I CONQUER BRITAIN

In this companion novel to Sophie Pitt-Turnbull Discovers America (2005), Cherokee Salamanca travels to England from her home in Brooklyn. With visions of Dickens, mini-skirts and the Beatles floating in her head, she is surprised to find that Putney is a lot more like New Jersey than the London she’d been expecting. Her hosts are well-mannered, neat and quiet, but all of that politeness is keeping them from actually talking to each other—something that Cherokee has no problem doing. Cherokee finds that under the surface the Pitt-Turnbull’s are just as eccentric as her own family back home; they just hide it better. She decides that she is going to bring the family back together and get them talking. That’s a tall order for such a short visit, but Cherokee is used to a challenge. Light and funny, Sheldon’s characters are smart, offbeat and completely real. (Fiction. 12-14)