Home » Book Reviews » Mary Ann Shaffer » The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Possible spoilers ahead
I’ve long been wanting to read this book, mostly because my favourite style of book is epistolary with letters, but also how could you not want to read a book with such an unusual title?! Plus I am fascinated with islands and have always wanted to visit Guernsey and Jersey. And I love the thought of writing letters, now it seems to be much less popular with our faster options of keeping in touch, as it’s such a precious thing to receive a letter knowing that someone has spent time sitting down and thinking about it and writing it. So grab your copy and let’s read it together!
Juliet Ashton writes to her publisher, Sidney Stark, in 1946 sharing details about her current book tour. She also writes to her friend Sophie Strachan (who is Sidney’s sister) about how sad it makes her during her book tour to see how broken the roads and buildings are after the war and how demoralised the people are. She receives a letter from a Dawsey Adams of Guernsey, who has picked up a book that once belonged to Juliet written by Charles Lamb, and he asks if Juliet is aware of any more books that Lamb wrote and if so then can she please send him the contact details of a London bookshop so he can order these, as there are no bookshops in Guernsey after the German occupation. He also mentions the book group he belongs to, called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which intrigues Juliet enormously and she writes back to Dawsey sharing her thoughts on Lamb and recommending a bookshop he could contact, and requesting that he writes to her again, particularly giving details of the book group and its unusual name. Dawsey replies explaining that a neighbour had secretly got hold of a pig so invited her friends round for an illicit meal (as the Germans restricted the diet of the Guernsey people) which resulted in them failing to return home before the curfew so when they were caught by the German officers on their way home they pretended they had been at a literary society meeting and immersed in a book about Germany, which then meant they had to hastily form a literary society. Arrggh, there are no chapters so it’s very hard to find a place to stop reading to summarise my thoughts, and also hard to stop reading as I’m loving this book so much! I adore the chatty and humorous style of these letters (well, the chatty and humorous style of the author of course!), and I like the relationship between Juliet and her publisher Sidney as she obviously feels quite able to say that she doesn’t want to continue writing the books which have previously been a success, and my first thought after this declaration was that he would be horrified and try to dissuade her from this decision but how lovely he sounds as he just accepts her decision saying ‘don’t fret’ and reassuring her that another idea for a subject matter to write about will occur to her. Are relationships between author and publisher usually this friendly?! I’m happy for Shaffer and Barrows if this was their experience with their publisher, at least! And arrggh, there’s the mention of rationing which is still such a tough concept for me to imagine! And how sad it makes me to think of England after the war, with the way Juliet describes everything as broken and ‘especially the people’, sob! However, it was the time of telegrams and I am always so fascinated by these as they are obviously no longer around, especially with the need to include the word ‘stop’ rather than just being able to add a full-stop and how this ‘stop’ sounds a little aggressive (though not intended as such), a bit like texting in capital letters now! I adore Juliet’s suggestion to Dawsey that books might have a ‘secret sort of homing instinct…that brings them to their perfect readers’, as that’s such a delightful thought and I do think it might be true as a book has often come my way (often via a random method) which is just perfect for me at that time! And I love that Juliet immediately went searching in a bookshop for Dawsey, clearly viewing this mission as the most important thing for her to do, and I also adore her admission that she always finds the book she wants in a bookshop ‘and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted’, again, how true that is, and what a wonderful thing to happen too, and I also adore (I can already tell this is going to be a book full of things I adore, and then feel obliged to list too, tee hee!) her saying that what she loves about reading is that ‘one tiny thing will interest you…and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book…and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment’, yes indeed, I always find this myself and that’s also why my list of books I want to read is so huge as I am constantly being inspired to read a book mentioned within another book, and also why I’m always going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole as my curiosity is sparked to find out more about something mentioned in a book! I am very heartened to realise that this is going to be a very bookish-book with probably lots of thoughts about books and mentions of books I will want to read, yay! But arrggh, there were no bookshops on Guernsey?! This was indeed a terrible and tragic consequence of the German occupation that I was unaware of, tee hee! And Dawsey’s recollections of life under German occupation are so distressing to read (not just the lack of bookshops!) with the restricted diet and the curfews, and letters and newspapers and radio being banned, and the constant threat of being taken to a prison camp for any breaking of the rules. But as a delightful aside, I have recently listened to Elizabeth and Her German Garden on audio (this being the book they pretended they were reading at their literary society) and it is one of my new favourite books and now on my (huge!) list of books to buy as a paperback, it is such a charming book and full of quite telling life lessons too (though applied to plants!).
