To write a heartbreakingly gorgeous novel and not live to see it become a beloved bestseller is perhaps one of the greatest ironies I can imagine, as a writer.  Mary Ann Shaffer, the author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, spent years researching and writing this word-perfect, poetic, and insightful epistolary novel, only to have to turn it over to her niece due to failing health.  While her illness may seem to some irrelevant to the novel itself, the author’s delicate handling of death and the bitter ironies of war take on a new resonance in light of her personal tragedy and battle.

To me, it is exactly her superb balance of darkness and light that make the joys and sorrows of the story that much more keenly felt by the reader.  I wept.  I laughed aloud.  I wanted to go to Guernsey and walk its cliffs, see its wildflowers, find the types of people upon whom she based her characters.  For it is through their eyes and experiences I saw a unique and never-before-heard part of World War II, and it pained me, as stories of that period of history always do, and I hope always will for myself and others.  The inhumanities of mankind took on faces of friends, children, brothers, sisters, and it is only the callused heart that could fail to be moved by their fate.

What, then, is this book that has me so distraught and elated in nearly equal parts?  It’s the tale of a writer who lives in post-war London, and who receives a letter from one Dawsey Adams, of Guernsey.  He is in possession of a book that once belonged to her, and as there are not bookshops left on the island, inquires if she will help him find other writings by Charles Lamb.  Thus begins a great correspondence with members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, ostensibly as research for an article she is writing, but their exchange of letters soon takes on a life of its own.  Inevitably, Juliet must go to Guernsey to meet her new friends, and it is there she begins uncovering stories of the German Occupation, and of heroes great and small.

Shaffer and Annie Barrows (a well-published author in her own right) deftly weave into the narrative historical facts and what feel like true recollections of Islanders, bringing to light details of compassion, tragedy, and triumph that are often lost to the militaristic lists of battle dates so often considered the recording of history.

If I were wealthy, I’d buy copies for all of my friends so they could read it *immediately.*  In lieu of that, I beg you, go to your local library and request it; buy it; or, if you are interested in a Book-Crossing copy, email me and I’ll get you on the list.  The copy I read was generously provided by my friend from Cardiff, Wales, Mike Wiggett.  It's going next to a BookCrosser in New Hampshire, but I am unaware of a destination after that.