From the Publisher
With My Oxford Year, Julia Whelan has crafted a breathtakingly perfect picture of Oxford…a read bursting with warmth, mirth, and heart. A powerfully heartbreaking and life-affirming tribute to love and to choice – to choosing love and an open-hearted approach to the world.” — Entertainment Weekly, “A” review
“My Oxford Year is a pure delight with unpredictable depths. Julia Whelan has crafted a story that is as fun and charming as it is powerful and wise. Ella Durran is a breath of fresh air and her story will stay with you long after you’re done.” — Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“...Julia Whelan’s My Oxford Year, which unfolds in charming Oxfordshire and reads even better when read through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.” — Vogue.com
“Full of humor and romance, My Oxford Year has it all—I loved it!” — Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author
“I laughed, I definitely cried, and I learned about literature and poetry in a way that made me feel a bit smarter today.” — Heather Cocks, author of The Royal We
“My Oxford Year is a funny, tender, heart-breaking coming-of-age adventure.”
— Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author
“Whelan has created a beautiful, romantic story that focuses on big ideas—love, death, poetry, and what really matters in the end.” — Kirkus Reviews
“[An] enjoyable debut…fans of One Day and Me Before You will be charmed by this warm story and Ella and Jamie’s romance.” — Publishers Weekly
“My Oxford Year is an achingly beautiful debut.” — Robinne Lee, author of The Idea of You
“Vivid, smart, and utterly charming, My Oxford Year is a heartfelt journey.” — Allie Larkin, author of Why Can’t I Be You
“Whelan’s vivid and detailed writing about Oxford will appeal to any Anglophile longing for quaint landscapes and clotted cream with their scones. And the love story will appeal to anyone who’s had to make difficult decisions.” — Refinery 29
“This debut novel has a preponderance of heart while offering respite from heady emotions with light wit. Whelan draws from her own Oxford experience, creating a richly rendered setting of not just the university’s spires but of the surrounding chip shops and grubby pubs that are just as vital.” — Booklist
“This pull-at-the-heartstrings yet sexy debut novel by Whelan, an award-winning audiobook narrator, is all about the choices we make for ourselves and others. It will delight Anglophiles as well as Jojo Moyes fans.” — Library Journal
“Whelan combined the most heart-wrenching and romantic moments of every Jojo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks novel and added in her own touches of humanity and lovableness...Bring your tissues.” — Travel + Leisure
“The premise and setting lends itself to rich descriptions and plenty of fun literature references for us book nerds, showcasing Whelan’s deep knowledge of both the subject and the area.” — Audible
“You’ll swoon over the sweet love story between Ella and Jamie, a young woman abroad and her professor...Heart eyes for days.” — HelloGiggles.com
“If you love books by Nicholas Sparks and JoJo Moyes, you’re going to swoon for Julia Whelan’s newest novel..” — Brit + Co.com
Booklist
Actor, screenwriter, and award-winning audiobook narrator Whelan draws from her own Oxford experience, creating a richly rendered setting of not just the university’s spires but of the surrounding chip shops and grubby pubs that are just as vital. She ably captures a young woman finding her way when her carefully made plans come apart.”
Vogue
Unfolds in charming Oxfordshire and reads even better when read through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.”
Publishers Weekly
Fans of One Day and Me Before You will…be charmed by this warm story and Ella and Jamie’s romance.”
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis
Full of humor and romance…I loved it!”
Kirkus Reviews
Whelan has created a beautiful, romantic story that focuses on big ideas—love, death, poetry, and what really matters in the end.”
author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Taylor Jenkins Reid
A story that is as fun and charming as it is powerful and wise. Ella Durran is a breath of fresh air and her story will stay with you long after you’re done.”
AudioFile
Narrator Julia Whelan performs her appealing debut novel as well as listeners would expect, which is to say, terrifically… Whelan has peopled her novel with Oxford’s famous cornucopia of characters. The personalities pop, her pacing is superb, and the realism she injects will keep you wide-eyed.”
Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)
Whelan has crafted a breathtakingly perfect picture of Oxford…a read bursting with warmth, mirth, and heart. A powerfully heartbreaking and life-affirming tribute to love and to choice—to choosing love and an open-hearted approach to the world.”
New York Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch
A funny, tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age adventure.”
