Not quite what I was expecting from the Blurbs, Albion was an insightful read centered on one landed family in current day England. While the sibling struggle with their grief and the fallout of their father's death and eccentric life, they try to determine how to continue to sustainably manage the family estate and keep the land in their family. When a potential fourth heir appears, the centuries old source of the family's wealth is brought to life and muddies each of their plans and dreams.

'Albion' by Anna Hope begins like many novels written before it, about a grand English country estate facing dire straits-- its long-standing patriarch is dead, the money is running out, and the successors are all a bit messed up in their own way. My entire time reading, I was waiting for some upside, whether it be in the characters, the pacing of the plot, and coming to the whole point of this novel. While there were some moments in which I felt for various characters, Grace and Frannie being perhaps the most full-formed, most of these characters felt more like poorly sketched out archetypes of people I do believe exist in our world. So, basically, there were a lot of surface-level f*ck-ups and perhaps that's what Hope was going for (?). Regardless, it didn't make for a particularly enjoyable reading experience. I think the most pain came in the final 25% in which everything this book was leading up to, but gave hardly any indication of, was all revealed in a span of 10-15 pages from the mouth of the most cliche messenger.
I had no issues with Hope's diction nor syntax because otherwise her use of the English language was pretty conventional and the concepts she imbibed into her characters were, like I said, cliche and archetypal. I understand the message she was conveying, but I don't think 'Albion' delivered it in the most clever way.

Anna Hope's writing is lovely, and I went into this very excited. I liked the setting of the large country home in England, but all of the land information kind of lost me. Combined with the mostly unlikeable characters, this was a miss for me. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

Set within the grand, crumbling walls of an eighteenth-century English estate, the novel opens with a funeral and spirals outward into a rich tapestry of memory, ideology, and personal reckoning.

At the center is the late Philip Brooke, a patriarch whose absence casts as long a shadow as his presence once did. His children return home not only to bury him but to claim—whether through nostalgia, ideology, or ambition—what they believe he left them. Frannie, the earnest conservationist, imagines a rewilded utopia; Milo, equal parts visionary and charlatan, dreams of an elite eco-escape soaked in psychedelics; and Isa, the youngest, wants to locate her own emotional truth amid the ruins of love and identity. Then there’s Clara, an American outsider with a past threatening to upend them all—a narrative catalyst whose arrival turns private grief into public reckoning.

Hope’s prose is elegant and incisive, effortlessly moving between interiority and grand themes: the inheritance of land and trauma, the blind spots of privilege, and the deep fractures between siblings shaped by the same soil but vastly different desires. The novel’s landscape—lush, storied, and on the brink of both decay and transformation—mirrors the family itself.

What makes Albion so powerful is its refusal to romanticize the past or tidy the future. It’s a climate novel, yes, but also a searing exploration of how the personal and political entangle—how dreams, no matter how noble or delusional, cannot be divorced from the histories they emerge from.

Bold, contemporary, and deeply humane, this is a triumph of storytelling—at once intimate and expansive, tender and unflinching. It confronts both the ghosts of the past and the dreams that may not survive the future.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Albion is a beautifully woven novel that explores the quiet power of memory, grief, and connection across generations. Anna Hope's lyrical prose brings both the characters and the landscape to life, creating a story that feels deeply intimate yet universally resonant. This book lingers long after the final page, leaving you reflecting on the ties that bind us to place and to each other.

A sneakily solid read. Family drama encased in masterful writing. Took a few chapters for me to find my footing but I ended up fully immersed in the lives of these privileged, damaged siblings.

Look for this beautiful book in June! Thank you @harpercollins for the galley.

Frannie, Milo and Isabella- despite (or because of) having grown up on an English countryside estate that’s been in their family for seven generations, these grown siblings find themselves grappling to make sense of their individual relationships with their recently deceased father. Distant and cold until the end of his life, Phillip bequeathed his entire estate to his oldest daughter with whom he shared a vision for the health of the land and the planet. But Frannie’s not sure she’s up to the challenge. Enter Clara, the American daughter of Phillip’s long-time affair…and step-sibling of his children? Either way, Clara feels it her duty to disclose her findings on this family’s dark past.