Thank you to the author, publishers Scribner UK and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review. 

 

Anne of Green Gables meets Bridget Jones in a warm-hearted, funny, retro-filled glory of a novel. 

 

I adored Matson Taylor’s first novel The Miseducation of Evie Epworth and it’s wonderful to see the character return. It’s probably been one of my most anticipated sequels, so I’m particularly glad I got the NetGalley approval through to read it a few weeks early, although my pre-order for my own print copy has been in since pre-orders went live. 

 

The last time we saw Evie she was heading off for a new life in London as a passenger in Mrs Scott-Pym’s daughter’s sports car. We pick things up with her in the sequel 10 years later in the early 1970s with Evie working as a junior producer on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. 

 

Any worries that 26-year-old Evie may be settling down are quickly put to rest as her misadventures quickly lead to a diplomatic incident with a member of the Royal Family and Evie’s subsequent need to find a new job. 

 

Again, Matson manages to blend laugh out loud farcical moments (the wonderfully described section where Evie is stuck in an inflatable dress is particularly memorable) with tenderness, warmth and joy. He has created something absolutely wonderful in Evie Epworth and I hope we see her return in the 1980s.