Finished this one on the plane. Quaint, slow paced and lovely is what I have to say about this book.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows. The novel is structured as letters between Juliet Ashton, her friends and the subjects of her new book (the fine folks of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society).
It’s 1946. London is emerging from the Second World War and Juliet is a writer looking for her next subject. Sheis bright and pretty (two things difficult to do on the same day) and she is the writer behind a popular war column “Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War”. The column is a humorous look at the dreary days of war, and it became popular and well-loved because of its lightheartedness. With the war over, Juliet is looking for other subjects. What leads her to the GLPPPS is a that Guernsey islander Dawsey, who’s purchased a second hand book on Charles Lamb, decides to write its previous owner, who happens to be Juliet. This puts in motion the letter writing between Juliet and Dawsey, then Juliet and other members of the society. The letters give Juliet and us a look at what happened to the islanders during the German occupation of Guernsey.
The letter structure really makes this novel feel like non-fiction. So much so that you forget it’s a novel. The characters are wonderful, charming and likeable, again the velocity is island pace. Not a page-turner but not a humdrum novel either. Gentle, quaint and lovely.
I enjoyed this novel.