Katherine Center meets Really Good, Actually in this clever and poignant novel about an English professor who grieves the sudden loss of her husband the Victorian way, by wearing widow’s weeds and escaping to London, where she unexpectedly discovers there’s still love, life, snark, and burlesque to be had. Dr. Lizzie Wells, a professor of British literature and bestselling author, is grieving her husband the Victorian way. She keeps a lock of his hair in a choker around her neck, dons widow’s weeds, and notifies her colleagues and students that she will accept only paper letters instead of email. But then she’s offered a trip to London for escape and healing, where she befriends fellow bestselling novelist AD Hemmings. Rakish and handsome, Hemmings pushes her out of her comfort zone. She attends a Victorian-style seance, gets pulled onstage at a burlesque bar, and sightsees with her young son. All the while, back in South Carolina, her late husband’s best friend and lawyer, Henry, peels back the layers of a family secret her mother-in-law is desperate to keep hidden. Cross-Atlantic “family business” updates turn into regular FaceTime hangouts and their friendship evolves into something more. Lizzie fears she’s falling in love with him… Struggling with conflicting feelings, Lizzie travels to Bronte country, where in the windswept moors, she comes to peace with grief, joy, and all the in-betweens.
