'Outrageously Jilly Cooperesque' Sunday Times Style
*
Take a grand English country house, one (heartbroken) American divorcée, three rich wives, two tycoons, and one (bereaved) butler; put them all into the blender and out comes the impossibly funny Wives Like Us.
Welcome to the rose-strewn county of Oxfordshire and the Cotswold villages of Little Bottom, Middle Bottom, Great Bottom, and Monkton Bottom, recently annexed by a glittering new breed of female: the Country Princess.
Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to the Old Coach House to teach her husband, Bryan, a lesson.
But things don’t go to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door, refuses Tata’s neighborly overtures; and Tata’s very best friends, Fernanda Ovington-Williams and Sophie Thompson, are distracted by their own heartaches. Worst of all, Ian has nowhere to store his collection of vintage Gucci loafers.
With the help of a pig farmeress moonlighting as a personal assistant, a male model moonlighting as a stable hand, and a London barrister moonlighting as a gentleman farmer, can Ian restore harmony to the Bottoms?
‘So wickedly smart, so effortless, so chic and hilarious. Plum Sykes is in a class of her own when it comes to peeling back the layers of status paranoia amongst the poshest of the posh as she delivers a delectable tale that you never want to end.’ Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians
'The brilliantly satirical new novel that’s got the Cotswolds smart set buzzing with speculation…it may finally be time for Jilly [Cooper] to make way for a new chronicler of Cotswolds life'Daily Mail
‘A fabulous and funny bucolic romp – Plum Sykes does it again.’ Hannah Rothschild, author of The Improbability of Love
'Wives Like Us may be set in the most gorgeous English manor house, but I’d happily sleep in the shed if it meant I could tag along with these marvelous characters – Tata, Minty, and their chic and crafty butler.’ Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street
'Delightful' Vogue
‘I absolutely adored Wives Like Us, I thought it was so fun and funny, a romp and a riot - and a glorious dollop of much needed escapism.' Daisy Buchanan
‘A stiletto-sharp look at the glamorous end of the Cotswolds. I loved it!’ Katie Fforde
'Wickedly funny' Citizen Femme
'A comedy of manners with an emphasis on the comedy’Town & Country
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Readers are loving Wives Like Us:
‘I devoured this in one day’ *****
‘Gloriously good fun’ *****
‘Absolutely delightful’ *****
‘A perfect summer read’ *****
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781408888575
Number of pages: 368
Dimensions: 234 x 153 x 30 mm
Outrageously Jilly Cooperesque - Sunday Times Style
The brilliantly satirical new novel that’s got the Cotswolds smart set buzzing with speculation …it may finally be time for Jilly [Cooper] to make way for a new chronicler of Cotswolds life. - Daily Mail
A forensically well-observed narrative ... will it do for the Cotswolds what F Scott Fitzgerald did for the Hamptons ... a shiny satirette of country living where everyone is unmuddied but filthy rich. - The Times
A stiletto-sharp look at the glamorous end of the Cotswolds. I loved it! - Katie Fforde
A fabulous and funny bucolic romp – Plum Sykes does it again. - Hannah Rothschild, author of The Improbability of Love
Wives Like Us made me laugh so hard I actually knocked over my lamp. Can a book be so wickedly smart, so effortless, so chic and hilarious that you would stumble through the night to find a new lightbulb just so you can keep reading way past your bedtime? In a word, yes. Plum Sykes is in a class of her own when it comes to peeling back the layers of status paranoia amongst the poshest of the posh as she delivers a delectable tale that you never want to end. I would risk all the lamps in my house to read stand-alone novels about every single character in this book! - Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians
Wives Like Us may be set in the most gorgeous English manor house, but I’d happily sleep in the shed if it meant I could tag along with these marvellous characters – Tata, Minty, and their chic and crafty butler. - Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street
Delightful - Vogue
I absolutely adored Wives Like Us, I thought it was so fun and funny, a romp and a riot - and a glorious dollop of much needed escapism. - Daisy Buchanan
A riotous romp … Her unique blend of shrewd social commentary and knowing humour, with a dash of what she calls ‘affectionate satire’, is reminiscent of Nancy Mitford, PG Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. - The Lady
A comedy of manners with an emphasis on the comedy ... In Sykes’s skilled and observant hands however madcap fare is always more than just a good time, it’s a nuanced look inside a specific world, where even the most humorous happenings can tell us something meaningful about the decidedly less glamorous lives we mere readers live. - Town & Country
Wickedly funny - Citizen Femme
Hotly-anticipated - Mail Online
An amusing flight of fancy … Wives Like Us is more Sex and the City – or Sex and the Shires – than The Code of the Woosters. It mocks its subjects while glamorising them. The book is also something of a roman à clef. - The Spectator
Cleverly structured, very well-written and has a delicious, knowing ending … I gobbled the sugar lumps and am leading them to the winners’ enclosure. - The Spectator
The best-accessorised novel of the season. - Saga
Fabulously glamorous and gossipy. - Louise Roe, Sheerluxe
It's stuffed with fascinating characters wearing fabulous clothes. I loved it. - Daily Mail
A riotous, delightful read - Woman's Own
In the affluent Cotswold 'Bottom' villages everyone tries oneupmanship and the excesses are both the lifeblood and the frustration of the outpriced locals. Tycoon's wife Tata has moved out of her... More
Blooming loved this book. Read it over a wet weekend in August and I was instantly transported to the frivolous lives of the country princesses and their endless days of fabulous nothingness. Marvellous lighthearted... More
Story of 3 wives, a new American divorcee, their children, and a butler . Mix them up with unattentive husbands, and a cotswold setting and you have a light, funny at times , easy read .
Thank you Bloomsbury for...
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