I thought this book was delightful. The characters were endearing, annoying, confusing, despicable...the descriptions were excellent. I read some reviews on Goodreads about this - and the negative reviews focused on the fact that Major Pettigrew was shallow while trying to be "proper." I think that was the point. He spent so much time being the proper English gentlemen, he did not see how much of a stereotype - and not a positive one - he had become. I imagined him much different before the death of his wife. Another negative viewpoint concerned the Major's (don't call him Mr.) obsession with the two Churchills (rifles). I suppose I'm not that hard to please, but I thought that they actually played an integral part of the book - on many different levels.

Maybe this is not at all what life in an English village is really like --- but it was fun to imagine that it was at one time.

I would recommend this easy, light read - with a dose of forcing the reader to examine how he/she reacts to others' prejudices...while sometimes being blind to one's own.