"Spend a head-spinning summer with the Widdicombes and their entourage in James' gleefully over-the-top satiric debut."-- Kirkus Reviews

"Oh look, it's the perfect book. Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe is a hilarious and witty joy of a novel about a family's insanely dramatic summer at their new island home. It's LOL levels of funny, each sentence is quote-worthy, and it's also pretty heartwarming. The only bad news is that it goes by way too fast." --Cosmopolitan

"It's a comedy of Northwest manners, as if Where'd You Go, Bernadette? had been written after a long alcoholic weekend, an exquisite corpse cobbled together by a raucous, sophisticated group of writing instructors....As the members of the Family Widdicombe spin off in their own directions, the people around them are spinning toward one another in different combinations. Their machinations are the point of this debut novel, as frothy and bitter as a pot of freshly brewed dark-roast coffee, the kind that's always available on the Widdicombe's sideboard. And the dialogue, oh how it singes and sears!...James is a writer to watch, one with a fresh take on American flaws and virtues that nevertheless feels old-school screwball." --Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post

"Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe is rather like a PG Wodehouse novel, updated with sex and profanity: throw a bunch of wealthy, eccentric people in a country house for a period of time and see what happens. In this, his first novel, Evan James expertly unfolds hopes, dreams and neuroses, managing to gently skewer his characters' foibles while revealing their humanity... The book is a deliciously funny personality stew, and James deftly guides us from one character's head to another as they maneuver their way through a madcap summer--one that you, dear reader, should definitely share." --Eileen Zimmerman Nicol, Bookreporter.com

"Funny and beautifully written, this family saga set on Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest is an escape to end all escapes. There's tennis, there's novel-writing, there's the wild outdoors, and there's much-discussed decorating indoors. The Widdicombe family has much to discuss in general--they are a mass of contradictions and contrasting agendas that intersect in brilliant ways--and the dialogue is just so good. It's one of those books you hoard time with, and you float around in its atmosphere even when you're not reading it. I hate that it ended--I loved being in it so much!" --Jean Godfrey-June, executive beauty director at goop