Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I enjoyed the mystery novel, first in a series, The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith. Jane dove into Scotland in her post with two books, The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family that Shaped Britain by Allan Massie and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and a podcast about Scottish history. Tina enjoyed the third season of Blue Lights, set in Belfast.

Book: The Oxford Affair by Lynne Kaufman
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books
Publication date: 2026
Pages: 188

Source: Trade paperback review copy from publisher

Summary:Susan Klein directs a program that sends American adult learners to Oxford for a few weeks each summer to take a class and partake of all that Oxford has to offer. This summer, one of the students is a charming Southern gentleman, Nelson Sinclair, who is ready to retire from a successful career as a restauranteur.

Nelson talks Susan into joining him for the class called The English Detective Story.

A dead body and some life-threatening incidents provide a real mystery to go along with the ones discussed in class. Meanwhile, Susan and Nelson keep getting thrown together and discover that they enjoy each other’s company.

Thoughts:I can’t remember the last time that I accepted a review copy, but The Oxford Affair sounded perfect for me and for British Isles Friday. And it is!

I have a long-running fantasy to spend a few weeks of a summer taking classes at Oxford. I’ve always used the Inspiring Oxford program to fuel my dreams. Lynne Kaufman, the author of this book, ran this similar program for UC Berkeley for 25 years. That looks fun, too, and more catered to American travelers.

The publicity for this book had me imagining that it was a mash-up of mystery and romance genres. You’ll see, above, that I categorized the genre as Women’s Fiction, which is the shelf I think it would sit on in a bookstore. The story is told in first person from Susan’s point of view.

To be more precise, The Oxford Affair is a coming-of-age transition story for a woman in her late 40s or early 50s. That’s a time of second chances for many women when we get to come of age on our own terms. There’s less influence from society on the choices we make than when we were teenagers, but there are still hormones involved!

Susan’s story plays out in the wonderful setting of an Oxford summer program with lots of explorations into food and English mysteries and many other English-oriented themes.

Appeal: The Oxford Affair is a short, fun novel that met all of my expectations for spending time to learn among Oxford’s dreaming spires.