The book was selected with the help of a panel of library staff from across the UK. Our readers loved The Miseducation of Evie Epworth – here are some of their comments: Matson Taylor grew up in Yorkshire but now lives in London. He is a design historian and works at the V&A museum, where he teaches on the History of Design programme and spends a lot of time trying to convince people that the luxury goods industry helped win the Second World War. He wrote a chapter on Edward Molyneux, inventor of the flapper dress, for the V&A’s London Couture book and has helped develop a number of projects for TV and radio. He also works at Imperial College, helping scientists communicate very complicated things in a reasonably simple way. Evie’s first-person narrative is punctuated by short excerpts from the past (entitled interlude) which tell the story of not only Evie’s parents marriage and move to the farm but her mother’s friendship with Mrs Scott-Pym and in turn her fraught relationship with Caroline. Weaving past and present together adds depth to the story and keeps Evie’s mother, who died when she was one, ever present in the story. Alongside Evie’s own journey the major subplot centres on Mrs Scott-Pym coming to terms with, and accepting, her own daughter’s life choices and this was both subtly handled and an entirely unexpected source of joy. Tight, clever and riddled with wit. Like discovering Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones for the first time.’ Joanna Nadin, author of The Queen of Bloody Everything Evie, our "heroine", is a 16 year old (who comes across as a 10 year old), the daughter of a farm owner, or "the naive father", who seemed besotted by a 22 year old, or "the evil step mother". The "perfect mother" died when Evie was just a baby and nobody ever told her anything about this maternal figure. As I read the book sometimes I had the feeling that the characters (family members, neighbours...) had just met!! And I could go on and on... There are some funny situations described, but overall they don't contribute to the plot or the main storyline.

Nothing ever adds us: they live on a farm, but despite the mention in the beginning that Evie distributes the farm's milk, nobody seems to be working at the farm. Or maybe the father, who is absent for most of the conversations/episodes, is doing all the work? This is a superficial novel, full of stereotypes. None of the characters seemed believable and I didn't care for any of them. Everybody was quite annoying in fact! What I liked in this story was the past narrative of Evie's parents relationship. Here we got to see a different side to Arthur, the side that showed Evie's mother was his world. 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.

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An absolutely stunning, first class debut - please please Matson Taylor let us know how Evie gets on in her new chapter of her life, she now feels like a lifelong friend (I’m already missing her) and with gorgeous Caroline by her side, the world is her oyster! It is the summer of 1962 and sixteen-year-old Evie Epworth stands on the cusp of womanhood. But what kind of a woman will she be? I read this via The Pigeonhole over the course of ten days and in ten daily installments. Every day I finished one stave I wanted more and more. I was also approved for a copy via Netgalley, but managed to control my impulse to rush on ahead as the community reading on The Pigeonhole is such a great experience. A rush of light suddenly bounces around the room. I love it when people say my mother's name. It's like she's living again, if only for a second. I let the golden flare of her name burst over me. p 49

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. When a certain nasty accident brings Caroline Scott-Pym home to their Yorkshire village, they discover an instant rapport, and Evie has an ally in her campaign to see off the cheating, lying gold-digger. Warm, witty and wise - a coming-of-age story featuring a truly inimitable Yorkshire heroine in Evie. Up until now, Evie’s life has been nothing special: a patchwork of school, Guides, cows, lost mothers, lacrosse and village fetes. But, inspired by her idols (Charlotte Brontë, Shirley MacLaine, the Queen), she dreams of a world far away from rural East Yorkshire, a world of glamour lived under the bright lights of London (or Leeds). Standing in the way of these dreams, though, is Christine, Evie’s soon-to-be stepmother, a manipulative and money-grubbing schemer who is lining Evie up for a life of shampoo-and-set drudgery at the stinky local salon.I'm not sure how much more I can rave about this book other than to comment on Taylor's use of humour and irony throughout. Of course (on a more serious note) there is an underlying theme about loss and grief, about the way we deal with both and the destructiveness of trying to bury them. Matson Taylor’s sparkling debut “The Miseducation of Evie Epworth” is instantly addictive, witty, uplifting and very realistic. Featuring sixteen (and a half) year old, Adam Faith’s number one fan Evie Epworth (tall as a tree and wise as time) she made a truly endearing young narrator that you couldn’t help fall in love with.

Planning to buy The Miseducation of Evie Epworth for your group? Buy books from Hive and support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no extra cost to you. If you like your stories with a dose of fun, quirky and full of family dramas then The Miseducation Of Evie Epworth is for you. 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.As well as working at various universities and museums around the world, Matson has worked on Camden Market, appeared in an Italian TV commercial, and been a pronunciation coach for Catalan opera singers. The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is his first novel. One of my friends loved this debut novel by Matson Taylor but it still took me months to get to it and I am so thankful I did. In fact, although I was keen for something light... a good psychological thriller about some murderous psychopath; from the opening lines of this novel I was transported into Evie's world. It's written in first person from 16 year old Evie's point of view and almost akin to stream-of-consciousness thinking. Taylor gives Evie a really delightful voice and this is a quirky and often-funny read. At the same time however, there are moments of poignancy, some of which come as a result of life experience and realising things young Evie does not.

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! Is it a decision we can or do make, I wondered. Do we decide who we are or who we become, or is our destiny predetermined? How can we influence that?

The Miseducation of Evie Epworth

The fastest milk bottle-delivery girl in East Yorkshire, Evie is tall as a tree and hot as the desert sand. She dreams of an independent life lived under the bright lights of London (or Leeds). The two posters of Adam Faith on her bedroom wall (‘brooding Adam’ and ‘sophisticated Adam’) offer wise counsel about a future beyond rural East Yorkshire. Her role models are Charlotte Bronte, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen. But, before she can decide on a career, she must first deal with the malign presence of her future step-mother, the manipulative and money-grubbing Christine. 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. 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.