The Bolter

Starred review from April 27, 2009
Osborne's lively narrative brings Lady Idina Sackville (an inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character the Bolter) boldly to life, with a black lapdog named Satan at her side and a cigarette in her hand. Osborne (Lilla's Feast
) portrays a desperately lonely woman who shocked Edwardian high society with relentless affairs and drug-fueled orgies. Idina's story unfolds in an intimate tone thanks to the author, her great-granddaughter, who only accidentally discovered the kinship in her youth with the media serialization of James Fox's White Mischief
. Osborne makes generous use of sources and private family photos to add immediacy and depth to the portrait of a woman most often remembered as an amoral five-time divorcée: the author shows her hidden kindnesses at her carefully preserved Kenyan cattle ranch—a refuge from the later destructive Kenyan massacres. Still, Osborne unflinchingly exposes Idina's flaws—along with those of everyone else in the politely adulterous high society—while ably couching them in the context of the tumultuous times in which Idina resolved to find happiness in all the wrong places. The text, most lyrical when describing the landscapes around Idina's African residences, proves that an adventurous spirit continues to run in this fascinating family. 66 photos,

May 1, 2009
Sordid tales of aspiration and debauchery among the minor aristocracy of Britain.

Osborne (Lilla's Feast: A Story of Food, Love, and War in the Orient, 2004) doesn't mean to malign her great-grandmother, the perpetrator of much bad behavior and the protagonist of this book. Indeed, by her account Idina Sackville earns points for not being a"husband stealer" and for being what one friend called"preposterously—and secretly—kind." Yet Idina, daughter of the philandering Earl De La Warr, took up with odd company early on. Her parents were unintended role models. Idina's mother, writes Osborne, married the earl to gain a title, and the earl, known as"Naughty Gilbert," married Idina's mother for her money. Eventually, Idina married rich, too—one of the richest men in Britain, in fact,"rich enough for his social ambitions to withstand marrying a girl from a scandalous family." She spent months designing a Xanadu featuring a"rabbit warren of dozens of nursery bedrooms and servants' rooms," but, alas, never got to see the pleasure dome completed, since the marriage turned out to be loveless and lost. Idina moved on, as she would four more times, ending up in British East Africa, where she made a hearty game of spouse-swapping and wound up figuring in stories that, among other things, would yield the aptly titled 1987 film White Mischief, as well as Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love (1945) and other period books—to say nothing of plenty of tabloid tales. Osborne, who writes pleasantly and carefully, hints that Idina was a pioneering feminist, but this portrait makes her appear to be self-absorbed and sad, living out a boozy, wandering and generally feckless life.

Of interest to royal-watchers and certain strains of anglophiles, perhaps, but a sansculotte may wonder what the point is.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 15, 2009
Lady Idina Sackville must be among the last of the titled and scandalous Brits of the post-World War I era whose lives have not yet been recorded in biography. Osborne, her great-granddaughter, has filled that small gap with this gossipy story, which takes its name from a sad minor character that novelist Nancy Mitford is said to have modeled on Idina in "The Pursuit of Love". The Mitford connection is pretty much it for a claim to fame. In 1919 Idina deserted a fabulously wealthy husband and two toddlers to marry a lover and buy a farm in her beloved Kenya, where she turned up again (and usually built another house) with each of her subsequent three husbands. Osborne recounts with gusto the byzantine sexploits of Idina, her husbands, and their many houseguests. She claims that Idina also served as the model for the vamp heroine of Michael Arlen's sensational 1920s best seller "The Green Hat". VERDICT This is not a work of great depth; typical of the haphazard construction of the book, Osborne forgets to tell us if either Mitford or Arlen actually knew Idina. Still, those who enjoy stories (fiction or nonfiction) of the past's oversexed and idle rich (and there are lots of these readers) will love this book.Stewart Desmond, New York City

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2009
The story of Idina Sackvilles life reads like an elaborately embroidered work of fiction. What makes this biography so compulsively readable, however, is the fact that it is all shockingly true. Osborne has painstakingly reconstructed the scandalous adventures of her great-grandmother, taking the reader along for the wild ride. As an Edwardian belle, one of the brightest of the Lost Generations Bright Young Things, and a British expatriate living in the thick of colonial Kenyas notorious Happy Valley Set, Idina continually defied conventional expectations, marrying and divorcing five times, often leaving husbands, lovers, and children in her wake. Though there isnt much to admire about Sackvilles serial infidelity and careless choices, this niche biography is enhanced by the novelistic scope and passion of a life lived against a cinematic-style backdrop.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)