Mum & Dad by Joanna Trollope

Paperback: 'Oh I care. I care all right. It's more that dealing with the situation and all these different personalities and what is and isn't acceptable is often just too much for me. If Mum listened to me ever, it would be a different matter. But she doesn't. She only listens to Jake and there's nothing I can do about that, so I've stopped even trying. I try to stop minding, too, although I'm not very successful. So despite the fact that I know you think I'm wet and useless and defeatist, I'm actually just trying to elude being stamped on by everyone else, flattened, obliterated. It may sound pathetic to you, but I just want people to be kind. Kind to me, and to each other. That's all.'

Mum & Dad (2020) is a heartwarming family drama from number one bestseller Joanna Trollope, with all her trademark wit and wisdom.

What happens when family roles are reversed and the children must look after mum and dad?

It has been twenty-five years since Gus and Monica left England to start a new life in Spain, building a wine business from the ground up. However, when Gus suffers a stroke and their idyllic Mediterranean life is thrown into upheaval, it is left to their three grown-up children in London to step in.

As the children descend on the vineyard, it becomes clear that each has their own idea of how best to handle their mum and dad, as well as the family business. But as long-simmering resentments rise to the surface and tensions reach breaking point, can the family ties prove strong enough to keep them together?

Written with Trollope’s keen eye for all-too-human foibles, Mum and Dad puts a bittersweet generational power grab under a compassionate spotlight.

Mum & Dad is Joanna Trollope's twenty-second novel.

About the author: Joanna Trollope is the author of many highly acclaimed and bestselling novels, including The Rector's Wife, Marrying the Mistress and Daughters in Law. She was appointed OBE in 1996 and CBE in 2019, a trustee of the National Literacy Trust in 2012, and a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund in 2016. She has chaired the Whitbread and Orange Awards, as well as being a judge of many other literature prizes including chairing the BBC National Short Story Awards for 2017. She has been part of two DCMS panels on public libraries and is patron of numerous charities, including Meningitis Now and Chawton House Library. In 2014, she updated Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility as the opening novel in the Austen Project. 

Rating: 5/5