The Book:
The Switch by Beth O’Leary, 2020
The Characters:
Leena and her grandmother Eileen
Get it on Amazon.
The Plot:
From the publisher:
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 neighbors and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend within 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 neighbors, but is her perfect match nearer to home than she first thought?
The End:
Leena’s boyfriend from London was cheating her. Eileen found out first and had to trick Leena into seeing the truth, but eventually she broke up with him. She quit her job to open an independent consulting firm with her friend Bea. Leena ends up with Jackson, the hunky schoolteacher from Yorkshire.
Eileen enjoys her time in London but ultimately moves home to Yorkshire and starts dating her previously annoying next-door neighbor. We find out that she and the neighbor were attracted to each other the whole time, but pretended to hate each other while their significant others were still alive.
The Review:
The Switch was an adorable, light-hearted summer read (well, it’s still summer here in Las Vegas for me!). I read it right after The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, so an easy-to-follow book was just what I needed. Highly recommend you read this by the pool with a margarita in your hand, if at all possible.
This book was very easy to fly through (I listened to the audiobook), and I loved the characters immediately. Especially Eileen! I was surprised to like the older characters more than the younger ones, but I loved the parallel love stories.
I haven’t read The Flatshare yet, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on that one, as well as The Roadtrip coming next April.
Have you read The Switch? Let me know what you thought in the comments! If not, what’s your favorite beach read?
