Albion tells the story of the Brookes, a dispersed and fractured family, gathering at their large, rural home for the funeral of their patriarch, Phillip. Together, they must face their personal and familial struggles, whilst coming to terms with the past actions of their ancestors. An Arcadian novel, Anna Hope describes idyllic scenery surrounded by the messiness of humanity. The peaceful tone of the setting is interrupted by the drama of the interactions, with each character’s positive intention marred by their flaws. I enjoyed seeing the characters’ relationships evolve within the short yet poignant five day period. A considered and beautiful book with engaging themes and characters.

What a lovely book, I’m so glad I finally got round to reading it, life sometimes gets in the way! The story centres around the Brooke family and their 18th century ancestral home in Sussex set in a thousand acres of land. The patriarch and his daughter Francesca ‘Frannie’ have been re-wilding the land and with Philip’s death Frannie will inherit the estate. This is a beautifully written, slow burn of a book, but for that don’t think hard read, it isn’t. Briefly, the family and invited guests gather for the funeral. Frannie’s mother Grace and siblings Milo and Isa and just a few close friends until Isa announces that there will be another guest and they don’t know it but this guest is going to cause fur to fly. Long hidden secrets and more recent ones, raise their heads leaving everyone in turmoil. This is a multigenerational saga, heavily character driven and there are few amongst them that I really liked, maybe with the exception of Ned and Rowan. The estate is so intrinsic to the story it is almost a character in its own right. A story of family, relationships, social injustice and accountability. It’s a book to make you think and I found it a compelling and very enjoyable read. 4.5⭐️

With well-developed characters who are realistic and easily envisaged, this is a beautifully told and often heart-wrenching story about a family dealing with both their past and their heritage. Those issues keep coming back to affect them today and the question - for all of us - is how do you deal with them and the message - again for all of us - is that you cannot deal with them alone.

This was a slow burner of a novel, it took me a while to get into it. We follow the various inhabitants of a country estate over a long weekend as they prepare for the funeral of the patriarch Phillip. They are joined by guests and family members, but ‘Albion’ has a small cast and we get to know them intimately. The setting too plays its part and, while characters seek escape by immersing themselves in the rewilded country estate, tensions boil over and arrival of Clara, who may be Phillip’s illegitimate daughter, adds a further discomforting element to the mix. Whilst working on a small scale, Anna Hope tackles big issues relating to ‘the twisted creed and brutality of the ruling class’ and the need to challenge historical injustices face on. ‘Albion’ went from being mildly interesting to enthralling and I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Albion unfolds over five days as the Brooke family gathers at their 18th-century ancestral home to bury their father, Philip, a one-time hippy and erstwhile philanderer. Frannie, the eldest daughter has inherited the estate, and dreams of returning it to nature as a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo, her brother, envisions a treetop haven for the wealthy delivering psychedelic drug treatments. Each believes their father has given them his blessing and are set on a collision course. Grace, Philip’s widow, who has been in a loveless marriage for 50 years, wonders if she can now finally choose freedom over duty, whilst her third child, Isabelle, only hopes to seek out her childhood love — still living on the estate — to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage. And then, Clara arrives from America with secrets that will shatter the family's dreams... In Albion, Anna Hope has delivered the reader a truly engrossing, character-focused story that portrays a landed family's complex and multilayered dynamic, with all its attendant tensions and idiosyncrasies, set against a wider global perspective of contemporary issues and problems. I was completely hooked in from the very beginning and loved the way Anna Hope develops the characters, shifting our sympathies as perspectives change and events unfold. We may not always like the members of this dysfunctional family, or agree with their actions and beliefs, but they are all drawn with such conviction, empathy and sympathy that we really do come to care about what happens to them. Characterisation is one huge strength of this tremendous novel, and the second is Anna Hope's ability to vividly depict the natural landscape and describe it in such beautiful, lyrical, yet unsentimental prose. The wildlife and natural world of the estate is so perfectly rendered that you see it in your head as you're reading, you hear the birds singing and the water splashing, you feel the dew-wet grass, and you smell the woodsmoke and the leaf mould. This beautiful tract of countryside is just as important within the novel as the family that own it, and the two characters who hands-on manage and care for it day to day, Ned and Jack, are both good, decent people with a deep understanding of it, and a strong relationship and affinity with it. Inheritance and legacy are important themes in this novel. Fannie and Milo have clashing views about the direction of the estate now their father is dead, and as young as Rowan is, she's already beginning to get a sense of the legacy that will one day fall to her. But inheritance of the actual land itself is only one aspect, and the author sets up a fascinating parallel as the novel unfolds: as well as the land, Frannie inherits the consequences caused by the ethics of past generations, which endanger the estate's future despite her best intentions to protect it and ensure its survival, whilst Rowan will inherit land on a planet which has been so damaged by the actions of previous generations, that its future is further endangered. The novel also explores themes of responsibility, accountability and freedom; inherited wealth, class and privilege; colonialism and the ethics of trade; climate change and mitigation; land management and rewilding; and intergenerational trauma. Yes, there is much to unpack and think about here, and yet it's all bound together in a highly readable, beautifully written, absorbing, propulsive and nuanced country house story. It manages to be both a satisfying and thought-provoking solo read and the perfect buddy-read/book club read. It will stay in my head for a long time to come and is definitely going to be one of my best books of 2025. Brilliant stuff. Highly recommended. Thank you to Penguin Fig Tree for my AD-GIFTED copy.