Mum & dad - Joanna Trollope

Sunday Times number one bestseller Joanna Trollope explores the issues at the heart of a modern family with her trademark wit and warmth, in Mum & Dad.

'What a mess, she thought now . . . what a bloody, unholy mess the whole family has got itself into.'

It's been twenty-five years since Gus and Monica left England to start a new life in Spain, building a vineyard and 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 . . .

Sebastian is busy running his company with his wife, Anna, who's never quite seen eye-to-eye with her mother-in-law.

Katie, a successful solicitor in the City, is distracted by the problems with her long-term partner, Nic, and the secretive lives of their three daughters.

And Jake, ever the easy-going optimist, is determined to convince his new wife, Bella, that moving to Spain with their eighteen-month-old would be a good idea.

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?

'Trollope writes about family relationships with intelligence and clear-eyed sympathy' - The Times

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.

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

With her compassion for her characters, Trollope cuts to the quick of family life, and the difference between men and women
Woman & Home - Fanny Blake

Joanna Trollope's novels address the issues and emotional journeys that face women today
Sunday Express

Trollope writes about family relationships with intelligence and clear-eyed sympathy
The Times

Nobody writes about family tensions better than Joanna Trollope
Good Housekeeping