Almost English

By: Charlotte Mendelson

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's summary

‘The multi award-winning Charlotte Mendelson is famous for whipping up the hottest, messiest family dramas a writer of literary fiction can . . . This is late Shakespeare meets Modern Family and it’s irresistible’ – The Times

In a tiny flat in West London, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother and three ancient Hungarian relatives. Imprisoned by her family’s crushing expectations and their traditions, she knows she must escape.

At Combe Abbey, a traditional English private boarding school in the Dorset countryside, Marina realizes she’s made a terrible mistake. Here, among the boathouses, chapel services and unspoken social hierarchy, she is the awkward half-foreign girl who doesn’t know how to fit in, flirt, or even exist.

Meanwhile, her mother has her own painful secrets to deal with – especially the surprising return of the very last man she’d expect to see. And Marina’s disastrous spiral at Combe Abbey is going unnoticed . . .

‘A deliciously funny tale of dysfunctional families. . . Reading Mendelson’s easy, assured prose is like sinking into something soft and velvety’ – Telegraph

‘I read and adored Almost English . . . and now I will read everything she’s ever written. Charlotte Mendelson is a fiendishly gifted writer’ – Marian Keyes

©2013 Charlotte Mendelson (P)2024 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

Critic reviews

'Charlotte Mendelson is much admired by the cognoscenti and Almost English ought to be a bestseller. The account of a girl from a family of Hungarian aunts, dealing with love and old lechers at a ghastly boarding school in the 1980s, is sheer bliss — pure rueful comedy with endless resourcefulness . . . I adore her novels and wish there were many more of them' (Philip Hensher)

'I adored Almost English' (Nigella Lawson)