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 youve 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 dont go to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax the glamorous American divorcee who has inherited the beautiful estate next door is refusing Tatas overtures at friendship; Tatas 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?
