Longtime followers of this blog know that I don’t select thrillers or horror novels or apocalyptic dystopian fiction for my reading or for my reviews. If an author slips a car crash or a ghost into a good family saga, I’m fine, but if I hit detailed descriptions of World War I trench warfare, I close the book.
In the novels that I call Gentle Reads, the emphasis is on the interactions of well-constructed characters, and the endings are mostly happy. The best of the Gentle Reads avoid sentimentality and have some racy elements.
Thanks to Dorothy Devin for recommending this Gentle Read:
Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting Clare Pooley (2022) On a commuter train in London, a well-dressed businessman chokes on a grape in his breakfast fruit salad. Although the British rarely speak with strangers on public transit, passengers do come to the man’s aid, and a nurse performs the Heimlich Maneuver, saving his life. From this interaction springs a friendship among Londoners from very different stages and walks of life. Iona Iverson, a flamboyant magazine advice columnist, is the catalyst and the central figure in the group, as they navigate major life changes with each other’s help. The story is sweet but not saccharine, offering the possibility of societal healing through friendship and mutual help. A quote from a chapter highlighting Iona: “They were joined together, like it or not, by a brush with death. So, what were the rules now? God, it was difficult being British sometimes.” (35) If you like this one, try Clare Pooley’s previously published Gentle Read, The Authenticity Project (2020), which has a similar message of the transformative power of friendship. And check out my review of a novel with a similar feel: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017).
On a far end of the Gentle Reads spectrum, at the gentlest end, is this recent pick:
The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee Alexander McCall Smith (2023) Clocking in at #17 in McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series is another of his wacky and delightful explorations of the lives of those who live (or used to live) on Scotland Street in Edinburgh. Among the many characters, my favorite is Bertie Pollock, who starts out as five years old and very, very slowly ages to seven years old over the course of the novels. The titular Galactica MacFee is an obnoxious little girl who joins Bertie’s school class and torments poor Bertie. If you haven’t read any of the previous 44 Scotland Street books, my lengthy post about #11 in the series, The Bertie Project, can help you with background. In this latest installment, McCall Smith’s authorial musings on society and politics do seem to have become more crochety, but his underlying message about the importance of kindness in the world shines through. For additional reviews of McCall Smith’s novels, click here and here and here.
On the other end of the Gentle Reads spectrum, with some intense scenes in its fast-moving concluding chapters, is this one:
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club Helen Simonson (2024) In 1919, the British are celebrating the end of World War I but also mourning the immense loss of life, both in combat and from the influenza pandemic. (Contemporary readers who are emerging from the COVID pandemic will be able to relate to the sense of having years stolen from one’s life because of a world-wide catastrophe.) In Simonson’s novel, Constance Haverhill is a young woman at loose ends. She’s spending the summer at a seaside hotel as the companion and assistant to an elderly woman, but she needs to find permanent employment, preferably in the field of accounting, in which she has experience from her job during the war. Also at the hotel is the Wirrall family: the matriarch, a former actress; the daughter, Poppy, who runs a motorcycle club for women; and the son, Harris, a former pilot who lost a leg in the war. Simonson’s drawing-room dialogues may sometimes seem old fashioned, but they build the characters. And hang on for that whiz-bang conclusion.
You may have noticed that all these titles are by British/Scottish authors. While American authors have cornered the market on Beach Reads (click here and here and here), the United Kingdom seems to generate quite a few Gentle Reads!