Tag Archives: Guernsey

#BookReview ‘The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society’ #romance #WW2

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I prefer to come to a book without reading reviews so I can make up my own mind. But sometimes there is a book that I missed in its early days but which goes onto be hugely popular. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows is such a book. Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie BarrowsThe story is told in letter form, a structure I admit to having doubts about before I started reading. But the manner in which the letters flow and the information is dripped in means there are no information gaps, no repetitions. It is 1946 and writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a man in Guernsey who by chance owns a book that once belonged to her. And so begins Juliet’s correspondence with Dawsey Adams and his fellow members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Dawsey encourages other members to write to Juliet with their own experiences of the German occupation of the island. And so we hear from the nice, and not-so-nice characters.
What could be a superficial account of the islanders’ lives becomes a cleverly managed tale of a community that survives by mutual support, generosity, toughness, bravery and above all kindness. As letter after letter arrives from different people, we build up full pictures of the incidents that happened. Although there is a romantic thread to this tale – the rather full-of-himself Mark Reynolds – this is really a story about the survival of an island community throughout a time of unimagined difficulty.
At first Juliet is entranced by the islanders’ stories but as they write more letters she wants to meet them in person, both to put faces to her correspondents and to scout the possibility of writing a book about their experiences. The book is split into two parts; in part one, Juliet is in London; in part two she travels to Guernsey. The story takes places during nine months of 1946; this feels a tight time span for some of the emotional relationships to develop and at times the familiarity and trust seemed to progress in leaps rather than steps, but perhaps this is understandable post-war when people grasped at chances of normality and happiness.
The title suggests this is a nice, quirky read – and it places it did make me chuckle – but it also tells of brutality, torture and death and the lasting after-effects of war.
I was left wishing I hadn’t read it yet and that I had it to look forward to. Just the book to re-read when your spirit needs a lift.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read why novelist and poet Claire Dyer chooses THE GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY as her ‘Porridge & Cream’ comfort read.

If you like this, try:-
‘Pattern of Shadows’ by Judith Barrow
‘After the Party’ by Cressida Connolly
‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows https://wp.me/p5gEM4-47C via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock #Guernsey #WW2

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What is the truth and what is a lie? Is a fib a lie, is an omission a lie? And what would make you lie? To save yourself, to save a loved one? Is it okay to lie in war? I read The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock without keeping the title in my mind, but at the end I knew what the title meant. Mary Horlock The island of Guernsey is the setting for this family story told through the eyes of two children: in 1985, Catherine is 15; in 1940, her uncle Charlie is 12. He sees the German soldiers arrive to occupy the small island; a generation later, Cat still feels the after-effects of the lies told then. More lies are being told now, the difficulty is in identifying truth from lies.
Cat is central to the novel. She is an irreverent narrator who tells us not only her own story but also the history of the island and her family’s war story. She was told both stories by her father, and now that he is dead Cat wishes she had asked him more questions. Cat’s voice is a true teenager, her banter is littered with humour, insecurity, crushes, curiosity and indignation. Charlie’s story is told in flashbacks, but mostly through the transcripts of tapes made of his conversation with his brother Emile, Cat’s father’, telling the truth of what happened to him.
Keep reading, the twists and turns of this family, its tricks and lies, its love and secrets, ends in a twist I didn’t see coming. Forty-five years later, the truth still hurts.

If you like this, try:-
Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters
‘A Week in Paris’ by Rachel Hore
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard #1CAZALETCHRONICLES

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BOOK OF LIES by Mary Horlock http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1LQ via @SandraDanby