Juliet asks Dawsey if she can write about their literary society, explaining that she is a writer and has been asked by The Times to write an article about the philosophical value of reading, and she would also personally like to know more about their literary meetings during the war. Amelia Maugery from the literary society writes to Juliet, saying they would all be happy to write to her but asking for reassurances that she won’t poke fun at them, which Juliet assures them she won’t and offers for two associates of hers to write to the literary society giving her a reference, and also includes a serious article she wrote about Anne Bronte to show them that she can be serious in her work. Juliet also writes to an American, Markham Reynolds, thanking him for the beautiful flowers he has sent her as a fan of her work, and he invites her to dinner where she has a lovely time. Amelia writes again to Juliet saying that the members of the literary society are all in agreement that Juliet can write about their group and they will write to her too, and she lists the members of the group, Elizabeth McKenna, Eben Ramsey, Isola Pribby, Will Thisbee, Clovis Fossey, and John Booker, as well as Amelia and Dawsey. Amelia also shares what some of their first choices were of the hastily gathered books, Dawsey choosing Charles Lamb, Isola choosing Wuthering Heights, and Amelia choosing The Pickwick Papers, and says that in their meetings they speak about the books they’ve chosen, often trying to convince the others to read their book, and they met every fortnight. She says the inclusion of ‘Potato Peel Pie’ was brought into the literary society’s name due to the desire for something to eat during these gatherings but there were restrictions on food because of the German’s occupation so Will made a pie with mashed potato mixed with beetroot and with potato peelings as the crust. Isola writes to Juliet about her love of the Bronte sisters, and also about her life and work on Guernsey, and then adds that Elizabeth was arrested by the Germans for harbouring one of the Polish slaves and was sent to prison on the Continent and is still there, and that the members of the literary society are jointly taking care of Elizabeth’s young daughter (now aged four) called Kit. Omg, I was as shocked as Juliet was at the news that Elizabeth is in a prison camp! I wonder if she will be released during the progress of the book (please so!) and if she will be ok (please please please so!), and she has a young daughter too, poor poor girl, how her life must have been affected by the absence of her mother, and how dreadful for Elizabeth too to be without her daughter and missing the crucial stages of her growing up! And another omg, Juliet’s explanation (at Isola’s request) of the Doodlebugs that came over England, with them running out of fuel and then plummeting to the ground to explode, and people below listening intently for when the motor would cut out as it would hit the ground thirty seconds later so there was barely any time to escape! I know people then just had to live with this, they had no choice, but it’s so hard to imagine coping with that ongoing terror! And oooh, is there going to be a story threaded through the book of Juliet’s burgeoning romance with Reynolds? Him taking her to Claridge’s, wow! And how wonderfully disarmingly honest of Juliet to ask someone who doesn’t like her to write to the literary society about her, in order that the literary society has a complete view of her character! I very much like Juliet, bless her! And the references provided were amusing too and gave an interesting insight into Juliet’s character (and were a very efficient way of doing this), especially the story of Juliet being sacked from fire warden duty during the war due to her trying to rescue books when the library was hit with a bomb (and how I love her for that foolhardy action!). And eeek, I love that Juliet wrote an article about Anne Bronte and this makes me like her even more as Anne is my favourite of the Bronte sisters! I was also fascinated by the literary society’s choice of books too, and of course I now want to read/re-read these, and I’m anticipating that this will increase my (already huge!) list of books to buy and read but I love reading books about books, always so delicious! I also chuckled at Isola’s praise of the Bronte sisters and her abuse of their father and brother when she wrote to Juliet, and also her thoughts about Wuthering Heights as this is a book I greatly admire (how could anyone not?!) but don’t actually enjoy reading as the cruelty just makes me uncomfortable, though all the characters fascinate and intrigue me.
