"The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper" by Phaedra Patrick

   Arthur Pepper is a 69 -year-old widower.  On the first anniversary of his wife, Miriam's death, he is cleaning out her clothes and finds a charm bracelet with several charms on it- an elephant and a book each have an engraving.  There is also a tiger, heart, ring, paint palette, thimble, and a flower.  Arthur has never seen this bracelet throughout his long marriage.  He realizes that there were things about his wife that he did not know about and he becomes "curious". 
   I very quickly connected this book to another book about a widower- "A man Named Ove" by Fredrick Backman.  I wrote about that book here.  I really didn't enjoy that book.
   This book was a better read for me, although not great.
  As Arthur searches for clues about the charms, and thus about Miriam's life, he meets some very unusual people.  In that respect, it reminded me of "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry", who also met interesting people on his journey.
   For those who enjoyed those two books, this would be a fun read.
  A first book for this author, it is not well-written, but has some interesting aspects.  It is a quick, okay read that must be loved by many people because it is being made into a movie.
  Aren't the covers interesting?  The author lives in England and is writing a sequel.  This book is also being translated into many languages.  Perhaps a simple, wacky book like this is what most people like to read.