My mother always insisted that every day was Mother's Day and Father's Day, and she didn't much like the Hallmark-edness of those annual holidays. If you believe as my mother did, then rush right out and buy a copy of MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson to give to your mother!! I read the galley of this delightful novel, and now it's just been published.

This thoroughly charming novel wraps Old World sensibility around a story of multicultural conflict involving two widowed people who assume they're done with love. The result is a smart, romantic comedy about decency and good manners in a world threatened by men's hair gel, herbal tea, and latent racism.

When depicted by the right storyteller, the thrill of falling in love is funnier and sweeter at sixty than at sixteen. The stakes are higher, after all, and the lovers have stored up decades of idiosyncrasies. With her crisp wit and gentle insights, Simonson is still far from her golden years (she's only 46), but somehow in this debut novel she already knows just what delicious disruption romance can introduce to a well-settled life.