarian, hopeless romantic), Louisa (17) Jassy (12) and Robin (3). There’s a lot of home educating, the great outdoors, dungarees, improbable suitors and their strange parents, heartbreak and sadness (the ending – sob).

Great cast of characters – from Uncle Matthew who has some of the best lines, to Creepy Jared who minds the horses! Especially loved the two pages of things Uncle Matthew hates, which includes hats, Dijon mustard, pot pourri, poncy sunglasses and racists. Oh and books. He has only read ‘A Street Cat named Bob’ which moved him so profoundly that he vowed never to read anything else ever again, since nothing else could ever be as good.

There are so many great lines in this book – and not just from Matthew. Highly recommended – and not just because it’s set in Norfolk!

Everything you could ever want in a novel.

I’m a fast reader, but I read this book slowly. I read every single line carefully, and I feel like the characters lived with me, on the train, at the gym, in my room, as much as I did with them, at Alconleigh. Knight’s writing is concise and witty and devastating, and she has the magic of conjuring a whole, believable individual (a whole host of them, really!) in just a handful of words. This has to be one of my favourite books that I have ever read in my entire life (something I do not say lightly), and I’m going to have to buy a print copy even though the ending has left me absolutely heartbroken and a little tearful, and I’m not sure how I’ll get through it again…

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin/Fig Tree for this privilege.