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California Gold

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Frank and Chrissy meet a few days into ’70. Frank has been travelling around California for a while with friends, when someone tells him about a house in the desert two hours east of LA where the walls are steel and the glass shimmers. Frank tells himself: I have to see this house. When Chrissy picks him up on the side of the road, all blond hair and oversized sunglasses, it’s love at first sight.

Years later, as their shared dream of recreating a mid-century masterpiece of a home in Britain threatens to overwhelm them, Frank will often think about how this was where it started. What if he had carried on walking, kicking at the dust? What if she had driven to Palm Springs the next day or even the next hour? Every moment of tomorrow would have completely changed.

So begins California Gold, a portrait of a marriage, a family and the thin line between a dream and an obsession.

'Stylish, vibrant, romantic – and written in beautiful prose - the characters' various realisations that the only thing any of us have is the moment we are living in will stay with me for a very long time' KATE SAWYER

'Both a wide-screen romance and a dream that turns into obsession. An epic portrait of a complicated family, ambitious and compelling' JULIE OWEN MOYLAN

'A sweeping, sumptuously told tale that will entirely transport you. Compelling, evocative and cinematic…an utter joy' YOMI ADEGOKE

© Jodie Chapman 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

Stylish, vibrant, romantic and beautifully written, the characters' various realisations that the only thing any of us have is the moment we are living in will stay with me for a very long time
KATE SAWYER
Both a wide-screen romance and a dream that turns into obsession. An epic portrait of a complicated family, ambitious and compelling
JULIE OWEN MOYLAN
Exquisite, evocative and cinematic
YOMI ADEGOKE
If you love Taylor Jenkins Reid you will adore this. The scope of California Gold is breathtaking - English snobbery, the American dream and a dance through the second half of the twentieth century with a jukebox soundtrack. Extraordinary
RACHAEL WOLF
Exceptional. Britain's response to Ann Pachett
Lidija Hilje
So good, so sharp. A movie-scene beginning and a shattering of love’s young dream
RUTH CRILLY
Gorgeous and heartfelt. California Gold shows how both love and tragedy can echo through generations
KATIE BISHOP

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