The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is an epistolary novel about the occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. Set in 1946, after the war, author protagonist Juliet Ashton is struggling for her next book idea when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams from Guernsey inquiring about Charles Lamb, having found her name and address in a used book by Lamb. As the saying goes, one thing leads to another.
The general tone of this story is light. For example, Juliet broke up with her fiancé when he decided to move her books to the basement. She returned the books to their proper place and sent him on his way. Later when her flat was bombed, she recognized the “irony—if I’d let Rob store all my books in the basement, I’d still have them, every one.”
One thread of the novel is the correspondence is between Juliet with her publisher Sidney Stark and his sister, and Juliet’s best friend, Sophie. The other thread is between Juliet and various people from Guernsey (the eponymous literary society). Juliet starts in London but eventually moves to Guernsey.
In line with the light tone, the Germans are presented much more sympathetically than other recent books about the German occupation. Two are listed below.
Much of the story concerned Elizabeth McKenna who falls in love with one of the German officers, and they have a child Kit. Kit is the only one to survive the war, but all of them figure prominently in the narrative.
This is a historical novel which draws on historical settings and events, but the plot and characters are all fiction…with the one exception of a cameo appearance by Oscar Wilde. Thus, the book has two gay characters, but little is made of this.
If you like romance and quirky characters mixed in with your World War II history, this book is highly recommended.
I can make a similar recommendation for All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2018/05/all-light-we-cannot-see-by-anthony-doerr.html) which is set in St. Malo just two hours south by ferry. Though the backgrounds are similar, this second book is placed during the war and is significantly darker.
Another excellent book of this genre (?) is The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-nightingale-by-kristin-hannah.html).
The pie recipe is: “Potato peel pie: mashed potatoes for filling, strained beets for sweetness, and potato peelings for crust.”
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