Juliet discovers that Sidney has gone to Australia to nurse and then bring home their friend, Piers Langley, a poet, after his experiences during the war in Burma and Japan. She sends Sidney copies of the letters from the literary society, explaining that she is keen to make them the subject of her next book, and also says she is determined to find out more about Guernsey, both before the German occupation and during the occupation. Eben writes to Juliet about his reading choice of Shakespeare in the literary society, and detailing his experiences of the war, including how Guernsey was bombed by the Germans before they took over the island and this bombing resulted in many deaths including the death of his daughter Jane and her new-born baby, and that his grandson Eli was evacuated to England and how hard it was to be parted from him with very infrequent news about him. He says it was a very special day when all the evacuated children returned home, and that Eli now lives with him as Eli’s father was killed fighting in North Africa. He says the Germans were nice at times but very strict at other times, particularly regarding rules. Adelaide Addison writes to Juliet several times urging her not to write about the literary society and criticising its members, particularly Elizabeth who she says had a relationship with a German officer which resulted in the birth of Kit. Dawsey explains further to Juliet about Elizabeth’s relationship with the German officer, Christian Hellman, saying that he was friendly with Christian and that Christian was a good kind man who helped Guernsey people when he could and was also a fan of Charles Lamb so Dawsey lent him his Lamb book, but that later Christian was ordered to go to Caen and his boat was sunk by an Allied bomb and he died. Clovis, another member of the literary society, also writes to Juliet, saying he likes the First World War poetry of Wilfred Owen and the poetry of William Wordsworth. John, from the literary society, writes to Juliet saying he talks about the same book over and over in the literary society, which is The Letters of Seneca, even though the others beg him to talk about another book, and says that he was the butler to Lord Penn-Piers who fled Guernsey when he heard the Germans were coming, and Booker managed to convince the Germans that he himself was Lord Penn-Piers, because he had Jewish heritage so would have been in danger from the Germans if they had realised who he really was. Will writes to Juliet saying he enjoyed reading Thomas Carlyle’s book Past and Present and that it has encouraged him to contemplate an individual’s soul. Amelia replies to Juliet’s letter agreeing with her that the effects of the war go on and on, and she says her son died fighting at El Alamein, alongside Eli’s father, and that she now tries to find pleasure walking on the clifftops looking over the beaches which no longer have barbed wire or mines on them, and she writes about the slaves that the Germans forced to fortify the islands and how cruelly they were treated. Omg, I cannot imagine the awfulness of sending your child (or grandchild) away to live with strangers, I know it was to keep them safe but to be parted from them must have been terrible, and terrible for the children too. And Elizabeth sounds quite the character, with it being explained that she had the chance to escape to England before the Germans arrived but refused to go until she had helped with Eli’s preparations for evacuation and then cared for Jane while she gave birth, which then made it too late for her to leave the island. And her relationship sounds lovely and romantic with Christian, who sounds like a very kind man. I do so hope that Elizabeth comes back safely from the prison camp. And as an aside, what is this that Dawson says about Charles Lamb, that his sister killed their parents?! Omg, I will have to google this! And I have and it is indeed true, wow! And Charles Lamb cared for Mary after the court decided on a verdict of lunacy, wow again, what a caring sacrifice that must have been for him! However, I loved that Charles Lamb said that he has ‘a bookcase which has followed me about like a faithful dog wherever I have moved’. And eeek, Reynolds likes Wilkie Collins, who is one of my favourite authors, I hope even more now that he and Juliet get together! And Juliet tells Dawsey that she loved reading The Secret Garden, and I also love this beautiful book! I am adoring all these references to books! And, as an aside, I also love that there is no allocated book for the literary society to read and instead they just speak about a book they have chosen to read, as these are my favourite types of book groups too.
