X-Book

Albion

Click Buy to Log in and see personalised pricing.

Send as a gift Get in the xigxag app
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

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

Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma - without telling the reader what to think ... I closed Albion with a delicious sense of uncertainty
Sunday Times
At once a sumptuous family drama and state-of-the-nation novel, it's a triumphant read
The i, best books out in May
Albion is exquisitely put together, with a tight structure and richly drawn characters
Literary Review
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
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
Her finest to date...With shades of Brideshead, as well as Elizabeth Jane Howard’s memorable Cazalet Chronicles, Albion is a welcome addition to the body of literature centred around inherited wealth, ancestral homes, and difficult family dynamics
John Boyne, Irish Times
If you like dysfunctional families and grand English country houses - who doesn’t, frankly? people in idyllic settings having unenviable times is so compelling - then this is for you
India Knight, HOME substack
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
Author Anna Hope
Narrator Anna Hope
Duration 12 hours and 33 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781405980401
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
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
Availability AU, GB, IE

More from the same

Author

Narrator

About xigxag

xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK’s only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.

There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at £8.99. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from £3.99. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.

Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.

Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.