Meet the eccentric Mortmans, who live – improbably – in the ruins of a castle: seventeen year old Cassandra charts her family life through this journal which is at once warm and rather charming. With a novelist father who suffers from writer’s block, an ‘unusual’ step mother who likes getting in touch with nature by walking around naked, and two siblings who also – from Cassandra’s perspective – have their shortcomings, this is a lively and witty story about life between the wars. With a love story woven in, this is a lovely and memorable novel.
