Wives Like Us

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.