Juliet is a thirty-something writer in post-WWII England, contemplating a subject for her next book. She receives a letter from a Dawsey Adams in Guernsey, one of the Channel islands, who owns a book that was formerly hers. Thus begins the correspondence between Juliet and the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The club was formed as a ruse for being out after curfew during the German occupation of the island. (Potato peel pie--mashed potatoes sweetened with beets in a potato peel crust--was invented when there was little to eat there.) The book consists entirely of letters written by the various characters to one another, which make it easy to read in small bites, but you won't want to. The war stories from Guernsey are alternately tragic and hilarious. Coupled with Juliet's other correspondence--with her gay publisher, with her handsome but smarmy suitor, and with her friends--these letters make for a lively tale. The Guernsey residents, with a few villainous exceptions, are caring and nurturing but not without a sense of humor and a zest for life. They have weathered the worst for five years and come out with their sanity intact. Juliet eventually visits the island and then finds it increasingly difficult to leave as she finds herself drawn to both a motherless child and a man. This is the type of book that you savor, and I want to reread it already.
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