Desperate Housewives meets Six Feet Under in this brilliantly moving and darkly comic novel, which charts the attempts of dying heroine Delia - a modern day Mrs Beeton - to prepare her family for the future and lay to rest a ghost from her past.
Delia Bennet has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides, with advice on everything from laundry to lovers.
The one thing she hasn't ever given advice on is her own situation: barely forty but dying.
To prepare her family, she tries everything from writing lists to teaching her daughters to make the perfect cup of tea. What she really needs is a household guide: the kind she is expert at writing. She sets to work.
But the writing forces Delia to confront painful ghosts from her past. there is a journey she needs to make, and one last vital thing she must do...
Delia Bennet has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides, with advice on everything from laundry to lovers.
The one thing she hasn't ever given advice on is her own situation: barely forty but dying.
To prepare her family, she tries everything from writing lists to teaching her daughters to make the perfect cup of tea. What she really needs is a household guide: the kind she is expert at writing. She sets to work.
But the writing forces Delia to confront painful ghosts from her past. there is a journey she needs to make, and one last vital thing she must do...
'Darkly comic novel with a tone that is Desperate Housewives meets Six Feet Under...this is caustic and hilarious, as well as heart-warming. A clever read that stays with you for a long time' Red
'Adelaide's moving novel captures both the hope and sadness of Delia's plight' Daily Mail
'A novel about loving and grieving...filled with humour, warmth and sadness - just like life' Good Reading
'I found this novel entrancing. The Household guide to Dying is a joyous, irreverent romp of a book that resonates deep inside long after you finish. Delia's magical, crystalline voice made me fervently wish that she was real and that I knew her.' PATRICIA WOOD, Lottery
'Adelaide's moving novel captures both the hope and sadness of Delia's plight' Daily Mail
'A novel about loving and grieving...filled with humour, warmth and sadness - just like life' Good Reading
'I found this novel entrancing. The Household guide to Dying is a joyous, irreverent romp of a book that resonates deep inside long after you finish. Delia's magical, crystalline voice made me fervently wish that she was real and that I knew her.' PATRICIA WOOD, Lottery