Miss Benson's Beetle

From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes an uplifting, irresistible novel about two very different women on a life-changing adventure where they must risk everything, break all the rules, and discover their best selves—together. She's going too far to go it alone. It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolmarm 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 pompom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she...