Book Pick for May 2026
The month of May again led me to a book that was already discovered by Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club – and again, I was not disappointed by a main stream selection. In fact, I liked this book far more than I had thought I might and probably more than I had any right to.
The heroine, Anna, is an expat in graduate school studying British Literature in London. Having grown up in the shadow of her mother’s battle with diabetes and her family’s struggle to afford insulin, she is finally in the England of her childhood dreams. Her mother’s death the previous year coupled with the crippling economy post dot.com bust led her to unemployment from her publishing position and freedom to find herself in her dream life-- studying books in Britain.
Her reality abroad, however, is far from the Neverland she had imagined. Living off the crumbs of her stipend for studying and her thankless job tutoring British Prep School students for the SAT in addition to bartending, Anna is one missed session from being sent back to her life in the states. When a serendipitous invite to tutor a French expat for the SAT Test at the famed Savoy Hotel arrives, she suddenly finds herself celebrating the holidays in San Tropez with the Wilders, her pupil’s family, and hobnobbing with peers in age, though not a in social class.
Her assimilation into the group is aided by her contentious relationship with Callum, an old friend of Wilder’s, and her love interest the semi-famous reality tv star, Theo.
Anna seems to be living the dream when she makes it out of her slummy apartment to house sit for the Wilder’s, and she no longer recognizes her old life. With hints of a Cinderella story and echoes of Georgian and Victorian “fish out of water” stories per Anna’s favorite British female authors, Anna must, of course, face reality eventually.
When her former employer’s daughter outs her as a “fraud” in her new circles, she finds that the friends she had made in her elite circle of the Hampstead and Heath community Britain drop her immediately. She is evicted from her house-sitting position, fired from her tutoring job, and unable to pay her tuition as she finishes her dissertation paper in hopes of finishing her degree. With true American grit, Anna sucks up her wounded pride and strives to solve her problems with hard work and a slice of humble pie.
The classic British romantic ending will leave fans of modern romance, and the Georgian and Victorian era British writers, swooning. For those of us who dream of adventures abroad, it only fuels the dream that perhaps, one day, we too will find ourselves whisked away into the high life abroad.