“Close Knit,” by Jenny Colgan
(2024, 318 pages, Genre: Fiction)
Gertie Moonie is a shy young woman who lives on a tiny, remote island, one in a string of islands in the North Sea of Scotland. Gertie is surrounded by women. She lives in a small cottage with her mother Jean, her grandmother Elspeth. The cottage is stuffed full with many packages of wool. The women are all knitters, and their Knitting Circle meets regularly at the cottage. They like to gossip and give Gertie advice about her love life (which doesn’t exist yet). She is a cashier at the small grocery store, the main hub of town life. Her life, but the pandemic happened, she has weird cut the store, and her life went into a routine. And it is very hard to find a place of her own in the little village.
She is persuaded to lease an apartment with Morag, a “cool girl” that Gertie remembers from school. Morag is a fearless young woman who flies planes for the small local airline. Stuart owns the apartment, and Gertie had a huge crush on him when she was in M. Now Stuart is a musician and a teacher at the village school. Gertie is also persuaded to take up chicken in people airline, even though Gertie is afraid to fly. Her life abroad has focus on rich young people who made fortune over the airtight. But she thinks that she is just dreaming again. Why would learn in her thinks.
Stuart, another teacher Mrs. McGinley, and a group twelve ten-year old students go on an adventures trip to the Mermaid’s Spyglass island by plane. It’s spring and the weather is just supposed to be rainy. But a freak storm comes up and traps the party. And the Knitting Circle, Jean and Gertie all respond to the emergency, gathering food and hats and knitted gloves and hats once again.
It means Gertie travels to the island to bring food and to shelter from the wind and rain. The situation worsens, and she finds the strength that she never knew she possessed. It’s obvious that Gertie loves the island and its people, and you will be rooting for them to all find a way home safely. Reading Jenny Colgan’s stories is like chatting with an old friend. Her characters are charming, quirky and funny. I’m not a knitter, but I loved this book. I got wound up in it. (Sorry!). And if you like this book, Jenny has written more. There’s a series about a bookshop, one about an island, and one about a school by the sea.
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— Robbin Bailey
