This book is written wholly in the form of letters sent mainly between writer Juliet Ashton and her publisher Sidney, friend Sophie and various members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. Apparently this makes it an epistolary novel - a term I had not come across before. The book is set in 1946. The story of how the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second World War and what happened to its founder Elizabeth McKenna gradually unfolds. The book is moving and heartwarming but at the same time it doesn't shy away from describing some of the awful things that the Germans did on Guernsey to the islanders and their forced and slave (Todt) labourers who they brought from all over Europe to build up the island's defences to repel an Allied invasion that never came.
Elizabeth had a relationship with a decent German officer called Christian. She got pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Kit. However by this time Christian had been killed when the ship he was travelling in to France was bombed and sunk by the Allies. Elizabeth was later deported to a concentration camp in Germany for helping a friend to shelter a starving Polish Todt worker. Kit is left behind in the care of the society members.
After corresponding with the members of the society for a while, Juliet travels to Guernsey to visit them. She falls in love with the island, the way of life, the society members and Elizabeth's daughter Kit.
This is Mary Ann Shaffer's only published book. She sadly died in 2008, so never knew how popular her novel would be.
Islands covered - Guernsey 9/10
L'Ancresse - German Watchtower
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