Press Reviews

• Amanda Foreman

  Passionate and headstrong, Lady Idina was determined to be free even if the cost was scandal and ruin. Frances Osborne has brilliantly captured not only one woman's life but an entire lost society

• Julian Fellowes

  Rich, title, witty, beguiling, Lady Idina Sackville had all the gifts, except, perhaps, judgement. Frances Osborne has written an enthralling account of a dazzling, troubled, life

• Robert McCrum

  Observer

  Truly interesting. Osborne paints an enthralling portrait of upper-class English life just before, during and immediately after the Great War. Frivolous, rich, sexy, [and] achingly fashionable

• Marianne Brace

  Independent

  Osborne is an imaginative scene painter... Idina wasn't admirable, but Osborne makes us sympathise with her

• Alexandra Fuller

  Financial Times

  An engaging book and a definitive final look back at those naughty people who, between the wars, took their bad behaviour off to Kenya and whose upper-class delinquency became gilded with unjustified glamour

• Daily Express

  Osborne is a graceful writer, excellent at evoking the atmosphere of London during the First World War and Happy Valley in the Twenties. Her judgement is pitch-perfect, never letting Idina off the hook but at the same time sympathetic towards her, and she skilfully captures the myriad twists and turns of a turbulent life

• Good Housekeeping

  The Bolter is a biographical treat

• Easy Living

  A bewitching character brilliantly painted

• Waterstone's Books Quarterly

  A superb portrait of an astonishing woman and her times

• Selina Hastings

  Sunday Telegraph

  Frances Osborne has produced a racy romp underpinned by some impressive research. She understands the period and the world she describes

• Antony Beevor

  A tragic and deeply moving tale... far more gripping than any novel I have read for years

• Allison Pearson

  Daily Mail

  A wonderfully engaging book which combines the tingling immediacy of the best kind of history with the stay-up-till-3am-to-finish-it urgency of a bestseller

• Valerie Grove

  The Times

  A corker of a subject. Idina's behaviour... probably inspired The Bolter in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. Osborne's richly wrought descriptions of glittering Paris nights and lush mountainous landscapes of Kenya's Happy Valley are fabulous... A breakneck-paced, thoroughly diverting story

• Marie Claire

  Osborne unearthed the moving truth behind the headlines. It's a melancholy, vivid portrait of a lost lady and her troubled world

• Scotland on Sunday

  Osborne has had, as you would expect a family member, unprecedented access to Sackville's diaries - and those of most of her husbands

• Michiko Kakutani

  New York Times

  A vivid portrait of her scandalous ancestor and her relationships with family members, while conjuring a vanished world with novelistic detail and flair

• Wall Street Journal

  Osborne has written an engaging book, drawing a revealing portrait of a remarkable woman and adding humanity to her 'scandalous' life... And what a life it was

• Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Fascinating... beautifully written... Frances Osborne brings the decadence of Britain's dying aristocracy vividly to life in this story of scandal and heartbreak

• New York Times Book Review

  A rumbustious and harrowing biography that takes us from London to Newport to Kenya... A feast for the Anglophile

• Entertainment Weekly

  [Idina Sackville's] life story, speckled with the names of the rich and famous, is a miniature history lesson, bringing into sharp focus both world wars, the Jazz Age, and the colonization of Kenya. . . . Sackville's passion lights up the page

• Publishers Weekly, starred review

  Osborne's lively narrative brings Lady Idina Sackville boldly to life. . . the text, most lyrical when describing the landscapes around Idina's African residences, proves than an adventurous spirit continues to run in this fascinating family

• Plain Dealer

  If notorious relatives make for the best dinner-party anecdotes, then Frances Osborne should be able to dine out for decades.... Enthralling

• Alice O’Keeffe, Amazon

  The Bolter is the real Idina's story told by her great-grand-daughter Frances Osborne. It whirls the reader through the London social scene during the First World War and the decadence of Kenya's Happy Valley via Idina's five marriages and innumerable love affairs. I loved it.

• Amanda Foreman

  Passionate and headstrong, Lady Idina was determined to be free even if the cost was scandal and ruin. Frances Osborne has brilliantly captured not only one woman's life but an entire lost society.

• Julian Fellowes

  Rich, title, witty, beguiling, Lady Idina Sackville had all the gifts, except, perhaps, judgement. Frances Osborne has written an enthralling account of a dazzling, troubled, life.

• THE BOOKSELLER

  ** 'On the literary pages, the wife of current shadow chancellor George Osborne, Frances, stepped into the limelight, as her new book, The Bolter, attracted the most reviews