The Miseducation of Evie Epworth: Radio 2 Book Club Pick

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Moving, inventive and achingly funny, with an all-star cast of bold-as-brass characters, The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is a perfectly pitched modern fairytale about love, friendship and following your dreams while having a lot of fun along the way. I didn’t live in Yorkshire or anywhere near but lots of things were still the same, unless you lived in London, but I didn’t go there until 1972. I did something in fashion like Caroline. It was still vastly different from our narrow-minded, parochial, suburban life in the Cotswolds. I had never heard of a lesbian when I was 10 years old, possibly not even at 16. Things were different in those days. A sweet, fizzy sherbet dib-dab of a book - deliciously nostalgic, hugely funny and ultimately heartwarming. The perfect book for our times.’ Veronica Henry The humour was spot on, the descriptions were so detailed, the dialogue was wonderful and I couldn’t put this book down. It’s a guaranteed feel good book and I would 100% recommend to everyone who loves character driven books.

Warning! The following content will make you hungry and crave a visit to the legendry Bettys (a personal favourite Yorkshire haunt of mine). Q. As soon as I finished reading Evie I tweeted about how brilliant it was. You replied saying that my tweet had convinced you to have crumpets for breakfast that day. 🙂 So I’m curious – what’s your favourite crumpet topping? Now Christine is the one character in this book that I don’t think anyone likes. She is the gold digging villain of the story that you can’t help but want to see fail. She took the term evil step-mother and fully embodied it. The pleasure I felt when Evie was trying to rid her life of all things Christine was second to none and the dialogue between these two characters was written perfectly. Oh this book is the perfect antidote to all of the horrendous things that seem to be on the news this year!There were some really moving moments which made me shed a little tear, especially when concerning her beloved dead mother, her father who is obviously in over his head with the gold-digging revolting Christine, and her unconditional friendship with Mrs Scott-Pym who treats Evie like a daughter.

The story follows the summer of 1962 through the eyes of sixteen year old Evie Epworth. She lives in rural Yorkshire with her father and 'live in' housekeeper Christine. Now she has to decide what to do now her exams are finished. Her life is very sheltered, confined to a small village. Yet the tales she tells are so brilliant. She hates Christine, a girl not much older than herself who has latched onto her father. It's when the exotic, well for Yorkshire, Caroline comes to pay a visit that the world turns upside down. The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is one of the funniest most enjoyable books that I have read. Author Matson Taylor has got the balance just right of a comical story all about Evie Epworth. Sixteen year-old Evie Epworth stands on the cusp of womanhood. But what kind of a woman will she become?

The Miseducation of Evie Epworth

Not really until about 6 years ago to be honest. I’d written a chapter for a V&A book on London Couture and one of the editors, Edwina, pulled me into her office after reading my draft and said that I was a born writer and that I had to write. It was a really important moment for me because I’d always wanted to write and had been told by quite a few people that I should write but hearing it from a senior curator who’d written many books was a big thing. So I thought I’d better pull my finger out and do something about it. And I did! I enrolled on a Faber Academy course and wrote The Miseducation of Evie Epworth. Matson Taylor doesn’t stop their though and he introduces us to a whole community to love. Mrs Scott-Pym was my favourite of the supporting characters. Her kind nature and motherly attitude towards Evie melted my heart. Evie had found a sanctuary in that house and you could feel the love between these two characters. As much as Evie helped Mrs Scott-Pym I also felt the older woman learnt a thing or two from Evie too. But one of the stand-out things for me about the book is how Matson has managed to capture perfectly the ‘playful’ (his word) voice of a 16 year old girl in the sixties. Hard enough for someone like me who was there! I am thrilled to have spent a few days in the delightful company of Evie Epworth, the heroine of Matson Taylor's début novel, The Miseducation of Evie Epworth. What a hoot this novel turned out to be! Set in Yorkshire in 1962, sixteen-year-old, Adam Faith-loving, Evie lives with her widowed dad, Arthur, and Christine, a woman who is set on marrying him. Evie is not a fan, and thinks her father can do much better, and she also needs to decide what she wants to do with her own life now that she's finished school. What happens next is exceptionally compelling...