This was an excellent, excellent book. I gave it a solid 5 stars. I am sure this will be my favorite book of the year. I underlined the quote about nothing being lonelier than spending your life with someone you couldn't talk to, much less NOT talk to & made a note in the margin. I own the book so I could. I laughed when Juliet wrote to Sidney about her boss, the book store owner, telling Juliet not to make any margin notes in the book store copies of the books. 
 I was very sad when I read that Mary Ann Shaffer died before her one & only book was published. She knew she couldn't make the revisions to the book & so called on her niece Annie Barrows to do them for her. I felt like the characters in the book were real characters. At first I started a 3x5 card writing down all the characters, but about 1/3 of the way through the book, I stopped, there were so many. I had the scathingly brilliant idea of writing them in the back of the book. 
 I was sad when the book ended. The characters seemed real to me & I want to go to Guernsey & meet them. Kit would be almost 70 now & the others might be gone. It was a long time ago.