Darling: A razor-sharp, gloriously funny retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love

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Like most clever people, I’m not over-fussed about clothing; there have been numerous studies showing that successful types – unless they’re in entertainment, showbiz or fashion itself, obvs – tend to wear the same thing every day. The Pursuit of Love has scarcely been out of print since initial publication, and is not yet out of copyright. Armed with a key and new knowledge about his parents' past, Nik sets out to unlock the secrets that his mother has been holding onto his whole life. She uses the device of no phone signal, and a ban on electronics (“analogue children in a digital age”) to allow the Radletts to be as old-fashioned and wild as Mitford’s original clan.

Well-written and replete with deadpan humour, sarcasm and irony it’s a banter-filled, yet poignant tale.Louisa, for example, the doughty oldest daughter, still marries a Scottish peer, but in Knight’s version she becomes an Instagram influencer: “‘I take pictures of the house and the children and of me, looking all golden with the light streaming in, and then I get tons of followers who love me, and then people give me things.

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The only thing I really disliked was the character of Davey - Knight has made him even more of a hypochondriac than in the original, and, while every bit as loving and caring as before, he can't open his mouth without mentioning his health in some way or another. In a place she had determined to forget forever, both anticipated encounters and unanticipated revelations show her, and us, that sometimes life is neither fate nor chance: perhaps it’s nothing more than a little luck.

I'm glad that I read the original text that this retelling is taken from so that I had that knowledge of the storyline and could appreciate the masterful way that India Knight has revamped the story but kept the heart of the characters the same. The neighborhood looks different too, but she’s still the same woman and it’s still the same place, and as the past erupts into view, they slowly collide. Who am I to take on a masterpiece, let alone a novel from 1945 that still defines a certain kind of aristocratic Englishness? I felt genuinely traumatised with the abrupt, matter-of-fact manner in which the story was tossed aside.

They also have their own codes, words, abbreviations – which as a mother of 4, and with our own family ‘things’, I totally understand. I thought the original might be coming out of copyright next year, when it’s 50 years since Nancy died, but apparently it’s 70 years after her death when it expires so it’s not for that reason. Okay readers, don’t judge me, we’ve all done it, but I requested this book solely on the basis of loving that simply gorgeous front cover.

Piglet is the searing, unforgettable and original debut which is set to take readers by storm in 2024.It takes chutzpah to tackle a national treasure as jealously loved and gatekept as Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. As well as Mitford, there is something of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s much-adored Cazalet Chronicles in here, plus elements of Eva Rice’s The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More Famous Jack. Of course, she is beautiful, with an innate sense of style; every girl wants to be her, every guy wants to be with her. Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy.