Wives Like Us

By: Plum Sykes

Narrated by: Annabel Mullion

Bloomsbury presents Wives Like Us by Plum Sykes, read by Annabel Mullion.

'Outrageously Jilly Cooperesque' Sunday Times Style

No one knows better than Ian Palmer – Executive Butler – that social position is everything in the rose-strewn Cotswolds.

So when his boss, Tata Hawkins, flounces out of her (new-build) manor house after a row with husband Bryan, Ian is alarmed: for one thing, if Tata is on the social slide downwards, that means he is too; for another, he’s lost his home and has nowhere to store his prized collection of vintage Gucci loafers; even worse, a vacuum among the Country Princess set has opened up for a new Queen Bee.

With the old-money Pennybacker-Hoare sisters plotting to rid ‘their’ county of Tata and her ilk, a bikini influencer on the prowl for a husband just like Mr. Hawkins, a glamorous American divorcee threatening to steal Tata's crown, and the heiress-next-door threatening to steal Ian, the Cotswolds are in chaos.

Can Ian restore Tata’s country crown and reinstate her to the comforts of the Manor?

‘A forensically well-observed narrative . . . a shiny satirette of country living where everyone is unmuddied but filthy rich.’ The Times

‘It may finally be time for Jilly [Cooper] to make way for a new chronicler of Cotswolds life.' Daily Mail

©2024 Plum Sykes (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

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)

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)