Leena is too young to feel stuck.
Eileen is too old to start over.
Maybe it’s time for The Switch…
Ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, Leena escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Newly single and about to turn eighty, Eileen would like a second chance at love. But her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen… So Leena proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love, and Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire.
But with a rabble of unruly OAPs to contend with, as well as the annoyingly perfect – and distractingly handsome – local schoolteacher, Leena learns that switching lives isn’t straightforward. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, and with the online dating scene. But is her perfect match nearer to home than she first thought?
Published April 16th 2020
by Quercus
4/5 stars
The Flatshare is one of my favorites reads this year. In fact, it might actually be my first rom/com, what have I been missing, right? So it only stands to reason that I preorder Beth O'Leary's new book The Switch from the UK. Release dates can be earlier there and BookDepository offers free delivery worldwide. A win-win.
Now the wonderful folks at Netgalley have launched a new app and offer audiobooks for review. It gets better...The Switch was available to listen to. How could I say no to that? Well, I didn't and decided that a test of the app and a combination read/ listen was in order.
However, in the end, I ended up just reading it. The readers were wonderful in the audio but I just felt I’d enjoy the book more reading it myself. Obviously this is my issue because most loved the audio.
The Switch is told from the pov of grandmother Ellen and her granddaughter Leena which gave this book a nice contrast in the narrative. Where Ellen is spunky and rather fearless in her adventures, Leena is burdened with past hurts but hid behind a cloud of keeping busy trying to ignore them.
The Switch is a delicious rom/com that tackles grief. Is that even possible? It takes a talented author that can do that with respect to the situation and make it work. Grief is such an individual thing, everyone handles it their own way and this book showed the effect it has on others. I think I would have loved a little more interaction between a couple of players here on that level. But all in all, this was a great read and one I recommend.
Well done Beth O’Leary, you have cemented yourself as a go-to author, can’t wait to see what comes next...actually Road Trip does in 2021.
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