Martini Henry

Sara Crowe is best known as an actress. She has appeared on television, stage and film, including the iconic Four Weddings and a Funeral. She has won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Variety Club Best Actress Award and the London Critics Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Sara's West End appearances include Private Lives, Calendar Girls and Hay Fever. She has also toured with Acorn Antiques: the Musical, and appeared in The City Madam for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Martini Henry is Sara's second novel, the follow-up to Campari for Breakfast, which was inspired by a crumbling old house and a love of English eccentricity. She began writing as a child and has also written comedy sketches for television and stand-up. But in the tradition of late developers' she recently re-opened the notebooks of yesteryear and some of the characters climbed out.

Life isn't an exact science. Things can be troublesome. Like pregnant step-mothers, the ins-and-outs of French existentialism . . . having an unexceptional name.

In 1988, seventeen-year-old Sue Bowl has a diary, big dreams and £4.73. What she wants most of all is to make it as a writer, as well as stop her decadent aunt Coral spending money she doesn't have.

Living in their crumbling ancestral home should provide plenty of inspiration, but between falling in love, hunting for missing heirlooms and internship applications, things keep getting in the way.

So when a young literary professor moves in and catches Sue's eye, life begins to take an unexpected turn . . .

From the author of Campari for Breakfast, a witty and enchanting novel about what happens after you think you've grown up and fallen in love, perfect for fans of I Capture the Castle, Love, Nina and Where'd You Go Bernadette.