I showed up to book club as a full penguin. Everyone else wore black and white and called it a day.
That felt fitting for this one, because How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior is all about actually showing up for something.
Veronica McCreedy is 85, rich, and cranky enough to clear a room. She’s estranged from everyone, so when a penguin documentary catches her eye, she decides the Antarctic research team studying them should inherit her fortune. But first she has to see the penguins herself, which means flying to Antarctica against everyone’s advice and parking herself at a research station where three scientists absolutely do not want to babysit her. She also goes looking for living family and turns up Patrick, a directionless grandson she does not click with even a little.
Then she talks the team into rescuing an orphaned chick, and the whole thing cracks open. Veronica finally has something to love, and her friendship with Terry, one of the scientists, gives her somewhere to put all that armor down.
Here’s what got the whole book club: Veronica is not likable for a good chunk of this book. But once you learn where the hardness came from, losing her parents in the Blitz, losing a child, decades of nobody, you stop wanting to shake her and start rooting for her. That’s hard to pull off and Prior does it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me and a unanimous yes from the group. Bring tissues for the backstory.
If you enjoyed this review, you may be interested in another cantankerous old woman, Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth.
About the Author
Hazel Prior lives on Exmoor with her husband and a huge ginger cat. As well as writing, she works as a freelance harpist. Hazel is the author of Ellie and the Harp-Maker, the #1 ebook and audiobook bestseller Away with the Penguins and its follow-up, Call of the Penguins. Life and Otter Miracles is her fourth novel.
Follow Hazel on Instagram and visit her website for more news and information about her books.
