Miranda’s parents live in a large rapidly deteriorating house in France having moved there from there from England. Alongside their furniture they also moved their Freezer and its contents which plays quite a role within this family as they eat food that has lasted many, many years.
The story is mostly told from their daughter Miranda's perspective as she relates her regular visits to her sister and her daughter.
The constant bickering and sniping is well conveyed. Letters from her mother to a friend Kitty written years previously fill us in on family issues
It is very funny in places and also quite sad at times. It does lack a bit of a plot.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

As soon as I started this book I knew I would enjoy it. I felt quite immersed in their world almost as if I was in the farmhouse with them. I recognised a number of the foibles of the older couple and they were entertainingly described.

We know who Miranda and Charlotte are and find out about them and the family through their emails. Then we start to get letters to Kitty and at first I wondered who Kitty was and who was writing to her but all becomes clear..

The book is very funny to start with, with a number of laugh aloud moments as we observe the family and read Miranda's wry commentary but then, as the letters to Kitty unfold, the book takes a melancholy turn as we learn about the writer of the Kitty letters and see her change from a carefree young girl, glad to escape home and relishing her freedom at Oxford. No spoilers but really such a shame.

Miranda's mother in old age seems to be a difficult, stubborn and irritating woman. She is irritated by others and in turn makes herself irritating to them. She annoys her daughters by extoling the virtues of James but as we learn her story and find out about James, we understand her better and my sympathy which was previously with Peter shifts away from him towards his wife. Peter was a self absorbed and angry husband and a scary father who seems to have mellowed in old age and is now striving for stoic contentment. I would say the book is more about stoic acceptance than contentment. You made your bed so you must lie in it.

All the characters are interesting and realistic but I would have liked to have heard more about Bea..

By the end of the book I was in tears. Unfulfilled potential; loss; secrets; lack of love, communication and support all combining to make an uneasy life where irritation and bickering have become the norm. So many years of misunderstanding and now a union just of habit, still scoring points after all these years.

Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France with their menagerie of llamas, cats, ducks and chickens, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1983. Whenever she visits, Miranda finds herself playing translator between her mother and father, and venting her own frustrations to her sister and daughter during and after each visit.

The story is told mostly from Miranda’s perspective, but also interspersed with emails between Miranda, Charlotte (her sister) and Alice (her daughter), along with letters from years before, between her mother and someone called Kitty. Family secrets are revealed through the letters, and the dynamics between different family members become clearer as things progress.

It’s comedic, with a very real feel to it, but ultimately I did find it a bit dull – there isn’t much in the way of an actual plot. I could easily imagine this being adapted as a play for a small ensemble cast, and I think it would probably be more entertaining that way than as a book.

Family drama in the comedy, one for those from 'quirky' parents.

That's me. I could relate. I won't go into detail but I very much understood Miranda and Charlotte's frustrations and amusements regarding their parents' bickering, nagging, one-upmanships and eccentricities.

A fascinating structure which made sense learning that the author is a playwright, as we have playscript, emails, the distant past, the current goings on - all of one family now (mostly) living in France. Miranda's parents (and their defrosted freezer) have followed their second child over to France as she finds acting jobs overseas. Eldest daughter Charlotte lives back in the UK and the sisters keep in touch about their ageing and maddening parents, their tempestuous relationship and the duties of daughters trying to make sure their progenitors live healthily and don't kill each other.

Their father is a retired philosophy professor, and their mother never finished her degree (blaming the early birth of Charlotte), their house is falling to pieces around them, but at least they've got a lot of llamas in the kitchen, eh?

The banter, the back-and-forths, the pointless and inane arguments... oh I felt right at home here! Clearly the work of someone with an intimate knowledge of such characters, it was warm and funny, seeing someone else going through the annoyances I felt were possibly mine alone.

Seeing the parents as young people on the cusp of independent adulthood then constrained due to circumstances harkened back to a time we thankfully have mostly shrugged off, seeing the elderly duo in their prime was also moving looking at them half a century on.

I had to shake my head, reading about Miranda's mum comparing her and her sister to imaginary son James, how perfect he was compared to them, how faultless. "He always made the right choices in life - that is to say, the ones that Mum suggested." Oh how brilliant. Of course, Barnes doesn't make the characters as simple as that, but seeing some of the story from only Miranda's point of view gives the reader the knowledge they need to understand her parents better than she does herself.

This was an absolute pleasure to read, I could easily picture each of them in my mind's eye as I read, and recognised familial topics and utterances at times.

A different sort of read and a wonderful portrait of a family.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

I enjoyed the beginning of this book and getting to know the main characters. A lot of the story is told from the observations of Miranda as she watches her eccentric parents bicker their way through the day. However, in the end I felt frustrated and saddened by their relationship, which was perhaos indicative of a good writing style but also quite tedious.
Thank you to netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

Hmm... not really sure what to say about this book.

It trotted along quite well, with an interesting cast of characters, but nothing really happened and then it just ended, rather abruptly.

Camilla Barnes delivers a wry, sharply observed debut about family dysfunction, sibling rivalry, and the frustrations of ageing parents.

