Wives Like Us: A Novel

by Plum Sykes

Overview

“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." —Kevin Kwan

Take a grand English country house, one (heartbroken) American divorcee, three rich wives, two tycoons, a pair of miniature sausage dogs and one (bereaved) butler; put them all into the blender and out comes the impossibly funny Wives Like Us, the new novel from the best-selling author of Bergdorf Blondes and Party Girls Die In Pearls, Plum Sykes.

If you think the English countryside is all green wellies, muddy Land Rovers and grey-haired ladies in tweed, then you’ve never visited ‘The Bottoms.’

Welcome to the rose-strewn county of Oxfordshire, and the tony 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, is refusing Tata’s overtures at friendship; Tata’s best friends, Sophie Thompson and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, are distracted by their own heartache, and the posh Pennybacker-Hoare sisters are plotting to prevent Tata regaining her crown as Queen of the Bottoms. Worst of all, Ian has nowhere to store his collection of vintage Gucci loafers.

Will Tata ever return to the comforts of the Manor? Will Selby find her Prince Charming? Will the Pennybacker-Hoares prevail? With the help of a pig farmer-ess 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?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062429094
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	4,965
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Plum Sykes was born in London and educated at Oxford. She is the author of the novels Bergdorf Blondes, The Debutante Divorcée, and Party Girls Die in Pearls. She is a contributing editor at World of Interiors and American Vogue. She lives in the English countryside with her daughters.

Editorial Reviews

"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 (London)

“Floats like cherry blossom onto a chalk stream. . . . Sykes has chosen a rich (as in minted) target, and she is well-equipped to take aim. . . . When it comes to the lifestyles of the UHNWs (ultra-high-net-worths) of Poshtershire, she knows. And she certainly can write. . . . Some novels make one’s mouth water because descriptions of food saturate their pages like butter-soaked muslin. Here it’s clothes. Designer clothes. . . . It’s cleverly structured, very well-written and has a delicious, knowing ending.” — The Spectator (UK)

“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, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street 

"Sykes delivers another wickedly funny look at the upper crust when wealthy American divorcees invade the British countryside and a stately home worthy of Downton Abbey." — Parade, "Best New Book Releases"

“Sykes gives Kevin Kwan a run for his money in this saga of obscene wealth, designer outfits, miniature dog breeds, and over-the-top landscaping set in Oxfordshire, a rural area of vast estates now mostly in the hands of the nouveau riche. . . . Crazy Rich Brits may not have the amazing cuisine of their Asian counterparts, but they are just as scheming, fabulous, and fun to read about. . . . You’ll dive in and never look back.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“The Real Housewives meets Downton Abbey in this modern-day comedy of manners. . . . Full of sly commentary. . . . an escapist, dishy read.”  — Booklist

"The satire of the summer." — Air Mail

“Sykes’s (Bergdorf Blondes) new novel moves from New York to the English countryside but maintains her humorous focus on the elite lives of rich (though not always happy) women. . . . Light and fun with just a hint of gentle satire, this novel will delight Sykes’s fans.” — Library Journal

"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

"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

“The latest from the beloved Bergdorf Blondes author is 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 and Country, "The 45 Must-Read Books of Spring"

“A rollicking murder mystery. . . . a wildly entertaining romp. . . . Laugh? I died.” — Vogue on Party Girls Die in Pearls

“As fizzy and moreish (Britspeak for ‘delectable’) as a glass of pink champagne, this murder mystery by a fashionista turned fiction writer uncorks a detective series set at England’s august Oxford College. . . . But this novel is more than a chick-lit whodunit. In the telling, Sykes, an Oxford alum herself, lays bare the institution’s arcane norms and reconstructs the scene of a crime against humanity: the over-the-top decadence of the Material Girl era.”   — O, the Oprah Magazine on Party Girls Die in Pearls

“Take one posh university, mix in a queen bee, throw in a murder, and you’ve got a mystery that makes Heathers look almost snoozy.” — Cosmopolitan on Party Girls Die in Pearls

“Into the blender go Anita Loos, Bridget Jones, Sex and the City, and Clueless; out comes a diabolically amusing concoction.” — New York Times on Bergdorf Blondes

“Perfectly pitched—playful, funny, satirical and sweet. I laughed out loud many times.” — Anna Wintour on Bergdorf Blondes

From the Publisher

05/01/2024

Sykes's (Bergdorf Blondes) new novel moves from New York to the English countryside but maintains her humorous focus on the elite lives of rich (though not always happy) women. The Oxfordshire villages of Little Bottom, Middle Bottom, Great Bottom, and Monkton Bottom ("the Bottoms") have been overrun by wealthy families building their country homes—near enough to London for the husbands to commute to work, and far enough for the wives to set up their own social hierarchy. First among those wives is Tata Hawkins, wife of Bryan and employer of executive butler Ian. Tata has quarreled with Bryan and moved herself, her daughter, and Ian to their coach house. She won't move home until Bryan apologizes and begs her to come back, but Bryan has dug in and refuses to do so. Caught in the middle is Ian, who longs to return to the manor house and the social standing he derives from Tata's status. While Tata wrestles with her marital woes, her friends Fernanda and Sophie and new neighbor Selby Fairfax all face their own personal struggles. It will take a cast of several, led by Ian, to restore the loves and lives of the inhabitants of the Bottoms. VERDICT Light and fun with just a hint of gentle satire, this novel will delight Sykes's fans.—Jane Jorgenson

Library Journal

★ 2024-03-23
The world’s most competent butler navigates a storm of romantic and financial complications among the British elite.

Sykes gives Kevin Kwan a run for his money in this saga of obscene wealth, designer outfits, miniature dog breeds, and over-the-top landscaping set in Oxfordshire, a rural area of vast estates now mostly in the hands of the nouveau riche. Ian Palmer, a summa cum laude graduate of the Greycoats’ Butler Institute in Mayfair, is known not just for his impeccable outfits, his Colin-Firth-in-A-Single-Man eyeglasses, and his vintage Gucci loafer collection, but for his superhuman ability to manage his employers’ lives. His boss, Tata Hawkins, needs his help as never before since her businessman husband, Bryan, has opened a spot in his in-house mentoring program to a “bikini influencer” named Tallulah de Sanchez (“twenty-six, looked thirty-six due to addiction to eyelash extensions and lip fillers”) and her dog, Pikachu. (As Kwan does with educational resumes, Sykes intros each character with a beady-eyed assessment of their real and apparent ages.) Infuriated by finding a receipt in Bryan’s office for a piece of jewelry that certainly wasn’t a gift for her, Tata has taken her beloved factotum and her daughter, Minty, and decamped to a guesthouse on the property, creating a tsunami of snarky gossip and leaving Ian with nowhere appropriate to store his loafer collection. Of course the solution involves throwing a massive party—supposedly an intimate “Kitchen Supper”—to welcome the area’s newest arriviste, an American named Selby Fairfax, and naturally this causes Tata’s friends to compete by throwing their own parties, one of which is a hilariously elaborate equestrian event called a hack. Poor Selby has had to flee New York after her husband very publicly left her for his boyfriend, but Sykes thoughtfully provides her with a Mr. Darcy, a hot, rich farmer who storms into the story when her children accidentally kill his cow. Crazy Rich Brits may not have the amazing cuisine of their Asian counterparts, but they are just as scheming, fabulous, and fun to read about.

If you like this sort of thing, you’ll dive in and never look back.

Kirkus Reviews