The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
In January of 1946, 32-year-old Juliet Ashton embarks on a crosscountry tour across England to promote her latest book. Written under her pen-name Izzy Bickerstaff the book is a compilation of comedic columns she wrote about life during WWII. Despite the fact that she was initially contracted to write another Izzy Bickerstaff book, Ashton writes to her publisher that she wants to retire the pseudonym. On her tour she is greeted with flowers everywhere by the mysterious Markham V. Reynolds Jr. Her best friend and publisher, Sidney, warns Ashton that Mark is a wealthy American trying to establish a publishing empire and looking to poach Ashton. Reynolds makes it clear that he is a fan and Ashton and Reynolds soon begin dating.
Ashton also receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a complete stranger from Guernsey who has come into possession of Ashton’s copy of Essays of Eliaand who wants to know more about the author, Charles Lamb. Ashton helps to send him further books by Lamb. She is also intrigued that Adams is part of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and inquires about the name.
After learning that the society began as a cover for residents breaking curfew during the German occupation of Guernsey-Ashton begins a correspondence with several members of the Society hoping to work them into an article she is writing on the benefits of literature for The Times Literary Supplement. Ashton also learns that Elizabeth McKenna, the beloved founder of the Society, was arrested and sent to a prison in France by the Germans and has yet to return home. The members of the Society are raising her child, Kit, among themselves until Elizabeth returns.
As she continues to write to the members of the Society and they to her, Ashton begins to plan a trip to Guernsey to do research for a book about the group and their experiences of the war. Shortly before she leaves Reynolds proposes to her and Ashton asks him to wait having previously been involved in a whirlwind engagement that was broken off when she discovered that her fiancé wanted to box up her books and store them in the basement.
In Guernsey Ashton is treated like an old friend and soon helps to watch Kit. She is also there when the members of the Society receive a letter from Remy Giraud, a French woman who was in the Ravensbrück concentration camp with Elizabeth. She informs them that Elizabeth is dead, but several members go to see her and encourage her to visit Guernsey with them which she eventually agrees to.
Ashton decides to centre her book on Guernsey during the occupation on the experiences of Elizabeth as told by her friends. While she is writing she is visited by Mark. Realizing that she has feelings for Dawsey and has since they first met, Elizabeth definitively rejects Mark’s second proposal. As she continues to write, Ashton also realizes that her time spent with Kit means that she now thinks of Kit as a daughter and wants to adopt her. She also longs to be with Dawsey, but fears that he has fallen in love with Remy.
Remy eventually announces her plans to return to France and train as a baker in Paris. Isola Pribby, a member of the Society, believes that Dawsey is in love with Remy and, using Miss Marple as a model offers to clean Dawsey’s home to find proof he is in love with Remy to convince her to stay in Guernsey. Isola’s plan is a failure and she goes to Ashton to complain that she was unable to find anything that would signify his love of Remy, instead finding numerous pictures and tokens that belong to Juliet. Realizing that he is pining for her, Ashton runs to Dawsey and asks him to marry her.
She ends by asking her publisher and friend Sidney to return to Guernsey in time for her wedding in a week’s time.
Classification: 12A