What a delight this book was! Although I knew about it, I hadn't really looked at it until it appeared in my parcel from my NZ friend, and fellow Mitford enthusiast, Josie. It is simply a fairytale for grown ups.
Pierre, the heroine, is the result of an 'unlikely liaison between a bumbling botanist and a ravishing yet distant Italian soprano' and is so called because she was conceived 'amidst linen sheets' at the Pierre Hotel, New York. Pierre likes Ella Fitzgerald and Christian Louboutin shoes, and lives on a houseboat called Glimmety Glammety. She works for an antiquarian bookseller, Mr Beaney, and it is at his annual fancy-dress party that she meets the man with the dancing eyes. They fall in love and Pierre starts to dream of living in Italy, with four babies, an Aga and a goat - as probably all women do and then alas ....... "as summer turned into a weary autumn he committed an indiscretion that tore her in two. Foolish foolish man."
I won't give the end away but I will add that they do eventually live "happily ever after" ... phew!!!
The illustrations are gorgeous - by Sophie's childhood friend, Annie Morris.
I loved it and I am sure that Sophie's grandfather, Roald, would have been very proud!!
Recommended for all of us who believe in fairytales!!
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