Gil McNeil's knitting series is a pleasant way to spend a lazy spring weekend. If you have read her earlier books, you know that Jo McKenzie is a widow (her husband crashed his car into a tree just after announcing that he was leaving her for his mistress) and the mother of 2 rambunctious boys plus Pearl, a toddler. Jo owns a seaside knitting shop in England and, with the help of her Gran and the lovable Martin, her carpenter, sometimes boyfriend, and son of Elsie, her shop assistant, she is making a go of her business and raising her fatherless boys. Thanks to movie-star knitting student Grace she has enough income to keep the shop and her classes going, and thanks to good friends Connie and Mark she also has opened a cafe next to the shop. When Pearl's father, Daniel, reappears in their lives, he seems, surprisingly, to fit comfortably into the mix.
The Beach Street Knitting Society series (I still can't figure out why it is called that!) doesn't offer car chases, crimes to solve, or impossibly passionate romance. In fact, McNeil reminds me a bit of Marcia Willett and Rosamund Pilcher, who write about the business of coping with everyday life, family, and friends. It's not that there is no excitement here, but it's the same sort that you or I might experience - familiar and personal, but with a lot of yarn thrown in! It was a pleasure.
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