After one year of being 'buffered from single-motherhood' by her boyfriend, David, Venetia Summers suddenly finds her life unravelling as he is sent to the Brazilian jungle and she is left alone in Norfolk. As chaos reigns in her home and her three children run wilder than ever she finds her life further complicated by a bad-mouthed green parrot, a burgeoning fashion career designing demented cardigans and her brother's outrageous wedding. As emails languish unanswered, phone lines cut out and long-distance relationships prove both vexing and bewildering, life and love take some very...

Gabriella lives in a damp, ramshackle, book-strewn farmhouse in Norfolk with her tempestuous poet father and unconventional mother. Alongside her ever expanding set of siblings and half-siblings, numerous pets and her father's rag-tag admirers, Gabriella navigates a chaotic childhood of wild bohemian parties and fluctuating levels of poverty. Longing to be normal, Gabriella enrols in a strict day school, only to find herself balancing two very different lives. Struggling to keep the eccentricities of her family contained, her failure to achieve conformity amongst her peers is endearing, and...