Wives Like Us

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—Great Bottom Park—is refusing Tata’s overtures at friendship; Tata’s two best friends, Sophie Thompson and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, are distracted by their own problems; 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 Sophie’s husband start appreciating her? Will Fernanda ever find a replacement Manny for her friendless son, Luca? Will Selby find her Prince Charming? With the help of a pig farmer-ess moonlighting as a Personal Assistant, a male model moonlighting as a stable hand, a London barrister moonlighting as a gentleman farmer, and a hypochondriac American tech mogul lying in a hospital bed, is there any hope that Ian can restore harmony to The Bottoms?