Happy Returns — Angela Thirkell

“Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness,[and] dislike of fuss. . . . Light, witty, easygoing books.” -- The New Yorker

As 1951 draws to a close, Christmas approaches -- but the conservative upper class of Barsetshire have already received the gift they really wanted: Winston Churchill's re-election as prime minister. Nevertheless, their individual struggles carry on. A member of the House of Lords worries that marriage is not in the cards for him due to an insufficient fortune, while another man does manage to get engaged -- but frets that his betrothed doesn't truly love him. The widow Lady Lufton misses her husband -- as well as the money she's lost to taxes. And an aspiring scholar falls madly in love, but must choose between Oxford and the object of his affections . . .

“[This] characteristically witty, nostalgic . . . novel in the beloved Barsetshire series describes the lingering effects of WWII on the fictional village that Thirkell adapted from its Victorian inventor and chronicler, Anthony Trollope.” -- Publishers Weekly