Thursday, September 15, 2016

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper; Phaedra Patrick

 
Mira - 2016

In this delightful debut novel we meet Arthur Pepper, age 69. A widower for one year, Arthur and Miriam had been married for 40 years. Arthur's children think that it is time for him to get on with the rest of his life.  So on the one year anniversary of his wife's death his decides to clear away her things and , in the process he finds a "charm" bracelet that he has never seen before. He's curious to find out where it came from and why he never saw Miriam wear it.

When Arthur notices that the Indian elephant charm with gemstone has a telephone number engraved, Arthur decides to find out more about the person who may have given Miriam the charm.  This charm leads him to someone in India, a place he never knew his former wife had lived. What else didn't Arthur know about Miriam?

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is a journey of discovery and, although the individual stories behind each charm were fun to read about, the real "charm" of this novel was Arthur's self-realization as he thinks about his own legacy.  I really enjoyed this sweet story with its many funny and endearing moments. In many ways remind me of the writing style of Fredrik Backman.

4/5 stars
(eGalley)

14 comments:

  1. This is on my audible wish list. Glad to see you enjoyed it!

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  2. sounds utterly delightful. thanks!

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  3. I liked this as well and agree it's reminiscent of Backman.

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  4. This does sound charming. I picked this one up at BEA. Hopefully I'll get around to reading it soon.

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  5. That sounds pretty darn interesting and charming!

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  6. Happy Saturday (Caturday?),Diane!
    The cover is upbeat and enticing, and the contents sounds quite charming. :)

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  7. I've been eyeing this one and am happy to hear it's a winner. It sounded a bit like A Man Called Ove, which I loved, so I'm eager to pick this one up. After reading so many WWII novels, I'm ready for a charming read.

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    1. The market is saturated with WWII stories, these days I tend to avoid them like the plague regardless of who the author is.

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