High Time
A novel
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A PEOPLE BEST NEW BOOK • An outlandish comedy of morals and manners about a highborn British family of outrageous characters, by the acclaimed author of The Improbability of Love and House of Trelawney • “A joy to read.”—Vogue
“High Time delves once again into the aristocratic antics of the Trelawney family… Another thrilling portrait of the perils of great privilege.” —Town & Country
Eight years have passed and in 2016 many things have changed for the eccentric Trelawney family.
In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, Ayesha, the beautiful, young secret daughter of the late Enyon Trelawney, has married the much older thuggish banker Tomlinson Sleet with whom she has a young daughter, Stella. Ayesha is busy restoring the once broken-down Trelawney Castle in Cornwall, which Sleet has bought, to its former glory, as well as studying art at the Courtauld in London. The elderly Countess Clarissa—still ensconced on the property—the host of a camp television show, is about to head into a disastrous marriage. Lady Jane has separated from the hopeless Trelawney heir Kitto, who is crazier than ever, and found an enlightened woman to keep her company abroad. Sleet is becoming increasingly difficult, distracted by the seductive and ruthless bitcoin goddess Zamora, but Kitto’s sister Blaze and her husband, Joshua, will support Ayesha’s clever plan as she discovers shocking secrets, takes action, and brings the family together.
Biting and satirical, but also poignant and moving, High Time is a delicious story of madness, mayhem, and mischief run amok.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this convulsively comic sequel to Rothschild's House of Trelawney, eight years have passed since Ayesha, the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Trelawney, married older financier Sir Thomlinson Sleet, who bought her the Trelawneys' decrepit castle. Now, in her husband's frequent absence, Ayesha takes care of their daughter, Stella, and works to restore the property to its former glory. When Ayesha discovers Sleet plans to divorce her and sell the castle for millions of pounds that, according to her lawyer, she will never see, she embarks on an ingenious plan to buy the castle out from under Sleet. But how can she succeed when she only has £27,000 in the bank? Her complex scheme goes on to affect not only the other eccentric members of the extended Trelawney clan, but also a glamorous bitcoin billionaire married to an Albanian mobster and Sleet's plan to run for MP on a nativist platform. The author makes Ayesha a virtuous heroine and Sleet a villain well worth hissing. With scenes that are over-the-top hilarious and a sharply satiric view of late-stage capitalism, this plays like a savvy cross between Brideshead Revisited and Succession as written by the Monty Python troupe.
