368 pages | Trade Paperback

From the bestselling author ofThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frycomes an uplifting novel about two women with nothing in common who trek across the world in search of a beetle that may not existand end up discovering a friendship that defies all boundaries.

Shes going too far to go it alone.

London, 1950. The city 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 existthe 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 goes. But together these two British ladies 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.