All That Life Can Afford

by Emily Everett

Overview

A taut and lyrical coming-of-age debut about a young American woman navigating class, lies, and love amid London’s jet-set elite.

“Languid, escapist, romantic, and just so fun to read…Jane Austen would be proud." – Vanessa Chan, internationally bestselling author of The Storm We Made

I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new.

Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.

Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinx-like elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna’s struggle to leave her old life behind. It’s like she’s stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593545140
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	149,195
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts. Her short fiction appears in Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Everett grew up on a very small family dairy farm with her parents and two sisters, studied English and music at Smith College, and studied abroad for a year at University College, London. After graduating, she returned to London to do an M.A. in literature at Queen Mary University of London. She lived and worked there from 2009 to 2013. Everett has been managing editor of The Common, a literary magazine based at Amherst College, for eight years. At The Common, she edits fiction, manages print and online production, and hosts the magazine's podcast. All That Life Can Afford is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

All That Life Can Afford absolutely sparkles. It's somehow completely romantic even as it plays with the conventions of romance; it's luminous while questioning luminousness; and it's a book with the tenderness of grief at its heart. Emily Everett is a massive talent. I can't wait to read more.”
—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich and We All Want Impossible Things
 
"There’s no one who romanticizes her life better than Anna Byrne, who has lived her whole life wishing she was a quirky Austenian heroine, and then suddenly, with some luck and a lot of nerve, she is. Languid, escapist, romantic, and just so fun to read, All That Life Can Afford feels like an amalgam of all the most interesting Austenian protagonists – except in this novel she is a millennial American from Massachusetts thrust into the wealthiest, most fashionable set of contemporary London. Emily Everett captures, with a wry smirk, the optimism and confusion of coming of age, of falling in love, and of trying to fit in – while everything threatens to fall apart. She asks the age-old question – if you change what you appear to be, can you change who you really are? Jane Austen would be proud."
— Vanessa Chan, internationally bestselling author of The Storm We Made
 
"With a satisfying nod to Dickens and Austen, Everett's engrossing novel reminds us that we still live in a world stratified by class and money, where a young woman can easily lose her bearings to the seduction of belonging."
—Nicola Kraus, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of The Nanny Diaries

“A SoHo House of Mirth for the 21st century, an American expat takes the low road to fit in with England’s jet set, resulting in a story that’s all the more delightful for its misadventures and wrong turns. Charming, witty and heartfelt, Everett’s writing goes down as easy as a Pimm’s Cup. You’ll want another round!”
 — Courtney Maum, author of I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

From the Publisher