Picked by Barb for May 29th Meeting
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER • “A beautifully written, extraordinary quest in which two
ordinary, overlooked women embark on an unlikely scientific expedition
to the South Seas.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
She’s going too far to go it alone.
It
is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson,
a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving
on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job
and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the
world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may
not exist—the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an
assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last
person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight-fitting pink
suit and pom-pom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes.
But together these two British women find themselves drawn into a
cross-ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations and delivers
something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of
friendship.
