For Kitty, growing up at Hay House amongst bluebell woods and doting relations is heaven. But for her mother, the restless Marina,  a silver-eyed beauty who paints and weeps with alacrity, this comfortable domesticity cannot provide the novelty and excitement she craves.
Swami-ji, Marina's guru, sees her future in New York, and so the family is scooped up and relocated, leaving Kitty exiled in a colourless boarding school. Reprieve comes in the form of the Guru's summons to the ashram; but then, just as Kitty is approaching enlightenment, they are off again, leaving for an England that is now fast and unfamiliar. This time no god, man or Martini can staunch Marina's hunger for a happiness that proves all too elusive. And Kitty, turning fifteen, must choose: whether to play dangerous games with the grown-ups or begin to put herself first. Witty, lyrical and heartbreaking, Playing with the Grown-ups is a modern coming-of-age story that confirms the arrival of a unique new talent.