How can I end the year without going back to one of my favourite series? While this isn’t a Christmas-themed book, the Fairacre series always warms my heart and it feels perfect for the holidays (and for stressful times, and for light reading times, etc).

Village Affairs gives us another year of happenings in Fairacre. Unfortunately for Miss Read, the book is tied together with the threat of the school closing due to falling student numbers. On the village side, Arthur Coggs has been arrested for theft, which you would think is a good thing, but Mrs Coggs seems rather down about it. On the bright side, Vanessa, Amy’s niece, is pregnant!

The book sounds very depressing if we list it by the main events, but it actually made me chuckle quite a few times! Miss Read has a wonderfully dry sense of humour, so even when she is dealing with personal issues (like accidentally hiring Minnie Pringle to clean her house), she makes them sound amusing.

I also have this theory that allowing the serious issues to creep in (such as the closure of rural schools) makes the Fairacre series more heartwarming because it feels more realistic. If we were to have a post-WWII novel in a countryside that is all sunshine and roses, it would quickly feel very saccharine and artificial. But by having the villagers of Fairacre deal with pressing issues (and valiantly fighting for Miss Read to stay), we can see them pulling together, an act that warms the cockles of the reader’s heart.

While you could enter the Fairacre series from any of the books, including this one, I’d recommend starting with one of the first few, since that introduces and sets the stage for many of the minor characters here. As always, I recommend this for anyone looking for a light and comforting read.