Mornings with Rosemary

The international bestselling debut about friendship and love—featuring the life-changing relationship between an anxious young reporter and an eighty-six-year-old lifelong swimmer. We're never too old to make new friends—or make a difference.

Rosemary Peterson has lived in Brixton, London, all her life, but everything is changing. The library where she used to work has closed. The family grocery store has become a trendy bar. And now the lido, an outdoor pool where she's swum daily since its opening, is threatened with closure by a local housing developer.

It was at the lido that Rosemary escaped the devastation of World War II; here she fell in love with her husband, George; here she found community during her marriage and since George's death.

Twentysomething Kate Matthews has moved to Brixton and feels desperately alone. A once-promising writer, she now covers forgettable stories for her local paper. That is, until she's assigned to write about the lido's closing. Soon Kate's portrait of the pool focuses on a singular woman: Rosemary. And as Rosemary slowly opens up to Kate, both women are nourished and transformed in ways they never thought possible.

Mornings with Rosemary is a feel-good novel that captures the heart and spirit of a community across generations—an irresistible tale of love, loss, aging, and friendship.

Originally published as The Lido