Juliet and Dawsey write to each other about their admiration of Charles Lamb. Juliet also shares her life story with Isola, (after Isola requests this), including the death of her parents and that she then went to live with her great-uncle, how she met Sophie and Sidney, how her writing career began, and that her flat in London and her possessions were destroyed by a bomb. Juliet sends a gift to Eli, and Eben tells Juliet more about the agonising decision of whether your child was to be evacuated or not and that they only a day to decide this, and Isola tells her how she and Elizabeth saw the children off, as parents had to drop their children at the school and say their goodbyes there. Dawsey tells Juliet that Sir Ambrose Ivers (Elizabeth’s guardian) was killed in London by a bombing raid, and left the house on Guernsey to Elizabeth so his solicitors are now taking up the search for her. Reynolds proposes marriage to Juliet, but she says she needs some time to think about it as it feels too soon when they’ve only known each other for two months, which angers Reynolds as he was presuming she’d say yes and he accuses her of preferring Sidney and her Guernsey friends to him. In order to escape the tension, Juliet decides to go to Guernsey, which delights the literary society and they arrange for her to stay at Elizabeth’s house. Yay, I’m so pleased that Juliet (and therefore us the readers!) is going to Guernsey, I am looking forward to her first-hand account of it. And I loved Isola’s recommendation to Juliet of arriving at Guernsey by boat, with the sun going down and the island emerging from the mist. I’m intrigued by Isola’s comment that ‘people who live near running water are much nicer than people who don’t’, tee hee! And awww, how lovely of Juliet to send a gift to Eli, bless her. And I like that Isola asked Juliet about herself as I had presumed we’d just be discovering things about the Guernsey people but actually it feels important to learn about our narrator too. And how lovely of Isola to sign her letters to Juliet as ‘your friend’, bless her. I have to keep reminding myself that the narrator, Juliet, is a fictional character, as it’s all so believable, like she’s a real person (I think this has a lot to do with the book reminding me of Helene Hanff’s wonderful book 84 Charing Cross Road and in that book the narrator wasn’t a fictional character). And so many more shocking revelations about life in Guernsey during the war, I feel like I am learning so much, and I’m reeling that Guernsey’s windows shook from the explosions in France! And omg, that parents had just one day to decide whether or not to send their children to England! And it was heartbreaking reading Eben’s account of Eli leaving for England, and I filled up at Isola saying she and Elizabeth waved until the buses of children were out of sight (as the parents had had to say goodbye earlier). Also the fact that some of the Guernsey people knew of the success of D-Day due to their secret radios, but they had to conceal their delight and their hope that this meant the Germans would likely soon be defeated, otherwise the Germans on Guernsey would realise they had secret radios and punish them! And also John saying that they would see the bombs going over the island and knew they were heading to London, and also that the Germans had told them that all of London had been destroyed but they heard Big Ben chiming from a radio and a voice saying ‘This is the BBC London’ so knew that London hadn’t been destroyed, wow, I can really appreciate how that must have provided a comfort to so many inbetween all the fear and chaos and it demonstrates what an extremely important service the BBC provided then, not just news but the sense of stability and solidarity. And Isola’s memory of some of the Germans’ awe of the beauty of Guernsey when they first arrived was heartwarming, and also that the German commanders forbade their men from taking the boxes of food sent to the Guernsey residents from the Red Cross, I like these reminders that the Germans on the island were human beings too. My heart wrung for the old Guernsey man crying and bewildered at his first sight of the Germans on the island though, as he had fought on the Somme in the First World War and believed that that was ‘the war to end all wars’ and his and his comrades’ sacrifices were to prevent this from happening, and how so many others who had lived through the First World War must have felt the same thing. And my heart was also wrung by John’s letter detailing how he was sent to concentration camps, including Belsen, and the work he was forced to do there, when the Germans realised he wasn’t actually Lord Penn-Piers and so punished him. I also really get a sense through the book of how Elizabeth’s absence is felt on the island, with the Guernsey people clearly thinking (and writing) of her so often. And awww, while I did melt slightly at Reynolds proposing to Juliet, I chuckled at the things she lists that she needs to know about him first before she could accept his proposal, including if he arranges his books alphabetically (which she hopes he doesn’t), tee hee! And that even though Reynolds was angry and hurt at her response to his proposal, he still offered to drive her to Weymouth to catch the boat to Guernsey, bless him! And I chuckled at Juliet’s comment, ‘I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me’, yes indeed, particularly in old Regency books!
