More Comfort Reads for Uncomfortable Times

                                               

I loved Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand so much that I reread it a week after finishing it.

And then I treated myself to two more of hers. The Summer Before the War (that's WWI) is set in a small English town and centers on a recently orphaned young woman who has been hired to teach Latin (over the objections of many who feel only a man should hold the post.) 

It's very much a novel of manners--Jane Austen would have recognized the petty snobberies and infighting of the townspeople. And she would have nodded appreciatively at the eventually happy ending. 

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is set in 1919. WWI has ended; men are home from the front; and the women who have been praised for filling their places are being told they're no longer employable. 

Once again, Simonson reveals the strife, the class perceptions, and the basic unfairness at work. But once again, (this is a comfort read, after all) most things work out for the best. 

I've always been partial to English fiction, and especially that of the first half of the last century. These two did not disappoint.