Deborah Moggach talks to Georgina Godwin

The author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever previews a deliciously funny, poignant and wry new novel, full of surprising twists and turns, to be published this summer. James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips, and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss. Is this really their father, the distant figure who never once turned up for a sports day, now happily chortling over cuckoo clocks and television soaps?