Tyler's Row

Book excerpt: Take a trip to America’s favorite English village: “If you’ve ever enjoyed a visit to Mitford, you’ll relish a visit to Fairacre.” —Jan Karon The two-hundred-year-old cottages known as Tyler’s Row have been home to Fairacre residents for generations. With leaded-glass windows and an arched thorn hedge over the gateway, they make an ideal subject for a “Beautiful Britain” calendar. But the charming exterior of Tyler’s Row conceals more than its share of quirks, as well as some rather particular characters. The new owners, Peter and Diana Hale, plan to create their own rural refuge by converting the middle two cottages into one. But beset by carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and bills, as well as their neighboring tenants—the redoubtable Sergeant Burnaby and the sour Mrs. Fowler—the couple soon has cause to ponder their decision. Fairacre isn’t the utopia they expected, and the Hales must adapt to life in a village that’s not always picture perfect. Featuring a “rare combination of humor, delicacy, irony, and precision,” the novels of Miss Read capture the challenges and joys of small-town community life (TheNew York Times Book Review). “The more turbulent the real world, the more charming we may find the stability of Miss Read’s tiny fictional world.” —Los Angeles Times “Miss Read has three great gifts—an unerring intuition about human frailty, a healthy irony, and, surprisingly, an almost beery sense of humor.” —The New Yorker