Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2016
336 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
A family memoir that traces the myths, legends, and secrets of seven generations of remarkable women.
All families have their myths and legends. For many years Juliet Nicolson accepted hers - the dangerous beauty of her flamenco dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous eccentricity of her grandmother Vita Sackville-West, her mother's Tory-conventional background. But then Juliet, a distinguished historian, started to question. As she did so, she sifted fact from fiction, uncovering details and secrets long held just out of sight.
A House Full of Daughters takes us through seven generations of women. In the nineteenth-century slums of Malaga, the salons of fin-de-siecle Washington D.C., an English boarding school during the Second World War, Chelsea in the 1960s, the knife-edge that was New York City in the 1980s, these women emerge for Juliet as people in their own right, but also as part of who she is and where she has come from.
A House Full of Daughters is one woman's investigation into the nature of family, memory, and the past. As Juliet finds uncomfortable patterns reflected in these distant and more recent versions of herself, she realizes her challenge is to embrace the good and reject the hazards that have trapped past generations.
"Starred Review. Even the less familiar relatives' stories make for fascinating reading in this intimate and well-written family history." - Publishers Weekly
"The first half of the book portrays strong, if flawed, women, while the ending is more autobiographical and, while well-written, more cathartic than interesting. Readers interested in 19th- and early-20th-century society, especially that of the upper classes, will enjoy this picture of the privileged life, 'where loyalty, respect and equality are all held in the highest regard.'" - Kirkus
"Juliet Nicolson's book will engage the hearts and minds of daughters and sons everywhere. She has turned my attention to much in my life, and I am full of admiration for her clarity and gentleness." - Vanessa Redgrave
"This book is a marvellous illustration of the often forgotten fact that people in history were real, with real ambition, real passion and real rage. All these women took life by the throat and shook it. It's a wonderful read, and a powerful reminder of the significance of our matrilineal descent." - Julian Fellowes
"A mesmerising story of daughterhood in which the personal is mixed with the historical to extraordinary effect: at times very moving, at other times darkly humourous, it has a cast of characters ranging from Spanish dancers, via English aristocrats, to the famous names of Bloomsbury. You wont be able to stop reading it." - Lady Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette
"A wonderful book. Beautifully structured and written with such honesty that it took my breath away. I loved this new view of an extraordinary family." - Miranda Seymour, author of The Bugatti Queen
This information about A House Full of Daughters was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Juliet Nicolson is the author of two works of history, The Great Silence: 1918–1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War and The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911, and a novel, Abdication. As the grand-daughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the daughter of Nigel Nicolson she is part of a renowned and much scrutinized family and the latest in the family line of record-keepers of the past. She lives with her husband in East Sussex, not far from Sissinghurst, where she spent her childhood. She has two daughters, Clemmie and Flora, and one grand-daughter, Imogen.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
