The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The title scared me. It sounded kind weird/ flimsy/ too girlie for my tastes. But it had great reviews and I am a sucker for reviews. So..I read it and I loved it. The entire story is told through a series of letters. The story takes place in the aftermath of World War II. I loved the people of Guernsey, the history, the love stories and I found myself hungry for more when the book ended. I highly recommend this one!
From Publisher's Weekly
The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers.
