Darling: A razor-sharp, gloriously funny retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love

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She was determined to escape the ordinariness of life, so she went to Paris, met some eccentric people, married some of them, and lived her life to the fullest. I actually snorted with laughter in several bits of it - particularly when Uncle Matthew and Davey get obsessed with Instagram. It takes chutzpah to tackle a national treasure as jealously loved and gatekept as Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love.

I thought the original might be coming out of copyright next year, when it’s 50 years since Nancy died, but apparently it’s 70 years after her death when it expires so it’s not for that reason.There are good lovely things, owned by the creative bohemians (squashy sofas, dogs, “square-cut antique emerald cufflinks”), and bad lovely things, owned by the Ukip-voting parvenus (Hunter wellies) and the faux-commie Etonians (slim hardback novels).

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. And it’s always a delight to find something new to carry you through winter; Knight rises to that challenge with aplomb. Once she meets Lord Merlin, an avant garde fashion designer who owns the stately home next door, she begins to model for him and is sucked into the world she thinks she wants, only to find it is not quite what she imagined. Log in Keep reading with a freetrial Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. I'm glad that I read the original text that this retelling is taken from so that I had that knowledge of the storyline and could appreciate the masterful way that India Knight has revamped the story but kept the heart of the characters the same.This is perhaps because Knight, free from the innate pressures of the roman à clef, has enough distance for clarity. Knight’s characters are sparky and fun, and in some cases their relationships are crafted with more care than in Mitford’s original.

Their unique, somewhat cloistered, childhood let their imaginations run rife; growing up is an adventure. Last year, purists recoiled from Emily Mortimer’s (in my mind terrific) BBC adaptation of the author’s 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love.But there’s no getting round it: being separated from your lover because they must open a new hotel in New Zealand is fundamentally less sexy than them leaving to fight the Nazis as a French resistance hero. After writing an article in The Sunday Times about her daughter's special needs - her youngest child has DiGeorge syndrome.

Eventually Linda does find her way out from the bosom of her deeply eccentric extended family, and she escapes to London. Eventually Linda does find her way out from the bosom of her deeply eccentric extended family, and moves to London to become a model.

The story is told from her cousin Fran’s perspective and we are truly welcomed with open arms by the beautiful Norfolk countryside setting that Knight feasts our eyes with. I am at a loss therefore, especially as the modernisation of Shakespeare’s plays as books didn’t do too well. 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. It’s easy to dismiss the domestic, but if home is where the heart is, the heart is where all humanity happens.