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Author: Smith, Dodie

Reading age: from c 12 years

Published on 4 August 2016 by Penguin Random House Children’s UK (Penguin Books Ltd) in the United Kingdom as part of ‘The Originals’ series.

Paperback | 544 pages
131 x 197 x 42 | 386g

‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’ is the memorable first line of this enchanting coming-of-age story, told in the form of Cassandra Mortmain’s journal. Cassandra wittily describes life growing up in a crumbling castle, with her father who suffers from crippling writer’s block, her glamorous but ineffectual step-mother and her vain but beloved sister Rose. When two visiting Americans arrive, all of their lives are turned upside down, and Cassandra experiences her first love.

This is a classic coming-of-age story, beloved of generations of teenage and adult readers, by Dodie Smith, who also wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians.