Albion
Will be published approx. on 1. May 2025
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-0-241-69842-6 (ISBN)
Description
FROM THE AUTHOR OF EXPECTATION
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4
'Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma' The Times
'Superb ... Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama' Jonathan Coe
'Beautiful . . . As provocative as it is tender' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home - twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone - to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.
Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing, setting them on a collision course with each other.
Isa has long suspected that her father thought only of himself, and hopes to seek out her childhood love, who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage.
And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they've built their lives.
'The English country house novel reimagined for our times ... Exceptionally well-drawn' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
'A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose' Elizabeth Day
'Wise and beautiful, with amazing nature writing to boot' India Knight
'Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become' Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4
'Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma' The Times
'Superb ... Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama' Jonathan Coe
'Beautiful . . . As provocative as it is tender' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home - twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone - to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.
Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing, setting them on a collision course with each other.
Isa has long suspected that her father thought only of himself, and hopes to seek out her childhood love, who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage.
And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they've built their lives.
'The English country house novel reimagined for our times ... Exceptionally well-drawn' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
'A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose' Elizabeth Day
'Wise and beautiful, with amazing nature writing to boot' India Knight
'Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become' Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing
Reviews / Votes
Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma - without telling the reader what to think ... I closed Albion with a delicious sense of uncertainty * Sunday Times * At once a sumptuous family drama and state-of-the-nation novel, it's a triumphant read * The i, best books out in May * Albion is exquisitely put together, with a tight structure and richly drawn characters * Literary Review * There are shades of both Succession and Saltburn at play here, with Albion promising more of the emotional acuity that Anna Hope wielded so well in 2019's Expectation * Independent - The best books to look out for in 2025 * A superb novel deftly woven around themes of class, national identity and environmental collapse. In Albion Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama * Jonathan Coe, author of Middle England * Anna Hope's beautiful new novel Albion explores the complexities of family, trauma, nature, human nature, landscape and escape in language that is as provocative as it is tender * Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace * Her finest to date...With shades of Brideshead, as well as Elizabeth Jane Howard's memorable Cazalet Chronicles, Albion is a welcome addition to the body of literature centred around inherited wealth, ancestral homes, and difficult family dynamics * John Boyne, Irish Times * If you like dysfunctional families and grand English country houses - who doesn't, frankly? people in idyllic settings having unenviable times is so compelling - then this is for you * India Knight, HOME substack * The English country house novel re-imagined for our times: an exceptionally well-drawn portrait of a battling family, which also astutely wrestles with the issues around rewilding, inheritance, and colonialism * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose * Elizabeth Day * This book, its fascinating characters, steady paced plot and haunting prose will stay with you long after reading * Cosmopolitan, 'The 25 books we can't wait to read in 2025' * Wise and beautiful, with amazing nature writing to boot * India Knight, Sunday Times Style * Anna Hope plunges us straight into the claustrophobic world of a family turned inside out by the death of the deeply flawed patriarch, and propels us towards a devastating conclusion. Compelling * Kirsty Wark * A tour de force of a book. I love how Anna Hope weaves big ideas seamlessly into a compelling plot. It's such a fine balance to strike and she does it so skilfully. * Roxy Dunn, author of As Young As This * A compassionate, immersive novel that intelligently navigates historical pride and guilt, and the echo of history that resonates powerfully through the lives of Anna Hope's compelling contemporary characters. Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become * Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
472 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-69842-6 (9780241698426)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
ANNA HOPE is the internationally prizewinning and bestselling author of Wake, The Ballroom, Expectation and The White Rock. She studied at Oxford University and RADA and her novels have been translated into over 20 languages. Expectation is currently being adapted for the screen by Clemence Poesy and Haut et Court films in Paris. She lives in Sussex with her family.