Written in 1995 this is a feel good story similar to those that Maeve Binchy and Rosamund Pilcher wrote. Like Binchy, Willett creates a group of interconnected people and follows them through the ups and downs in their lives. She begins building the group when Gussie, an older single woman and Nell, a young married woman meet in a tea shop. At first they don't seem to be particularly compatible but beginning with the loan of a hat for a wedding they become stalwart friends, bringing the foibles of friends and family with them.

This is the first book I've read by Willett and one of her earliiest. I have a trilogy she wrote on the TBR as well. It will be awhile before I'm ready for another neat and tied with a bow ending but one of these days when in need a comfort read it I'll give it a try. ( )

Another wonderful story by Marcia Willett, an older book, but I will get to all that she has written. They are refreshing stories set in small villages or towns around England and never the same plot twice, always some mystery put in for good measure and never sappy or too sweet. ( )

I must have been tired when I picked up the next Marcia Willett from the shelves, because I had quite forgotten that I re-read this one only fourteen months ago. I didn't actually realise that until about half-way through, although I was a bit surprised at how much I remembered of the book, thinking I had read it at least eight years ago.

It's a pleasant light read about a group of people who learn to cope together, with financial difficulties. Nice charactersation; particularly the quiet, reserved Nell and the similarly reserved elderly Gussie, who strike up an unexpected friendship at the start of the book.

There are some shocks in this novel, which I had quite forgotten in the eight years since I first read it, but remembered in the fourteen months since I last read it. However I didn't remember how it ended, or how all the problems were resolved, and I enjoyed it afresh. ( )