Miranda’s visits to her parents’ chaotic rural French home—complete with llamas, ducks, and endless bickering—leave her reporting “the usual desire to kill.” Her father, an unyielding retired philosophy professor, and her mother, forever revisiting the war she never lived through, are set in their ways after fifty years of marriage. As Miranda translates their grievances, she vents to her sister, Charlotte, and navigates long-buried family tensions.

Told through sharp dialogue, emails, and diary entries from the 1960s, this darkly humorous yet melancholic novel captures the absurdities of familial relationships. With its theatrical flair and poignant insights, The Usual Desire to Kill is both painfully relatable and deeply affecting.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

The novel tells the story of a British family living in rural France with two increasing elderly parents whose eccentric behaviour the two adult daughters find increasingly difficult.

I found the novel very witty it clatters along at a fast pace . There are some very amusing anecdotes which are told so beautifully that there is a sort of tenderness to this novel which shines through very strongly.
I recognised some of my own dealings with the older generation I spent a lot of the time reading this book hoping that my husband and I were not degenerating into this elderly couple
I really empathised in particular with the family habit of not telling other members full story in particular when it comes to medical problems
The author has the skill to precisely define the little pieces of a person’s character that defines them. The book is full of love and hope and normality.
Whereas the book could’ve been sent anywhere the setting in rural France and then isolation to the elder people’s lifestyle which is intriguing. How much more difficult it must be to have your parents living somewhere so isolated.


The author has a beautifully flowing easily read prose style and I very much enjoyed immersing myself in this novel.
I love the title which refers to the way Long married couples. I assume often feel about their other half you love them but couldn’t you just kill them sometimes?
I would recommend this novel to the lovers of a character based story if you for example enjoyed a man called Ove I buy Frederick Bachman or recently Frank and Read by Matt Coyne then I think you enjoy this novel.
I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for a unbiased review. The book is published in the UK on the 2nd of April 2025 by Simon and Shasta UK.

This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and my book blog by bionicSarahsbooks.wordpress.com.
After publication, it will also appear on Amazon UK.

An engrossing book charting the three generations of a family. It is elegantly and wittily written, with a particular focus on the elderly grandparents and their peculiar and strained relationship.

The story is mostly recounted through the eyes of the daughter who relays the anecdotes of her visits to her sister and daughter through emails.

Family life is full of rituals and repeated games, and this family is no different. Through the narration of the various characters you get to understand why they came about.

This skilfully crafted book was hilarious, intriguing and frustrating, sometimes simultaneously! The tale of a long marriage, seen through the eyes of their adult daughters, ultimately left me feeling depressed by all their relationships. I found both parents to be annoying and pedantic, which is ok at first but not great for a whole book. There are some very moving parts, and these are heartbreaking and very tenderly written.

A unique yet weirdly relatable family saga. Very funny at times, and very engaging. I really liked this!!!

The Usual Desire to Kill is a funny, honest, and engaging look into the lives of an elderly married couple in France as seen through the eyes of their daughter. This humorous depiction of marriage, childhood, love, and codependency captures the complicated nature of a slice of life.

Interesting characters of three generations from the same family, and curious dialogue.
The use of letters, snappy dialogue like messages and different formatting from regular paragraphs were interesting - not always my favourites, however I enjoyed the dialogue and the arguments between the characters.

The title of this book leaves one unsure what to expect and what you get is a funny and moving look at family relationships and how we make decisions that affect our lives. Miranda's retired eccentric parents are living in rural France, having moved from Oxford with everything they own, including an old freezer of food dating from the 80s. They share their dilapidated home with cats, chickens, ducks and llamas and have very particular routines, especially related to the animals and scary mystery food from the freezer. Miranda lives in Paris and visits her constantly criticising mother and distant father regularly to make sure they are coping. She emails her sister, Charlotte, in England about the trips and how the frustrating stays leave her with "the usual desire to kill". This is not a plot-driven tale, it's about the day-to-day life of an ageing couple and their daughter coming to terms with the reversal of roles as she begins to become more parent than child to two wilful adults. It's an observant and darkly witty debut.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Family saga at its very best told with a tenderness that matches the dark humour in equal parts. I think this a book a lot people will identify with, it's true ans engaging. Really enjoyed it

The Usual Desire to Kill is a curious read - a mixture of melancholy and aging and comedic conversations that seem abstract to the outsider but make sense within families.

This is the story of Miranda and Charlotte whose parents who having left the world of academia in Oxford and moved to rural France and live in a semi chaotic state with llamas and a continual world of bickering

This is a family that is as dysfunctional as many and the communications between them - emails between the sisters and diary/ letters their mother wrote in the 1960s as she attempted to enter the male bastion land of Oxford weave within the book

The relationship between the parents is constant disagreement - hence the title.

Camilla Barnes experience as a playwright and actress is evident as this novel could easily translate to the stage . It is one of those books that not much happens but is full of life ( albeit filled with a sense of loss and despair and familiar conversations many siblings may hear their parents having and subsequently the discussions afterwards)

Hard to classify - dark humoured and leaves a sense of sadness as we all age and will recognise something in some of the characters.

The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes is a brilliant mix of both funny and sad. Hugely relatable. Endearingly flawed characters with real depth and an insightful understanding of the ways in which family dynamics play out.