Juliet arrives on Guernsey and details her thoughts to Sidney and Sophie of how overjoyed she is at being there, and describing how all her new Guernsey friends were at St Peter Port to greet the boat as she arrived, and she shares her first impressions of them all (including how Kit is beginning to slowly trust and respond to her), and saying how beautiful the scenery is, and how settled and happy she feels in Elizabeth’s house and what she is learning about Elizabeth from her possessions there. She also details her first attendance at the literary society’s meeting, with one member’s speech about the book he had read, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which he criticised heavily. Sidney replies to Juliet, saying that he is now back in London. The literary society receives a letter from a lady called Remy Giraud who writes to tell them of Elizabeth’s death, as Remy was in the same prison as Elizabeth. Remy praises Elizabeth for her positivity and kindness and how she helped those in the prison, and says she spoke often about Kit and the literary society (which is how Remy knew who to write to), but that she attacked a warder who was beating a girl and so was executed for this. Remy says she herself is currently in hospital in France and recovering from her experiences in prison, where she was close to death. Omg, omg, omg, I was not at all prepared for that, I feel so shocked, and shocked too at how the news was delivered to us just from a random letter with no warning (though it’s very effective as this replicates the shock that the literary society must have felt when they read it). But I felt certain that Elizabeth would be coming back, she just feels so crucial to the whole story. And it strikes me what wonderful writers Shaffer and Barrows are to be able to integrate a character so thoroughly as this, as there is barely a page where she’s not mentioned, and to build up the story in such a way to make it seem like she must be coming back and that this will be the inevitable happy conclusion to the book…and then to whip the rug out from under us like this! And I feel so desperately sad too, all the stories that have been told about the Germans’ cruelty have been tough to read and have made me sad but none so like this, I feel really quite heartbroken, not just at Elizabeth’s death but at the pointlessness and waste of it, and also how special a person she was who clearly had so much still to give and who was so important to so many people. And I can’t help but be slightly frustrated at Elizabeth for not just keeping her head down in order to hopefully escape the prison alive, particularly as she had Kit waiting for her. I know she was the type of person who had to speak out when she saw a wrong being done and I guess she couldn’t have lived with herself if she had stood by and not tried to make things better, but she was never going to win in a battle with a prison guard, plus the girl she was trying to defend was probably punished further herself in the prison guard’s anger and traumatised herself by Elizabeth’s death, so it could be said that Elizabeth’s actions didn’t actually help and caused a terrible sacrifice, ie her life! I just can’t help viewing it all as foolhardy impulsiveness on her part really, which makes me even sadder. Omg, it’s just so heart-wrenchingly sad, sob! But trying to cheer myself (if that’s possible!), I love the thought of the little wooden mouse that Juliet told Sidney and Sophie that Eli had made for her on her arrival, bless him. But I was saddened by how Juliet said everyone on the island looks older and thinner than they should, sigh, though no surprise given all they have been through. I also smiled at Juliet saying she has placed her writing desk by the window (in Elizabeth’s house) but is constantly distracted by the beauty outside the window and the urge to go out there, and that ‘the sea and the clouds don’t stay the same for five minutes’, I want so desperately to see it all myself!
Amelia replies to Remy, thanking her for finding the strength to write to them and to share her experiences in the prison and with Elizabeth, and how much this has meant to them all. She asks if she and Dawsey can come and visit her in the hospital in France, and they receive permission to do this. When they are there in France with Remy, Dawsey and Amelia write to Juliet describing how shocking it was to see the destruction of Normandy, and they give their impressions of Remy and how fragile she is and how she has no family, and of their hope that she will come and live in Guernsey, as this feels like something they owe to Elizabeth’s memory. Kit stays with Juliet while Amelia is in France, and they grow closer. Sidney writes to Juliet saying that he is coming to Guernsey for a few days, and then on his return to England he writes to Sophie about his time there, saying that he stayed with Isola and how they would chat late into the night and he shared with her that he is gay, and how healthy and happy Juliet seems there in Guernsey, and the stories he has been told by locals of the day the Allies arrived and that many of them had family on Guernsey so it was an extra joyous occasion. Isola writes to Sidney on his return to England, saying how much she enjoyed his company. Sidney writes to Juliet about the first few chapters of her book about Guernsey, after she had asked for his advice as she thought there was something