I Capture the Castle
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Summary
Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere.
Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fading glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas, and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block.
However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.
'I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers' Joanna Trollope
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fading glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas, and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block.
However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.
'I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers' Joanna Trollope
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
Reviews
There are many good reasons to read Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle: it provides excellent advice about dressing on a budget (dye all your clothes sea-green); how to cope when the man you love falls for your elder sister (keep a diary) and your stepmother dances naked in the rain (ditto). Given that most teenagers believe their parents to be mad - and vice versa - the novel also serves as a helpful guide to recognising the fine line between eccentricity and outright insanity
Guardian
