* 'This is a truly astonishing book. Frances Osborne has not just brought to life a dizzyingly rich and scandalous slice of social history, she has produced a tragic and deeply moving tale as well. It is far more gripping than any novel I have read for years' Antony Beevor

This publication is not for sale to libraries. In 1934 Idina Sackville met the son she had last seen fifteen years earlier when she shocked high society by running off to Africa with a near-penniless man, abandoning him, his brother and their father.

* 'This is a truly astonishing book. Frances Osborne has not just brought to life a dizzyingly rich and scandalous slice of social history, she has produced a tragic and deeply moving tale as well. It is far more gripping than any novel I have read for ye

Lilla Eckford, interned in a Japanese civilian camp in China during the second world war after an extraordinary early life, passed her time by compiling a book about the joys of food. This cookery book blends together personal history, world events, period atmosphere and family anecdotes into a poignant story.

* 'This is a truly astonishing book. Frances Osborne has not just brought to life a dizzyingly rich and scandalous slice of social history, she has produced a tragic and deeply moving tale as well. It is far more gripping than any novel I have read for years' Antony Beevor

* 'This is a truly astonishing book. Frances Osborne has not just brought to life a dizzyingly rich and scandalous slice of social history, she has produced a tragic and deeply moving tale as well. It is far more gripping than any novel I have read for ye

The tale of Lilla, the author's great-grandmother, begins with her birth in Chefoo in China in 1822, where she lived a charmed and Bohemian expat life, the younger of a set of 'heavenly twins' from a spirited, unvictorian family. Lilla's eventful life was to span five continents and three husbands, forming a panoramic picture of British colonial life in the Orient (during the Boxer Rebellion, ...

The tale of Lilla, the author's great-grandmother, begins with her birth in Chefoo in China in 1882, where she lived a charmed and Bohemian expat life, the younger of a set of 'heavenly twins' from a spirited, unvictorian family.