The Guernsey Potato Peel Literary Society; Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Set immediately after WW2 an English journalist/author learns through chance of the plight of the people who lived on Guernsey, an Island in the English Channel between France and England.  Told completely through letters, the novel (?) tells the story of the author, her family, her romantic interests and the people of Guernsey.  Great stuff.

PJH Rating: **** 1/2 and 3/4

Courtney has been trying to get me to read this forever as she thought I would like it.  I was always turned off by the title as it sound like one of those chic lit southern novels that I’m not too fond of.  As usual Courtney was right… I loved it and it wasn’t anything close to what I thought it was. This is one of those books that I couldn’t put down, I read it straight through after work for the past two nights totally wrapped up in it and wanting to stay home to finish it.  It is so sad to read the author died, this was her first novel, just before the book was published and her niece (Annie Barrows – a children’s fiction author – she wrote Ivy and Bean – one of our favs)  finished it up.  So sad to think what other great stories she would have come up with.  Makes me SO HAPPY to be reading good stuff instead of watching the crap on TV – although I feel so out of it that I don’t know any of the details of all the craziness going on in Cleveland news these days that is all anyone is talking about wherever we go…  rambling.