missing, and he suggests that she writes the book about Elizabeth because the book needs a central heart and voice, and everyone Juliet has interviewed sooner or later mentions Elizabeth which demonstrates how Elizabeth tied life on the island together beautifully, plus there are tantalising mysteries still to be discovered about Elizabeth’s life and how she felt about things, particularly about having a child with a German officer and bearing his child, as well as many examples of her selflessness and bravery. Juliet immediately loves this idea, saying that she has been wishing she could have known Elizabeth and is missing her dreadfully as if she had known her, so writing about her is a perfect idea. She discovers sketches in the house that Elizabeth drew of several of her friends and many of Kit as a baby and also one of Christian. Juliet also talks to even more of the residents about their stories of Elizabeth, including an old man in a nursing home who helped Elizabeth shelter a slave. Juliet then writes to Sophie saying that she realises she is developing feelings for Dawsey, but this was made extra awkward when Reynolds suddenly arrived in Guernsey. She says that she told Reynolds that she can’t marry him, mostly because he criticised Kit and Guernsey, and that Reynolds then left. Juliet adds that after meeting Reynolds, Dawsey now seems very distant towards her and that he has now left to go to France to bring Remy to Guernsey. On her arrival at Guernsey, Remy is initially very quiet and reserved, but gradually relaxes and opens up and even begins to laugh. Juliet is also growing closer to Kit and feels very protective and loving towards her. Eeek, Juliet has refused Reynolds, wow! I did quite like him so I’m a little disappointed, to be honest, but I am imagining now that this is all lining up nicely for Juliet to be with Dawsey and them to adopt Kit and live happily ever after on Guernsey, which I would be pleased at! Or are we going to have a bit of a guessing game of whether Dawsey loves Juliet or Remy? And eeek, I loved that Sidney advised Isola to read Pride and Prejudice, as that is one of my all-time favourite books! And I chuckled at how Isola could possibly not have heard of this book and author, though I am envious of her forthcoming joyful experience reading all of Austen’s books. And what a perfect suggestion of Sidney’s that Juliet’s book be based on Elizabeth, and somehow that softens the blow slightly of her death (which I am still reeling from), and it’s beautifully engineered by Shaffer and Barrows as that is what they’ve done themselves so effectively with this book and what I was admiring their skill in, ie making Elizabeth the central character. And I can begin to understand now why Shaffer and Barrows must have made that tough decision to have Elizabeth be killed (and I’m sure it was a tough decision for them), as this idea of Juliet’s book being a kind of homage to Elizabeth wouldn’t work so well if Elizabeth had come back home, and having her life and experiences told by others on the island rather than by herself is far far more powerful (but while I’m beginning to understand their thinking, I’m not quite close enough to forgiving them for it, tee hee!). And again, it was heartening in this section to hear more stories about the kindness of some of the German officers to the Guernsey residents too, I think it’s lovely that the authors have made a point of including that and reminding us that they weren’t monsters (even though some of them did monstrous things in a monstrous time).
Juliet excitedly writes to Sidney telling him that some letters written by Oscar Wilde have been found on the island, as he used to write to Isola’s grandmother. Sidney sends over a handwriting specialist who confirms that they were indeed written by Wilde, and Sidney later arrives himself to study them. Juliet writes to Sophie saying she is going to speak to Elizabeth’s solicitor about adopting Kit, as she is certain she wants to look after her forever, though she is undecided about if taking her to London and away from the Guernsey people she loves would be kind. She then tells Amelia of her hope to adopt Kit, nervous at what she will say, but Amelia is overjoyed at the idea, and Juliet then decides that she will live on Guernsey with Kit and the others. Oooh, letters from Oscar Wilde! Though I was a bit surprised at the insertion of this into the story, and a little puzzled as to why, though it is a charming story, or were there perhaps really letters found on Guernsey that had been written by Oscar Wilde (though to someone real, not Isola’s grandmother)? I will have to google. Oh, I have just googled and apparently there were no real Oscar Wilde letters, but the storyline was inserted because Shaffer loved Oscar Wilde, awww, that’s nice, I like that! And, eeek, it’s beginning to fall into place a little bit more now with Juliet wanting to adopt Kit, and I was praying she would decide to stay living in Guernsey and she now has, hurrah! So now I just need her and Dawsey to get together, and I will be happy! I do like the continuing humour throughout the book too, particularly the tales of Will’s cooking attempts, tee hee! I also beamed at Isola discovering and admiring the Miss Marple books, yay, I love them too! And as I’ve said before, an extra lovely bonus in this book is all the book discussion and how it inspires me to read those books mentioned!
