The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What kind of a book title is this? And how can I quite describe this book whose main character is a writer, where the story is told by way of a series of juicy and intimate letters to and from the main character and her friends, and that is part history lesson and part an unlikely series of events?

I can say it is brilliantly fresh in style, at times so humorous you can't help but laugh out loud, poignant, life affirming and so filled with humanity you don't want the story to end.

The lead character, Juliet Ashton, is a young and single published writer who rose to fame writing a series of war-time columns which eventually became a book entitiled Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War. The columns and the book were so adored by all of England that her publisher, one Sidney Stark, is now encouraging her to write another book.

Through a strange confluence of conditions, Juliet finds her story in Guernsey, the one tiny part of Britain that was occupied by the Nazis in World War 2. The people we come to know in Guernsey are "characters" to say the least including the town puritan and another who adds quite a romantic twist to the story.

I think the joy of this book is best summed by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love who said of this story, "I can't remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one, a world so vivid that I kept forgetting this was a work of fiction, populated with characters so utterly wonderful that I kept forgetting there weren't my actual friends and neighbors. Treat yourself to this book, please - I can't recommend it highly enough"

And I do so agree. You will savour this and pass it on to every friend you have.