After making a career of working with books…as an editor, librarian, and bookseller…Mary Ann Shaffer responded to her book club’s prompting to write a novel of her own.

While stranded in 1976 due to inclement weather on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, Mary Ann read all the books she could find in the Guernsey airport. "Jersey Under the Jack-Boot" really held her interest as it talked about the little known German occupation of the island during WWII. This is the subject Mary Ann revisited in her delightful novel "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society".

Written in epistolary form (all letters and notes), set in 1946, the book begins with author Juliet Ashton writing to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. Through a turn of events, including some residents of Guernsey Island finding a used book with Juliet’s name in it, correspondence begins between Juliet and the Guernsey inhabitants. Juliet is once again back in the path of war stories. However, this is not just about war stories, but glimpses into the lives of the people that survived…and a few that didn’t… the German occupation of Guernsey. Members of a book club called the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society write Juliet with stories of how their group began. They were caught out after curfew by the German guard and made up the guise of being at their Guernsey Literary Reading Group. Since this excuse helped to give them an out, they decided to actually meet on a regular basis to read and discuss books. This seemed to sustain them through the hardships of war. (Funny how books have a way of pulling us through hard times.) The "Potato Peel Pie" part of the group came about when it was decided that they had to have food at their meetings. With rationing such as it was on the island during the occupation, the group became very creative with recipes and the "potato peel pie" was born.

As correspondence between Juliet and Guernsey continues, a heroine emerges in the personality of Elizabeth, the courageous founder of the society. Elizabeth is absent from Guernsey but each person who writes to Juliet adds another chapter to the story of Elizabeth’s remarkable wartime experiences. Juliet finds that nothing will do but to travel to Guernsey herself, to meet the people she has come to know through letters. This decision meets with surprising consequences as a delightful story of romance, friendship and endurance unfolds through the created voices in the epistles of "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society".

Soon after the book had been sold to Dial Press for publication, Mary Ann Shaffer became ill. When it became apparent that she was too sick to make the editorial changes needed to complete the novel, her niece Annie Barrows was called in to help co-author the book. Mary Ann passed away in February 2008, just months short of seeing the completion of the publication "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society".

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