Juliet writes to Sidney after he has returned to England, sharing her romantic feelings for Dawsey and how excited and hopeful she was to be invited (with Kit) to a meal at his house and how easily they chatted together, but how disappointed she was to then see him the following day arm-in-arm with Remy and she is now certain that he and Remy love each other. Isola also suspects that Dawsey loves Remy (who has announced she is returning to France) and she looks for evidence of this, such as items of Remy’s that Dawsey has saved in his house, but she only finds mementoes of Juliet in his house (Juliet’s letters to Dawsey, and photos of Juliet). Isola tells Juliet this, who immediately runs to find Dawsey and proposes to him, and he immediately accepts. Juliet writes to Sidney demanding he return to Guernsey at once as she and Dawsey are to be married that weekend. Eeek, it has all worked out beautifully and as I’d hoped with Juliet and Dawsey together, hurrah! I’m so grateful that we’ve been given a lovely romantic happy ending, after the shock and sadness of Elizabeth’s death!
Well, what a lovely lovely lovely charming book! I had very high hopes for it, with it being epistolary and it reminding me of one of my all-time favourite books (84 Charing Cross Road) and with it being set on Guernsey where I have long wanted to go, and it fulfilled all my hopes, yay! And it’s also reminded me of the lovely art of letter-writing and how personal and thoughtful and paced and mindful this is, and makes me determined to do it more myself. I loved learning more about Guernsey, and I also really valued learning all the information about the war, though some bits were very tough to read but then that reflects accurately how tough and cruel things were and I guess it wouldn’t have been respectful to the people who lived through that time to sugar-coat it and make it all seem happier than it was, though I did appreciate the insertion of some positives too, particularly how caring and considerate some of the German officers were on Guernsey and the reminder too that they were scared and missing home and grieving for people they loved, as it’s so easy to just typecast them all as ‘the heartless enemy’. Though I’m still amazed at how people survived the war, I know they had no choice but I just can’t imagine how I’d cope myself and I’m full of admiration for the courage that everyone found within themselves. And now I not only want to go to Guernsey for the beauty of the place and its fascinating location in the English Channel between England and France, but also to see the remnants of the war and appreciate more by being there what it was like at that time.
And of course, I loved all the book references in this book! I felt all the way through like I was in safe hands with these authors who clearly love reading and adore books! So I immediately feel I will have to re-read 84 Charing Cross Road (by Helene Hanff, and I have reviewed that book on this site) as the chatty humorous tone of the letters in this Guernsey book reminded me irresistibly of this which is one of my all-time favourite books, and I was also reminded of the book Nella Last’s War (edited by Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming, and I have also reviewed that book on this site) with her observations about the war. And then there’s all the books that were mentioned in this book as being discussed at the literary society which I’ve either looked up for more details of in order to read, or have already read and now want to re-read (pretending I’m going to attend the literary society!), I won’t list them all as I’m sure every reader ended up jotting down titles they wanted to try themselves, but ones that jumped out at me were Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (the book they pretended to be reading at the literary society to explain why they were out after curfew), Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (Isola’s choice of book, and which I’ve also reviewed on this site), The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (Amelia’s choice of book), a Charles Lamb book (as Dawsey was so passionate about him) and I quite fancy his book Rosamund Gray as this is an epistolary novel (my favourite type of novel), an Anne Bronte book (after Juliet wrote a paper on Anne) and I’ve long been meaning to read Agnes Grey, a Wilkie Collins book (as Reynolds liked him, even though Reynolds was found to be lacking in other areas, tee hee, but I can’t fault his choice of author) and I have The Frozen Deep and also Basil waiting on my shelves to be read, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen of course as I need no excuse to re-read that wonderful book (as Sidney recommended it to Isola), and also the wonderful Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie (as Isola discovered this memorable detective) and I’m less familiar with the short stories of her so I’m tempted to re-read The Thirteen Problems and also Miss Marple’s Final Cases. I’d love to know which books you’ve been inspired to read or re-read now you’ve also finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato-Peel Society book! And I’m like to continue learning more about Guernsey so a guide book about Guernsey would be good to read, such as Rough Guides Mini Guernsey.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows available on Amazon
