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Albion

Author Anna Hope
Narrator Anna Hope
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 12 hours and 33 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Environmental issues, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Sense of place.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF EXPECTATION

The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home – twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone – to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.

Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing, setting them on a collision course with each other.

Isa has long suspected that her father thought only of himself, and hopes to seek out her childhood love, who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage.

And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they’ve built their lives.

'Superb … Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama' Jonathan Coe

‘Beautiful . . . As provocative as it is tender’ Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace

‘The English country house novel reimagined for our times ... Exceptionally well-drawn’ Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

‘A book that asks important questions about legacy – familial, historical and global – and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose’ Elizabeth Day

‘Hauntingly beautiful . . . This is a novel I will return to again and again’ Louisa Adjoa Parker

‘Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become’ Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing

© Anna Hope 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

A superb novel deftly woven around themes of class, national identity and environmental collapse. In Albion Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama

Jonathan Coe, author of Middle England

Anna Hope’s beautiful new novel Albion explores the complexities of family, trauma, nature, human nature, landscape and escape in language that is as provocative as it is tender

Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace

The English country house novel re-imagined for our times: an exceptionally well-drawn portrait of a battling family, which also astutely wrestles with the issues around rewilding, inheritance, and colonialism

Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

A book that asks important questions about legacy – familial, historical and global – and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose

Elizabeth Day

This book, its fascinating characters, steady paced plot and haunting prose will stay with you long after reading

Cosmopolitan, 'The 25 books we can't wait to read in 2025'

Anna Hope plunges us straight into the claustrophobic world of a family turned inside out by the death of the deeply flawed patriarch, and propels us towards a devastating conclusion. Compelling

Kirsty Wark

A compassionate, immersive novel that intelligently navigates historical pride and guilt, and the echo of history that resonates powerfully through the lives of Anna Hope’s compelling contemporary characters. Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become

Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing

It was around halfway through the first paragraph of Albion that I knew I had fallen in love with this book … Anna Hope writes hauntingly beautiful poetic prose, and draws you deep into the heart of this family, their pain, joy, and love of the land they inhabit … The book explores important, topical themes of today – nature, land and land ownership, climate change, class, and a contemporary reframing of colonial history – in a rich, layered, yet accessible way. I was inspired in particular by the way Anna Hope writes about human relationships with the natural world – as observer, actor, perpetrator, saviour, friend and foe … This is a novel I will return to again and again

Louisa Adjoa Parker

There are shades of both Succession and Saltburn at play here, with Albion promising more of the emotional acuity that Anna Hope wielded so well in 2019’s Expectation

Independent – The best books to look out for in 2025

One of our most gifted contemporary writers

Waterstones, praise for Expectation

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