People Like That: A Novel

A twenty-six-year-old woman with sufficient means leaves other people's homes to rent and restore an old-fashioned house in a modest square, delighting in the practical pleasures of domestic arrangement and the daily freedom of an autonomous household. Friends react with puzzlement and disapproval while she cultivates local ties, especially with a loyal neighbor and her granddaughter, and learns the overlooked social geography beyond the city's fashionable streets. The narrative follows her settling-in, interior life, and small discoveries about privacy, company, and social expectation, melding domestic detail with themes of independence, belonging, and the quiet costs of solitary choice.