Mum & Dad: The Heartfelt Richard & Judy Book Club Pick

by Joanna Trollope

Overview

A Richard&Judy Book Club Pick

Set in the vineyards of Spain, Mum&Dad is a heartwarming family drama about later life and healing old wounds. From Joanna Trollope, the number one bestselling author of An Unsuitable Match, filled with her trademark humour and wisdom.

'Trollope’s bestselling novel brings elegance and warmth to a painfully familiar dilemma' – Daily Mail

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

It’s 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’s 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, will the family finally fall apart?

'No-one dissects the intricacies of family relationships quite like Joanna Trollope' - Good Housekeeping

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529003413
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	03/05/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	332,626
File size:	463 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

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. Mum&Dad is her twenty-second novel.
Joanna Trollope is the author of many highly acclaimed and bestselling novels, including The Rector's Wife, Marrying the Mistress, Daughters in Law and City of Friends. She was appointed OBE in 1996, and a trustee of the National Literacy Trust in in 2012. She has chaired the Whitbread and Orange Awards, as well as being a judge of many other literature prizes; 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.

Editorial Reviews

05/18/2020

Sudden illness impacts three generations of a family in Trollope’s rewarding latest (after An Unsuitable Match). British expats Gus and Monica Beacham have run a successful vineyard in southern Spain since 1993. When a stroke leaves Gus temporarily mute and incapacitated, the couple’s three adult children, all of whom live in England, must help Monica keep the business functioning. Jake, 38, the youngest of the three, decides to move his reluctant wife, Bella, and their infant daughter to Spain while masterminding a risky new vineyard expansion. Though his siblings Sebastian and Katie are puzzled by Jake’s eagerness to leave England behind, they’re too overwhelmed by their own lives not to be grateful for his initiative. Sebastian feels insecure and unimportant compared to his overachieving wife, and Katie struggles to balance a demanding legal career with care for a daughter who self-harms. As Gus confronts his new limits, Monica discovers that his frustration makes him even more stubborn and irritable than before, while Gus himself is angered by Jake’s high-handed decisions. Trollope’s warmhearted but unsentimental storytelling reveals her characters’ flaws but also their capacity to change. This insightful look at the family tensions that develop as parents age will please the author’s fans and resonate with a wide variety of readers. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Trollope writes about family relationships with intelligence and clear-eyed sympathy." —Times


"Trollope is an extremely assured writer, with a brilliant eye for detail and a finely tuned emotional intelligence . . . she writes absorbing, wise stories that dramatize the dilemmas we face." —Sunday Times


"Nobody writes about family tensions better than Joanna Trollope." —Good Housekeeping


"The Roman poet Horace once said that the exceptional writer was one who could wield ordinary words so skillfully that, in his hands, the ordinary was made new. But for the fact that Horace said it more than two thousand years ago, he might have been speaking of Joanna Trollope. Here is a writer who marshals simple prose and constructs stories around everyday people, but in her hands the humdrum is made strikingly fresh." —Washington Post Book World on City of Friends


"The complexity of familial relationships breathes realism and intensity into this novel." —Publishers Weekly on An Unsuitable Match


"The matchless Joanna Trollope works both sides of the Atlantic in her novel Girl from the South . . . [Her] pitch-perfect ear and measured insights make for an elegant read. —O: The Oprah Magazine on Girl from the South


"Engrossing." —Southern Living Online on An Unsuitable Match


"Nobody writes about family tensions better than Joanna Trollope." —Good Housekeeping on Balancing Act

From the Publisher