United Kingdom reviews
About The Usual Desire to Kill, published 10th April 2025 in United Kingdom
The Telegraph, Lucy Denyer
“Anyone whose parents are ageing or stuck in their ways will identify with Camilla Barnes’s hilarious debut … The characters in this novel made me smile, and laugh, and grit my teeth in recognition.”
The iPaper
In the iPaper, Camilla Barnes talks humorously about the differences between England, her native country, and France, where she has lived for 30 years.
The Daily Mail, Anthony Cummins
“The author's background as a playwright shines through in some tip-top dialogue as the creeping indignities of age - deafness, falling memory - fuel constant conjugal bickering.
(…) It's almost two novels in one: come for the petty grievances of marital and fillal strife; stay for the sadness slowly unspooling between the lines.
A gentle tale with a profoundly melancholy sting.”
The Telegraph, interview by Jessamy Calkin
“The Usual Desire to Kill is a wonderful novel. It reminds me of Nancy Mitford, and has an air of nostalgia, even though it’s set in vaguely contemporary times. You find your sympathies switching between the characters, and as the parents’ backstory is revealed, it becomes extremely moving.
It also has an intriguing hybrid structure – Miranda’s narrative is interspersed with vignettes of dialogue set out like scenes from a play, as well as emails between Miranda and Charlotte, and letters from their mother to an unexplained sister called Kitty. The dialogue is superb.”
AUDIBLE Editors Select, Emily C.
For anyone who's ever been on either side of an “OK, boomer” eye roll
“Camilla Barnes's debut novel of a family riddled with generation gaps seems almost like a cosy comedy of errors, but as you move through the story, you realise Barnes is challenging the conventions of the family drama.”
BookBrunch, Nicholas Clee
“I found myself wanting to read aloud from this very funny and ultimately moving story of two elderly, infuriating expats, their put-upon daughters, and their granddaughter. The art is apparent not only in Camilla Barnes’ prose, so exact and witty, but also in the structure of her novel, which moves backwards and forwards in time in straight narrative, letters, and script-like dialogue.”
Grazia UK
“A wittily observed portrayal of a 40-year marriage through the eyes of an astute, affectionate and exasperated daughter… Hilarious.”
Harper’s Bazaar, 20 absorbing fiction books to pick up in 2025: The best new novels and short-story collections to read this year
“The dialogue of this stirring debut sings, unsurprising given it is the first novel from Barnes, who is a seasoned playwright. Detailing the absurd, shocking and mysterious nuances of one eccentric family, it is a gloriously fun and absorbing read.”
Lit Hub, most anticipated books of 2025
A daughter visiting her oddball parents reports, at the end of her visits, "the usual desire to kill" and, well, I can relate. This sounds hilarious and delightful, particularly for all of us who find that we love our parents even as we also want to send them on a rocket ship into space forever. Especially if your parents, like Miranda's, have llamas.