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Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes

Contemporary fiction

Someone Else’s Shoes

Repeat author

Jojo Moyes is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include Still Me and The Giver of Stars.

by Jojo Moyes

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Quick take

An accidental gym bag swap jolts two women whose lives are on the rocks into realizing it’s time to seize their fates.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Quirky

    Quirky

  • Illustrated icon, Marriage_Issues

    Marriage issues

Synopsis

Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes?

Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope—she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp—in the bleakest point of her life—has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag—she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Someone Else’s Shoes.

Someone Else’s Shoes

ONE

Sam stares up at the slowly lightening ceiling and practices her breathing, like the doctor advised her, as she tries to stop her 5 a.m. thoughts congealing into one enormous dark cloud above her head.

In for six, hold for three, out for seven.

I am healthy, she recites silently. My family is healthy. The dog has stopped that weeing-in-the-hall thing. There is food in the fridge and I still have a job. She slightly regrets putting in that still because the thought of her job makes her stomach clench again.

In for six, hold for three, out for seven.

Her parents are still alive. Although admittedly it can be hard to justify including that in a mental gratitude diary. Oh, Jesus. Her mother is going to make some pointed comment on Sunday about how they always visit Phil’s mother, isn’t she? It will come at some point between the small sherry and the over-heavy pudding, as inevitable as death, taxes and these random chin hairs. She imagines fending her off with a polite smile: Well, Mum, Nancy has just lost her husband of fifty years. She’s a bit lonely just now.

But you visited her all the time when he was still alive, didn’t you? she hears her mother’s response.

Yes, but her husband was dying. Phil wanted to see his dad as much as possible before he shuffled off this mortal coil. We weren’t having a bloody knees‐up.

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Why I love it

I’m always on the lookout for books that can make me laugh, cry, and feel like I’ve been wrapped in a warm hug. With Someone Else’s Shoes, beloved author Jojo Moyes delivers on all fronts. Taking a deceptively simple premise—what if two women literally had to walk in each other’s shoes?—Moyes spins out her story in unexpected ways that had me flipping pages long past my bedtime.

Someone Else’s Shoes centers on two very different middle-aged women who accidentally swap gym bags. Suddenly, the globetrotting and glamorous Nisha is stuck with nothing but a pair of drab black pumps when her ruthless husband drops a divorce bombshell. Meanwhile, the overworked, underappreciated Sam finds that the world sees her differently when she puts on the sky-high Louboutins now in her possession. What follows is a journey of self-discovery, an ode to female friendship, and so much more.

At times, the novel buzzes with the fizzy energy of a caper. In other moments, it threatens to break your heart with its clear-eyed acknowledgment of life’s hardships. Ultimately, reading Someone Else’s Shoes made me feel like I was curling up for a rewatch of one of my favorite comfort movies. Moyes has created a group of flawed but loveable women who grow stronger when they work together. What a satisfying, heartwarming gift it is to spend some time in their shoes.

Member ratings (19,825)

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Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
What Does It Feel Like?
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
Honey
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Jackpot Summer
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Again and Again
Evil Eye
Black Cake
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Someone Else’s Shoes
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
The Bad Muslim Discount
What Comes After
Olga Dies Dreaming
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Monster in the Middle
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
Honey Girl
In Every Mirror She's Black
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Sankofa
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Love of My Life
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Wishing Game
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Little Fires Everywhere
The Music Shop
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
The Reckless Oath We Made
Dear Edward
When We Were Vikings
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
All Adults Here
Happy & You Know It
Friends and Strangers
The Comeback
True Story
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Chicken Sisters
The Prophets
In a Book Club Far Away
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Most Likely Club
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket