The Switch

Leena Cotton is a driven London consultant whose career and life have stalled in the wake of her sister's death. When a high-stakes presentation goes badly, she is ordered to take two months off. Her grandmother, Eileen Cotton, is seventy-nine, freshly single after her husband walked out, and convinced that the eligible men of their tiny Yorkshire village have run out. So the two women make a deal: they will swap lives.

Eileen heads to London to shake up her granddaughter's flat share, chase romance in the big city, and rediscover her own boldness. Leena retreats to the village of Hamleigh, taking over her grandmother's neighborhood committee, a May Day festival, and the slower rhythms of country life—along with a charming local schoolteacher she keeps trying to avoid. Both women find that stepping into each other's worlds forces them to confront the grief and habits they had been avoiding.

Beth O'Leary's warm, funny second novel is a dual-generation story about love at every age, family, and second chances, alternating between grandmother and granddaughter as each learns to live more fully.