Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, and Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan

Helen Simonson’s enchanting debut novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, invites us into a quaint English seaside village, where we meet the retired military man of the title, a widower whose brother has just died unexpectedly. In his grief, Major Pettigrew comes to look at his life in a new way.

Now 68 years old, the major realizes how lonely he has been since his wife’s death years before. When he turns to his grown son, Roger, he finds a self-centered materialistic young man whose only interest is his own social advancement. As he considers the quaint customs of his friends in the village, the major longs for something more than superficial chit chat at the golf club.

Suddenly, with eyes made sharp with grief and the knowledge that life is short, he sees anew a woman he has known for years—the shopkeeper Jasmina Ali, a Muslim widow from a Pakistani family who runs a convenience store at the center of the village. And he develops a mighty crush. So begins a touching and hilarious, wonderful and unlikely cross-cultural love story in an unlikely setting at an unlikely time of life.