The Inn At Lake Devine - Elinor Lipman

Another of those books that I just picked up somewhere... second hand emporium perhaps?  I love it when my small purchase turns into something I really enjoy - and that happened with this book. 

A subject matter that is rather deeper than the first few pages suggests, although I was left in no doubt that anti-semitism was the subject when Natalie's mother receives a letter following an attempt to book a holiday at a lakeside in which contains the following sentence:

"... Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles.
                          Yours sincerely....."

But this book is not a rant, it is a clever and charmingly constructed book about how a child manages to get a holiday at this very hotel by latching on to a girl at school, and how that girl, when they are both grown up, will be the catalyst for unimagined changes in Natalie's life.  There are shocks, there are tears and there is laughter.  The discription of her stay, as an adult in a very Jewish hotel was a gem for many reasons, not least because of the descriptions of mealtimes.  I laughed out loud several times!  

I'm so glad I discovered this author.  Must find some more of hers to read now.