And many of these issues show up in parallel fashion in both the native English and immigrant Pakistani communities.

Major Pettigrew is a 67 year old English widower who is trying to navigate the growing changes in the world, the dearth of discipline, the turning tide of etiquette, the lack of loyalties. Ali has Pakistani relatives, that the guns were given to the Major’s father by a grateful maharajah, that the locals tend to conflate all non-English countries that were ever part of the British Empire, and you glimpse the party’s potential to create misunderstanding.

The plot follows an elderly English widower, retired from a military career, who is very concerned about doing things in the proper way. He shifts seamlessly between the gravelly voice of Pettigrew, the sotto voce of Mrs Ali and the easily distinguishable ensemble cast of family and villagers ( listen to an audio sample). These delightful novels were set, like Helen Simonson’s “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” in a village in Sussex.

In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that the main character of the novel is a man about the same age as me which is very unusual for a romance novel. Peter Altschuler does a marvelous job of supplying different voices and accents (American and British), and switches between them seamlessly. Her kindness is in sharp contrast to the attitude of his son, Roger, who seems unable to think of anyone but himself and nearly misses the funeral.There is something enduring and truly hopeful about people finding love in their later years and fighting for what is ‘right and honourable’.

Such diversions are generally welcome and it was with great expectations that I opened the first novel by a transplanted Brit Helen Simonson, who sought to occupy her time as "a stay-at-home mother in Brooklyn [and her former:] busy advertising job" in creative writing programs. Plans are, or at least were, afoot for a television production of the novel, but at present, it listed in IMDB.One of my Bookclub friends recently said so many of the books I read are depressing, well, here is an uplifting finely written story with humor and characters you can really root for. As Simonson takes us through the will-they-or-won’t-they she also offers a look at contemporary rural England, with old values and new engaging in public and private. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. This book and the characters in it affected me deeply and they were a reminder for me of the joys of reading.