Jill Shalvis
Full of humor and romance, My Oxford Year has it all—I loved it!
Heather Cocks
I laughed, I definitely cried, and I learned about literature and poetry in a way that made me feel a bit smarter today.”
Allie Larkin
Vivid, smart, and utterly charming, My Oxford Year is a heartfelt journey.
Entertainment Weekly
With My Oxford Year, Julia Whelan has crafted a breathtakingly perfect picture of Oxford…a read bursting with warmth, mirth, and heart. A powerfully heartbreaking and life-affirming tribute to love and to choice – to choosing love and an open-hearted approach to the world.
Taylor Jenkins Reid
My Oxford Year is a pure delight with unpredictable depths. Julia Whelan has crafted a story that is as fun and charming as it is powerful and wise. Ella Durran is a breath of fresh air and her story will stay with you long after you’re done.
Allison Winn Scotch
My Oxford Year is a funny, tender, heart-breaking coming-of-age adventure.”
Vogue.com
...Julia Whelan’s My Oxford Year, which unfolds in charming Oxfordshire and reads even better when read through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.
Robinne Lee
My Oxford Year is an achingly beautiful debut.
Travel + Leisure
Whelan combined the most heart-wrenching and romantic moments of every Jojo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks novel and added in her own touches of humanity and lovableness...Bring your tissues.
Brit + Co.com
If you love books by Nicholas Sparks and JoJo Moyes, you’re going to swoon for Julia Whelan’s newest novel..
Audible
The premise and setting lends itself to rich descriptions and plenty of fun literature references for us book nerds, showcasing Whelan’s deep knowledge of both the subject and the area.
Refinery 29
Whelan’s vivid and detailed writing about Oxford will appeal to any Anglophile longing for quaint landscapes and clotted cream with their scones. And the love story will appeal to anyone who’s had to make difficult decisions.
HelloGiggles.com
You’ll swoon over the sweet love story between Ella and Jamie, a young woman abroad and her professor...Heart eyes for days.
Booklist
This debut novel has a preponderance of heart while offering respite from heady emotions with light wit. Whelan draws from her own Oxford experience, creating a richly rendered setting of not just the university’s spires but of the surrounding chip shops and grubby pubs that are just as vital.”
Travel-+ Leisure
Whelan combined the most heart-wrenching and romantic moments of every Jojo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks novel and added in her own touches of humanity and lovableness...Bring your tissues.
Kirkus Reviews
2018-02-06
A young woman starts an unexpected relationship while studying at Oxford in Whelan's debut.Ella Duran has a lot going on. After dreaming of studying at Oxford since she was a girl, she's finally there on a Rhodes scholarship, studying English language and literature from 1830-1914. She still has a career back in America, though—working in politics, where she has a chance to be the education consultant on a junior senator's campaign for president. She'll be working remotely and flying back to D.C. the second her year in Oxford ends. It all seems to be working out perfectly…but then she meets Jamie Davenport. After he runs into her in a chip shop and knocks a plate of condiments into her shirt, she thinks he's just a jerk and assumes she'll never see him again. But when she walks into her first day of class, she's dismayed to see that Jamie Davenport is her professor. Ella is soon making connections with her brainy classmates, including dramatic Charlie, pink-haired Maggie, and goofy Tom. She also begins a friendship with Jamie that soon turns into much more, although his reputation as a playboy and her short time in England make her assume that their "relationship" has an expiration date. But Jamie is charismatic and adventurous, and Ella can't help falling for him—which is why it's such a shock when she discovers that he's been hiding a huge secret. He has cancer, and now Ella must decide if their relationship will really be over when her Oxford year ends or if she wants to stay by his side through the inevitable ups and downs of his illness. Whelan describes Oxford richly, allowing readers to almost smell the chips and hear the bustle on the streets. Ella is an engaging narrator, one many readers will easily relate to, and her friends are fun, wacky characters who trade quips as quickly as if they were on Gilmore Girls. Ella and Jamie's relationship, which could so easily turn saccharine, always feels genuine, in part because the description of his illness and chemo focuses on the realistically awful details. Despite the subject matter, the story is infused with enough humor that it never feels unbearably heavy.Whelan has created a beautiful, romantic story that focuses on big ideas—love, death, poetry, and what really matters in the end.
