One of the best crossover children/adult books I have read since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It has the sort of old worldly feel of I Capture a Castle which suddenly turns into a novel of survival and violence when Britain is invaded. It's a coming-of-age tale, a story of love and endurance but it's real charm is in its style. Big ideas simply told, it is utterly hypnotic.
It would be much easier to tell this story if it were all about a chaste and perfect love between Two Children Against the World at an Extreme Time in History. But let's face it, that would be crap.
Daisy is sent from New York to England to spend a summer with cousins she has never met. They are Isaac, Edmond, Osbert and Piper. And two dogs and a goat. She's never met anyone quite like them before - and, as a dreamy English summer progresses, Daisy finds herself caught in a timeless bubble. It seems like the perfect summer. But their lives are about to explode.
Falling in love is just the start of it. War breaks out - a war none of them understands, or really cares about, until it lands on their doorstep. The family is separated. The perfect summer is blown apart. Daisy's life is changed forever - and the world is too.
The film of the book is released Oct 2013. See a trailer below.
Meg Rosoff grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and moved to London in 1989. The bestselling author of ten books, she has won or been shortlisted for twenty international awards including the Orange First Novel Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the National Book Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Her first novel, How I Live Now, has sold over one million copies and was made into a feature film. Meg Rosoff was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2014. She lives in London with her husband, daughter and two lurchers.
