This enchanting novel tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her unusual family
who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Cassandra's eccentric
father is a writer whose first book took the literary world by storm but he has since failed to
write a single word and now spends his time reading detective fiction. Cassandra's sister Rose
despairs of her family's circumstances and determines to marry their affluent American
landlord. She is helped and sometimes hindered in this by their bohemian stepmother an
artists' model who likes to commune with nature. Finally there is Stephen who is hopelessly in
love with Cassandra. Amid this maelstrom Cassandra hones her writing skills candidly capturing
the events that take place within the castle's walls and her own first descent into love.
