When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen.
Once Leena learns of Eileen's romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another's shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.
Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn't as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect - and distractingly handsome - school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?
One of the my most memorable books last year was The Flatshare by debut author Beth O’leary, it really was a remarkable debut with such skill and an original concept that worked perfectly. I was looking forward to see what this author would have in store for us with book number two and having now read The Switch I can confirm that this is definitely a talented author who just keeps giving!
The Switch follows Eileen and Leena, a Grandmother and Granddaughter who make a drastic decision to swap lives, Eileen is heading of to live the London life as a singleton jumping into the world of online dating whilst Leena is taking over her Grandmothers day to day roles whilst giving her time away from work and to take time to heal after grieving for her sister was masked by just throwing herself into work.
I have recently found it hard to find novels that have a genuine, easy humour weaved into the storyline and this is something that I think we could all do with at the moment to give us pure escapism from what is going on around us so it was a breath of fresh air to find that the wit that this author had in her debut book flows through in this book. It was lovely to find myself chuckling at the small mishaps that happened to the ladies in this book.
It was great to see what both generations managed to bring to the other, Eileen took Leena’s friends under her wing and got them to actually open their eyes and put down the phone and start enjoying life and look at those around them. The younger generation have lost their way and struggle to communicate away from technology and I blind to those living around them. Whereas we see technology is not all bad when Eileen realises that there are ways to meet people whose paths would never usually cross, and at a time when you are lonely or unable to go out it is a wonderful aid to be able to talk online and purchase online too.
As I mentioned there is a touch of humour and also a light enjoyable feel to the storyline but there are a couple of more sensitive topics that are covered in this novel too which the author tackles with such care whilst bringing awareness too and this added more depth and emotion to the storyline.
I absolutely love Beth O’Leary’s writing style and she is definitely an author to watch and it is great to see her brining something completely new to our bookshelves as I would not be able to recommend another author similar to her. I am excited to see what this author comes up with for her next release but one thing I can guarantee is that as soon as it is ready to pre-order I will be the first one there.
Kindle Hardback
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